Holy Wake-Up Call, Batman

 A few weeks ago, my darling daughter strutted into my office looking something like this:

 

Just as I was contemplating how adorable she looked, she looked right into my eyes and said, "Do I look skinny?"

Whoa.

That's right.  My freaking 2-year-old wants to know if she looks skinny.  Sadly, I know where she picked that up.

Let me give you some background here.  Like just about every other American girl, I thought I was fat in high school.  Well, not fat.  Just 'chubby'.  Like just about every other American girl, I was not.  Not fat.  Not chubby.  Normal.  Of course, I had beanpoles for friends, so I was comparing myself to them.  Really not fair, but that's what I spent all of high school doing.

I went off to college and decided I was never going to do that again.  I was moving to a new town with new people, and I was going to give myself a new start.  I was going to know that I was skinny.  I had a healthy weight, so I figured I might as well embrace it before my years of matronly child-bearing arrived.

Problem was, I gained not the Freshmen 15, but the Freshman 50.  Turns out, ordering a DIET Coke with that pizza at midnight doesn't 'cancel it out.'.  I was cursed with my grandmother's fat-burning genes.  As in, none at all.

By the end of my freshman year, I was chubby.  Heck, I was fat.  Here's the problem, though.  I had decided that I wasn't ever going to feel that way again.  Oops.  So now I was overweight, but I couldn't see it.  I spent my sophomore and junior years at OU happily eating like crap and gaining weight without noticing.  I know it sounds stupid, but it's the truth.

Then, for some strange reason, I looked in the mirror one day and nearly had a heart attack.  I was married by then, so I asked MacGyver when I got so fat.  Like a good little husband, he muttered something rather non-committal.

I decided right then that I was gonna lose that weight and keep it off.  And I did!  By graduation, I was pretty dang close to what i weighed when I graduated high school.  Fast-forward a few years, and we had a rough year of non-viable pregnancies.  Spending 9 months of one year in the first trimester of a pregnancy does a number to your waistline, let me tell ya.

When the Sunbean was 6 months old, I happened to have another unfortunate look in the mirror.  Yikes!  Didn't like what I saw.  I dropped 100 pounds in the first year of her life, and am still at a healthy, happy weight.

I plan to stay here, too.  There is just one problem.  When I look in the mirror, I do not see a 120-pound momma.  I'm not saying I have some severe eating disorder or anything.  No need to send the psychiatrist over.  I just spent so many years thinking that I looked good, that now I approach myself with extreme caution.  I'm just a little insecure.

Aaaaaand now we're back to the point of this post.  Every.  single.  day.  I ask MacGyver if I 'look skinny' in my outfit.  He, of course, responds with the proper enthusiasm.  I just never thought about the impact it was having on my daughter.

In that moment, when I saw my baby girl asking me if she 'looked skinny', I saw her adolescent years before me.  I realized that I can give her a gift:  the gift of a healthy lifestyle with healthy habits and a healthy body image.  I can show her that by eating good foods, staying active, and having self-confidence, that yes, she does indeed look skinny.  No, she looks great.  She looks healthy.  She looks perfect.

I made a pact with myself that day.  I will never, ever, ever ask again if I look skinny.  I may ask poor MacGyver if my outfit looks okay, or if it matches (he's good with fashion....I'm lucky), but I'm just throwing the insecurities out the freakin' window.

It's a gift I'm giving my children, and, finally, myself.