What I {Want to} Wear Friday

Remember how my insurance company is paying me to lose the baby weight?  Well, I visited my doctor this week and I should be getting my check next week.  Awe.  Some.

So I was strolling through Target the other day {thank you, iPhone, for entertaining the preschooler} and saw a few things that caught my eye.

Ultrasoft Boyfriend Cardigan in Oatmeal Heather

Long Trench Coat in Black/Grey Plaid

Denim Skinny

Ramone Tunic Top

Suffice it to say that I'm stalking the mailman until I have this cash in my hands!

A Big Loser

Yep, this is my official post-baby weight loss post.  I tried for at least 20 minutes to find a photo of myself to use as my 'goal', but apparently I do not take photos of myself.  It's just as well.  Here's the best I found:

Little Baby Sunbean and I getting a pedicure.

This time around, I have an incentive program, a la 'The Biggest Loser'.  Well, unless you're from this silly town...they have a contest called 'The Smallest Winner'.  It just doesn't have the same ring to it.  But then again, naming things isn't our forte.  After all, our minor-league baseball team is the TinCaps, and we tried to name a building the Harry Baals Building.  Honestly.

Anyway, MacGyver found out that our insurance company offers a pretty suh-weet incentive program to lose weight.  Since I gain an exorbitant amount of weight while pregnant, I actually meet the requirements of the program.

Here's the skinny (pun intended).  If I lose 10% of my body weight, I will get $500.  Yep, $500.  Then, if I keep it off for a year, I'll get an additional $1,000.  That's $1,500 for being healthy.  Um, yes please.

So at my 6-week checkup, I had my doc fax in the form, and I got enrolled.  She actually wants to see me again next month, so my goal is to have lost the 10% by then.  The insurance company doesn't impose any time limits on losing the 10%, but I'm going back to the doctor anyway, so it would just be easier if I could have her fill out the paper while I'm already there.

So how awesome is this?  Not only am I going to be getting back to my old self, but I'm getting paid to do it!  Hello, new wardrobe!

Brain Dump

• I'm tired.  On Tuesdays, I go to Zumba at 8, then walk with my gal pal.  By the end of the 2 hours, I've burned around 1200 calories.  Love Zumba.  Then, as if that's not enough, Sunbean has swim lessons.  And by that I mean, we both get our swimsuits on and get in the pool.  I love our teacher, but I'm pooped by the time we get home.  And that's just half the day.
• I'm nesting.  Majorly.  Sunbean and Little Dude's room is coming together, and I can't stop buying baby boy clothes on eBay.
• I got Photoshop!  CS4, to be specific.  The above photo was edited with the Pioneer Woman's free actions.  They are a great place to start.  Love it.  I'm never going to get anything else done around here.
• I cleaned off the Sunbean's seat at the table today.  Before I had kids, I swore my house would never have a piece of food crusted anywhere.  Ha.
• Exactly 5 weeks from today, I'll be in a plane heading to Florida.  Seriously.  Can't.  Wait.
• Today, Sunbean said, "I'm different.  And I like to be different.  I'm a different and fun girl."  Love that girly.
• I officially weigh the same that I did on our wedding day.  This time, I'm 22 weeks pregnant.  Gotta love that.  I found a pair of jeans that I bought that first year, and they buttoned.  Over the baby.  Love, love, love it.
• Now I'm off to crash on the couch.  Possibly with chocolate.

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.