It's the Most Wonderful Time of the Year

I absolutely love this time of year.  I love Christmas songs, houses with lights, baking goodies, and spending time with the people I love.  Christmas always touches my heart and makes me feel all warm and fuzzy inside. 
I think of my Mom all the time, but at Christmas she is always front and center.  She loved holidays, all holidays.  It made her happy to decorate and entertain, she loved having lots of people over and making way too much food.  She had a way of making Christmas magical and it saddens me that I don't have her touch.  I can't wrap like she wrapped, I can't cook like she cooked, and I definitely can't pick out the perfect gifts like she always could. 
She used to tell me that as great as I thought Christmas was then, as a youngster, it would be even better when I had my own children.  She tried to explain how it feels to watch your babies take in every light, and happily gobble up every treat.  She tried to put into words how much more I would get by giving my kids the perfect gift, than by getting the perfect gift myself.  To be completely honest, I thought she was exaggerating.  I knew love, I thought.  I knew how wonderful it felt to give someone I love a gift.  I was wrong.  I had no idea how great Christmas could be until I had my boys. 
Now that I have my kids, I understand what she meant.  My kids have brought new meaning to the word joy.  It's a weird feeling loving Christmas, and everything that comes with it, and also missing her so much. 
This Tuesday will mark the 9 year anniversary of her death.  That means she was not here on earth for my wedding, or even to meet my husband.  She was not here for the births of my sons, and she will never be here to share a single holiday with us.  I worry that I can't capture who she was for my kids.  I worry that they might not know how much she loved me and how much she would have adored them.  I can't do Christmas like my Mom did, I just don't have it.  I hope that somehow my boys can have some of the Christmas experience that she always made for me.  I am trying.  If I can recreate just a fraction of what she did, I just might make some magic for my babies.  <3

Feeling Blue

I’m gonna be very honest, I’m not in a good place writing this blog.  I feel like a bad mom, a bad wife, and a bad friend.  It’s hard to get up and participate in society when you feel like shit and worse, when you feel unworthy of being a part of the world.  I’m not trying to be dramatic or worry anyone, but I feel like this is something I need to talk about. 
I never really understood depression.  I guess it’s something that’s hard to imagine unless you’ve been through it.  I would hear people talk about their battles and feel sympathetic, but I couldn’t really put myself in their place.  I remember wondering what it must feel like to be “sad” all the time.  I put sad in quotation marks because it’s such a simplified way of describing depression.  I’m not going to pretend to know everything (or really anything) about depression, but I know how I feel and I know I’m not alone and I know it will get better, but getting through is much harder than I could have ever imagined.
It started for me a couple of months after my second son was born.  It hit me like a ton of bricks.  I was angry at everyone, at myself, I would cry buckets for seemingly no reason, I felt like I was a burden on the people I love; I felt so unlike myself.  I was scared.  I remember talking to my husband about it and we kind of came to the consensus that it was the hormones from having the baby and the stresses that come from growing a family.  It was also right around the time that I went back to work, and that transition was admittedly very difficult for me.  I went from being with Jason & Jon all day every day to basically just having dinner and bedtime with them.  And the alone time with my husband went from sparse to nonexistent.  I mean, we were lucky to have the 45 minutes in the car together to and from work, all while battling traffic and with very rambunctious boys in the back seat.
I went on for a couple of weeks trying to snap myself out of my bad mood.  I was short, snappy, and just very unpleasant to be around.  I didn’t recognize myself and I think that was the scariest thing of all.  Who was this weepy, mean, ugly person?
At the urging of a dear friend, I called my ob-gyn.   She was very nice on the phone, told me it was perfectly normal, and asked me if I would like a prescription for Zoloft.  I said yes and within an hour, the pharmacy was calling me to pick it up.  I’m not sure why, but the idea of taking medication to make me feel normal was really hard for me to grasp.  I think I convinced myself at that point that I was feeling better and didn’t need it.  I never picked up the prescription.
Of course, that wasn’t the end of the depression.  I continued to battle the unhappy person I was with the happy-go-lucky person I wanted to be, and the unhappy person always won.  The depression was taking its toll on my life.  My marriage was suffering, my boss had noticed a change and wanted to help, and I was afraid of the thoughts that were consuming my mind.  It is a strange feeling to not recognize the voice in your own head.  The voice that used to tell me that I was beautiful and a good person was now telling me that I was a bad Mom who was not good enough for my boys.  It was telling me that my husband was too good for me and that I should set him free to find someone better.  It was telling me that I should go away and never come back. 
At this point, I was scared enough to try anything.  For the third time in my life, I found a therapist to talk to.  She was able to see me right away and I found that talking to her helped me to sort out the thoughts in my head.  I saw her every week and after every session I felt more and more like myself.  She helped me identify the things I like about myself and the things I want to work on, not because I need to be better, but because I would like to be the best version of myself.  She stressed the importance of finding “me” time and finding time to be alone with my husband.  She is a huge believer in date nights and weekend getaways.  She helped me remember who I am and how to get back to that person. 
I’m not there yet.  This is most definitely a work in progress.  I continue to see my therapist, although it is no longer weekly.  I still have moments (like now) where I throw myself a pity party and wonder what I’m doing with my life, but overall I feel like Susie again.  Today was a hard day.  I can’t put my finger on why, but maybe I don’t need to identify the why as much as I need to recognize myself falling into that mindset so I can do things to bring myself back to happy.  My boys deserve a happy Mom.  My husband deserves a happy wife.  And I deserve to feel valid in this world. 
I struggled with writing this blog for a while.  I’ve talked about my depression with a couple of people, mostly other Moms who I felt would get me, and you know what?  They all got me.  They all understood exactly where I was coming from and shared with me that they had their own battles.  So I’m writing this for me (it is amazing what writing does to my peace of mind) and I’m writing this for them (I love you girls!) and I’m writing this for anyone who is feeling like this who needs to know he/she is not alone.  I only hope they have a support team as wonderful as mine.  <3

Breaking Up Is Hard To Do

Today a good friend of mine went through her very first break-up.  Unfortunately, it wasn't her decision to end things and she's taking it a little hard.  She'll be fine, she's so strong and has gotten through much worse, but I know it hurts a lot.  It made me think back to my first breakup and all the subsequent breakups I've had since then.  I wanted to be able to give her good advice, tell her things my Mom told me and pour everything I've learned into her.  I thought long and hard and ultimately said this to her, via her Facebook wall:

 

I'm so sorry you're hurting, sweet girl. I wish there was a way to make it go away, but the reality is that sometimes life sucks.
Now that you're dating, you'll be on the giving and receiving end of break-ups, and because you are such a nice and compassionate person, they will be equally hard. My advice is to approach both with an open mind and a gentle tongue.
I know it hurts to get broken up with, but it's better than being with someone who doesn't get what a spectacular person you are. Seriously, he did you a favor.
So, use this weekend to reflect, make a mental note of what you will do differently when YOU need to break up with someone, have a delicious ice cream sundae, and then move forward with your life and on to the next adventure.

I love you!

It sounds so simple, and that's deceiving because it's not simple at all.  It's hard to go through it and process it at any age, let alone as a teenager, but it's something that unfortunately cannot be avoided. 
I've learned that one of the most important things to know how to do is communicate effectively with people.  I need to be able to say things to people in a way that they understand the message I'm conveying.  One of the most difficult and admittedly awkward things to do is to breakup with someone, and I don't just mean a mate.  Learning to "breakup" with  a friend who is no longer a good fit is also very important and it's often very similar to ending a relationship. 
I'm not sharing this because I am an expert in anything, let alone relationships.  I just know what mistakes I've made that I wish I had thought through differently, and I wanted to share with anyone who might be struggling with something similar. 

<3

Makin' babies!

I knew as a very young girl that I wanted to be a mother.  I used to wonder what my husband would look like and dream about how many children we would have.  When I started dating, I would always try to imagine what a life with those people would be like.  Even as a 16 year old girl, I would try to peek into the future.  I could usually tell early which boys would be for fun and which could be husband material.  I wonder if they ever thought that of me? 
Anyway, when I met Joe, I knew almost immediately that he was special.  He said funny things and listened intently when I spoke.  He would remember the smallest of details from stories I told, filing them in his mind to release back to me to let me know he was paying attention.  Our courtship was short, we moved in together just 7 months after we met and ultimately married 2 months after that.  I remember people were so surprised to find out we had married.  The first question out of more than one mouth was, "Are you pregnant?".  Is that really the number one reason people get married?  The truth is I was not pregnant, but I was excited by the mere thought of it.  We immediately stopped using birth control and decided that although we weren't TRYING to get pregnant, we also weren't going to try to stop it.
We had a good marriage.  We played a lot of poker, saw a lot of movies, played a lot of video games, went to Vegas almost monthly, made love often, and spoke about the children we would one day have.  In reality, the pregnancy could (and should) have come at any time, but it didn't.  It was around our 2 year anniversary that I began tracking my period and ovulation so we could help nature along.  I thought for sure once I knew when I was ovulating, we could hop in the sack and the magic would happen.  It didn't.  Month after month I would get my hopes up only to have them crushed.  I remember taking a pregnancy test one month before my period was even due hoping that I would somehow make those pink lines manifest.  They didn't.  The few friends I told urged me to see a doctor, but I was embarrassed.  Other fat Moms I had talked to told me they were told they couldn't get pregnant because of their weight, I was not in the mood to hear that kind of bullshit.
It was in early October of 2010 that I talked to a good friend of mine at work and told her of my trouble.  She told me about a little cramp that she feels at ovulation, it is a sign from her body that she is ovulating.  I immediately knew what she was talking about and had often wondered what that was.  Not willing to let any advice slide, I waited for that cramp and sprung into action.  It was October 10th.  I remember I was watching TV and Joe was already in bed, tired from a long day.  I felt the cramp and rushed in to wake him.  We made a perfect little Jason that night.  We found out I was definitely pregnant on October 30th.  I remember we were supposed to go to a haunted house that night and had to cancel because I was afraid of scaring the baby out.  I could have filled a book with what I didn't know about pregnancy at that time. 
I will wrap this up by saying that when it was time to make Jonathan, I waited for the cramp and we made him on our first try, that was August 21, 2012. 
Sometimes I wonder how life would have been different had I known about the little cramp trick sooner, but I honestly believe everything is working out exactly as it is supposed to. 

It's all in the jeans

I recently decided to buy myself some new clothes in a bigger size.  What I had been doing is torturing myself with my old pre-baby clothes by having them hanging in my closet where I was forced to see them everyday knowing they don't fit.  I thought that having these where I could see them would motivate me into fitting into them quicker.  SPOILER ALERT-it didn't.  All it did was make me feel bad about not doing better.  It made me think badly of myself because I couldn't fit into my fat clothes, I now needed bigger fat clothes.
This immediately brought me back to college when I purposely bought pants that didn't fit me so that I would be forced to diet and work out to finally get my prize of nice, new clothes.  Can you believe that?  How masochistic could one person be?  Why I thought this was a good way to go is beyond me, but I never want to do that to myself again. 
It's good to have goals and know what and who you want to me.  It's not good to torture and abuse yourself into becoming that person.  I won't throw out my old clothes, I like those clothes, but I will put them away in a safe, dry place and bring them out when I can use them again.  And if I never fit into them again, that's ok too.  There will come a day when I feel comfortable donating them or whatever, but today doesn't have to be that day.
This brings me to what I really want to talk about.  For me, nothing makes me feel sexier than a pair of nice fitting jeans.  I've worn jeans that were way too tight.  I'm talking about the type of tight where you need to lie down and suck everything in while someone else does the zipper.   Not only was that horribly uncomfortable, but all it did was stuff in my lower half and make it all pour out of my upper half.  I was fooling no one.  I've also worn jeans that were too big.  In my attempt to counter the muffin top, I thought if I wore big jeans then nothing would be smashed to smithereens and I would look and feel better.  I didn't.  I didn't feel sexy or attractive, and I like feeling attractive.  The solution was finding the right fit for my body. 
I do most of my clothes shopping online, therefore I do a lot of returning.  Anyone who shops online knows that you don't really know what you're getting until you get it.  Sometimes what looks super cute on the models, doesn't look so super cute in person.  I recently bought two pairs of jeans online.  I had to guess at the size since it had been a while since I last bought pants and went two sizes up.  When my package arrived, I almost burst into tears as neither pair fit me.  It was like a cruel joke, how could I have possibly gone up more than two sizes?  I returned those pants and came to terms with the facts.  I have gotten fatter than I thought.  I ordered more bigger pants in two different styles in the same size by the same maker.  The first pair fit like a glove, it was almost as though they were cut from my exact measurements and I was instantly so excited.  I loved the way they hugged my curves without being restrictively tight.  All of a sudden, it didn’t matter what size they were, all that mattered was how I felt in them and how happy I was to feel good.  The second pair were a disaster.  They were too tight in the thighs, too big in the hips, and way too small in the waist.  I'm sure there is someone somewhere built for these pants, but they were horrible on me.  Luckily I tried the good ones on first, otherwise I might have sent them both back for a bigger size and that would have been wrong.  You have to kiss a lot of frogs to find your prince, and you have to try on a lot of jeans to find the perfect ones.
My main point is that the size of the jeans doesn't matter as much as how you feel in them.  Don't let that little number on the tag stop you from getting the right size for your body.  Find those perfect jeans and rock the hell out of them.  <3

A little bit of history

Several of my friends have reached out to me to talk about their own feelings and experiences with body image and the word fat.  I've been fat my whole life and getting to today has been quite a journey. 
I should share that my Mom was also fat.  She gained weight while pregnant with me and was never able to lose it.  Growing up, we tried all kinds of diets together and each and every one would fail.  I refuse to say I failed, I like blaming the diet.  :) 
In my first year of high school my butt exploded, I remember crying about how much it stuck out, and I would practice different walks, trying to find one that would make it shake the least.  It was horrible feeling like there was something wrong with me. 
In my early twenties I discovered low-carb eating and lost a lot of weight really quickly.  As the weight was coming off, people around me would tell me how great I looked and to keep going.  I remember looking at myself in the mirror and hating the way I looked, my head looked huge and my body was disproportionate.  Basically I was losing the weight and still hating myself. 
I talked to my Mom about it, and being the wise woman she was, she told me, "Not everyone is meant to be thin.  Some people look and feel better with some weight on them.  Don't feel like you need to change to please anyone but yourself."
Wow.  It was the first time that I was told that it was ok to be fat.  I immediately started to look at myself differently, and I allowed myself to acknowledge that I didn't hate things about myself because I didn't like them, I hated those things because other people told to me to.  Women are supposed to be thin and strive to be thinner, there is no room in the world for fat women, according to some. 
I have learned that I am meant to be fat.  I will never be thin, nor do I want to be.  That being said, I do have a weight that I am most comfortable at, and I assure you I am currently way past that weight.  However, my not being the size I want to be does not mean I have to beat myself up until I get there.  Quite contrary, I am choosing to love myself and all of my imperfections.  I have promised myself that I will work on the things I want to work on FOR ME and no one else.  I will not conform to someone else's idea of beauty.
I want to be the person who tells you that you are more than the size of your dress.  It is ok to want to work on yourself and be the best version of yourself possible, and still love yourself in the now, exactly as you are.  <3

Why am I doing this?

So, it took me a long time to decide to do a blog.  Is that the right phrasing, "do a blog"?  Oh well, I'm going to go with it for now.  I feel like I have a lot to say about a lot of things that aren't necessarily things people talk about.  I'm fat.  Let's just get that out of the way up front.  The title of this thing is "Confessions of a plus size Mommy", but make no mistake about it, I'm fat.  I didn't use that word in my blog title because I didn't want to scare any prospective readers away with the horrible f-word.  Not that f-word, I'm talking about fat.  People tend to clam up and shy away from this word because unfortunately we've given the word a negative connotation and as a result, power.  It has the power to make us feel small (ironic, yes?), it has the power to make people swallow hard, and it has the power to make your good day go bad real quick.  I remember the first time I heard someone use the word in a positive way, it completely caught me off guard.  It was a guy I was dating and I remember clear as day he said, "I love your fat butt".  He meant it as a compliment.  He thought he was saying something nice.  In my mind, he was insulting me, but then I thought hard about it and I realized that it wasn't an insult at all.  Fat is a descriptive word.  I am fat.  I am female.  I am a brunette.  These words all describe me and I shouldn't shun the word fat anymore than I shun the word woman or man or tall or thin or any other word I use to describe people. 
So, if you decide to read more of my blogs, you will see me use the word fat a lot.  I'm not saying it to make myself or anyone else feel bad or unworthy, I simply use the word to get your ears and eyes used to it so that if someone tries to use the word as an insult, you will already be one step ahead.  :)