blessed

They say having children is a blessing. A blessing ....let me count the ways.
they say children bring you joy,
they say children bring you pride
they say children bring you youth
they say children bring you longevitiy

I have five children, four girls and one boy.
There are times when I am glad when they are gone for the weekend to visit grandma. There are times when I'm absolutely happy that school's been reopened. There are times when I'm elated that the neighbors kids come calling so they would go outside for awhile. There is every night when I'm just satisfied that they're in their beds.

I try to be a good mother, I really really do, but then there are the times when I think "blessing, really?!"
Sometimes they are my trial
Sometimes they are my disappointment
Sometimes they are on my last nerve
Sometimes they are my frustration
Sometimes they are my stroke/ heart attack pending or patience ending inducing meltdown

But then I think to when I was tasting the bitter morning bile when ever I threw up, the inside movements that only I could enjoy, the strong kicks and nudges and cravings and sciatica and .....

they are a blessing

they are my pride
they are my joy
they are my loyality
they are my longevity
they are my smiles
they are my jokes
they are my youth
they are my loves

blessing

before

So I look at my self in the mirror and with the utmost astonishment, realise with great reluctance that I'm the 'before' picture. The before picture where your love handles are spilling over your undies and your boobies are angling down toward the great gravitional pull of the earth. Your belly button is no longer cute and shallow, but is instead the model hole for planting spring bulbs. And for some reason I have the same bad hair as in every before picture.I slowly turn to the side and "gasp", it's worst than I thought. I can pick up my belly and see the big doughy fat that is now my mid section. I wiggle it and watch it jiggle.Why can't the fat just melt and run off when I do that? I know that when you heat fat, it melts. Won't wiggling and jiggling my belly fat produce the same result?You'd think that the same way the fat targets your belly area after cheese cake, donuts, chips, candy and every other edible fat factory delight, would reverse itself if you wiggle and jiggle our belly fat. BUT nooooooo, that would be too easy. My body just don't work that way.

You would think that by now I'd be accepting of my body that carried and supported five kids and breast fed each one of them. But I'm having a real hard time thinking that this is me. I still feel like I'm skinny. I don't feel fat or overweight. I just feel unsettled that I didn't do a better job at losing the weight after each baby.

So my before picture is me feeling sorry for myself. Pathetic, I know, whiny, I know!

So here is my before......



image removed to due to fear of being sued ......