As I sit here hunched over my MacBook, trying to type really quiet so my kids won’t find me, I am seething. Not because they flooded the bathroom, or scratched the table with those dumb Bey Blades again, but because they’ve made me fat. I can feel that muffin top spilling over my jeans and it’s killing me. I’m not supposed to have a muffin top. I’ve never had a weight problem or food issues until I carried their 9 pound asses around in my womb and my abdominal wall basically said “To hell with this” and never really came back. It’s really dawning on me now. I’m mom fat. And now I know the painful secret I always wondered in my youth: “Why don’t those moms suck in their stomachs instead of letting them hang out like that? I mean, have they just given up completely? How hard is it?” Now I know. Three ginormous babies later. Karma is a bitch, my friends.
What makes me most angry is that I don’t actually weigh that much more than I did before kids. I actually have a very normal and respectable BMI still, but imagine if a body pre-pregnancy were like jello in a mold (sans the little pieces of fruit in there) and with each pregnancy, it gets violently thrown up in the air, and then you try to catch it in the same mold, but now it’s all loose and messed up with little chunks hanging out all over the side and stuff. That’s where I’m at. In the one place I so much wanted — nay, needed — fat (namely, my boobs), there is now a void. All the fat? Went away, apparently draining into my hips and waist. I used to have a pear shape. Now I’m like a bottle of Grand Marnier. Nothing above my belly button, and lots o’ stuff beneath. I think that is really the insult. I didn’t actually gain a ton of weight, it just all accumulated as lumpy chunks in highly undesirable places. Like my thighs. And stomach. And butt. Maybe even my knees too.
This unfortunate turn of events, coupled with a serious aversion to exercise and extreme dependence on wine and chocolate, has necessitated my shameful, burgeoning familiarity with shapewear. They called them corsets a long time ago and then our moms had girdles and now we have this stuff we euphemistically call shapewear, which tries to contain our unfortunate post-baby jello body disasters. They may not have all the strings and wires, and by god they are necessary, but I mean (*Mama Sully shakes her fist angrily at the sky*) “How did this happen to ME?!”
I have developed a love hate relationship with shapewear that is more out of hand than a Jersey Shore bar fight. I mean, if it weren’t for shapewear, the Boppy pillow shaped ring of fat I now wear around a once trim waist would be spilling out all over the place, tempting small children and animals to nest in it, but with shapewear it’s like, “Really? I have to take off like 10 layers of clothing just to pee?” I’m pretty sure it’s easier to take off jeans in a pool while treading water than it is to get your shapewear situated correctly pre- and post- pee. Though on the bright side, at least it burns like 700 calories.
Needless to say, getting dressed every morning is a chore. All of my clothes are now separated into “Muffin Top Friendly, No Shapewear Needed” (MTFNSN) and “Give Yourself An Extra 15 Minutes To Wrestle Those Spanx On” (GYEX15MTOWTSO) sections of the closet. I don’t dare wear a dress or fitted sweater anymore without heavy-duty shape wear to give the optical illusion that my chest isn’t concave, my stomach is flat, and I’ve no idea what a love handle is. This actually can be done. People will say I look great, and I nod and thank them without exhaling and through clenched teeth whilst trying not to sit down, lest the fragile top of the Spanx roll down and unleash the 5 pounds of muffin top fury I’ve got hiding under that cute little sweater from the days of yore when it actually fit me. I pray that when I awkwardly bend down to discreetly fix this technical issue, my miracle bra doesn’t then wind up perched between my collarbone and chin. Needless to say, days that call for GYEX15MTOWTSO pretty much suck. I look good, but one false move and you’re suddenly transformed into the Incredible Hulk with your old cute fitted sweaters ripping wide open to reveal the ravages of pregnancy, wine and chocolate on your once svelte figure.
MTFNSN days? Well, those are a bit more comfortable. You do have your mom jeans on after all. And you can be happy, until a brisk wind blows against your baggy shirt a little too aggressively just as you catch a glimpse of your reflection in a window and you think you just spotted a pregnant lady with your same purse. It has happened to me, many a time. And it isn’t fun. But you know, at least you can pee quickly, efficiently and totally unencumbered. And breathe. Sort of. Because let’s face it – you’re trying to suck it in still. I’m just waiting to spot the girl who was me 20 years ago, shaking her head and thinking, “Has she just given up completely? I mean, how hard is it?”
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