The Stay Puft Marshmallow Mama

This is a picture of me from earlier this month.  I show you this because I am vain, and because I do not want you to look at the photos that will follow and have them burned in your brain.  And I really, really like the sweater I'm wearing in it.  And that I only paid $4.98 for it.

If you do not have children yet but are planning to, I suggest you look away.  This could scare you childless.

Today is Li'l Bit's birthday.  My girls' birthdays often remind me of everything I went through when I was pregnant with them.

75 pounds and 5 sizes.

I have often described myself as looking a little like this when I was pregnant:

No one believes me.

Well, those that saw me when I was pregnant believe me.  But no one else does.

I offer into evidence...

Exhibit A.  August 2003.

I don't know if the picture really does me justice, but that's almost 200 pounds of love right there.  (For the record, I am not quite 5'4".)  I gained 65 pounds when I was pregnant with Big Sister.  During my first trimester, even the sight of the golden arches made me ill.  But once I got around to Week 14, my love for all things drive-thru returned, and I would call The Husband and ask him to pick us up something on his way home.  Or I would eat most of a chicken pot pie -- the type that could serve four and you could still have leftovers from.  Or I would eat an entire can of black eyed peas.  I ate for two, that's for sure.

After I had her, I eventually got back to my pre-pregnancy weight (thank you, breastfeeding).  Even at my pre-pregnancy weight, though, my pre-pregnancy clothes weren't fitting me the same.  My body had changed.  I decided I would do something about that, and I started working on it.  I think I started drinking diet sodas about that time.  The Husband and I were much more careful about what we ate, and fast food really took a backseat.  Then I was asked to be in two weddings in November of '05 and March of '06, and I kicked things up a knotch.  I started walking and exercising at home at night.

I danced a little jig in the dressing room when I bought a pair of jeans that had a single digit size.  I got to a weight I'd only seen in passing as I went through my late teens and early 20s.

Then I got pregnant with Li'l Bit. 

Surely things would be different!  I was eating better!  Running around after Big Sister!  More active!

Exhibit B.  December 2006.

Again, this is me teetering on the edge of 200 pounds, as well as a staircase.  I look a little less poofy because I didn't have preeclampsia the second time, and I also I didn't have to buy flip flops a size and a half bigger than my regular size to wear.  But I gained around 75 pounds.

Please don't say, "But you were pregnant!"  I will roll my eyes at you.  There, I just did it anyway, because I know someone said it.  First, there had to be something I could've done to keep from gaining that much weight.  Second, I did not have 65 and 75 pound baby girls, so most of that weight remained settled comfortably on me for a while after having them.

The weight is gone, but those girls left their marks on me.  Stretch marks.  And stretched skin.

Do I mind?  Not so much.  Nope, I'm never going to wear a two-piece (not that I ever did anyway).  I will forever buy bras that have "shaping" or "lightly padded" in their description.  But I'm okay with that, because those little skin stretching body snatchers bring me more joy than any size or any weight ever could.