Designated Fat Girl (17 page)

There are the embarrassing, gotta-laugh-or-you’ll-cry moments that tend to pop up everywhere in life, but more so when you are an overweight mom. Take the time Emma was a baby in the
church nursery and I attempted to participate in a Bible study once a week. Regularly, I’d get called down to soothe my not-yet-walking baby—she was fussy and just didn’t like being there without her mommy. Usually I’d rock her in the rocking chair while she calmed down, and eventually she’d scurry off my lap and crawl across the floor to play. When that happened, I tried to sneak out of the room without her seeing me leave and getting upset. One time I stood up so quickly, the snug rocking chair stuck to my ass. Meaning, I was too big for the chair, and when I stood up, the chair went along with me. It took some effort to wedge the arms of the chair off of my hips and put the chair back down. I wish I could say there were no witnesses to this spectacle, but you know that’s not the case. Several of the nursery workers, along with a few moms, saw the horrible event. What did I do? The only thing I could do. I laughed—and they slowly laughed with me. I could have let it shame me into oblivion, but mercifully, I was able to find the humor in the situation. This, of course, was an exception for me.

There are, unfortunately, several pitfalls for an overweight mom to fall into along the path of motherhood. When Emma was just six months old, I enrolled her in an infant music class. Some may think it’s a silly idea, but I thought it would be great to take my baby to a fun environment, expose her to some music and other babies, and possibly help introduce myself to other moms. Because I’d worked so much, at a job out of town, I hardly knew anyone in my city, let alone women with children. I thought this class would be a great way to have fun with Emma and make some friends. I just didn’t get that it would be so physical. Emma was crawling at this point, so she was
constantly scurrying out of my lap as we all sat in a circle on the floor. It hadn’t been easy for me to get down there in the first place, and here I was, having to heave myself up to chase a baby, several times in a row, in a small room with no windows. By the end of the class, I was tired, sweaty, and winded. I was already self-conscious about my size; these conditions made it even more difficult to get comfortable enough to let my guard down and get to know these strangers.

Thankfully, I did eventually find some mommy friends to hang with, and boy did I need them. When Emma was barely walking, and I’d just found out I was pregnant with Eli, I was at a restaurant with an indoor play area for kids. There was a little toddler section to play in, along with one of those large indoor slides that bigger kids had to crawl up into and go through a maze of tunnels before sliding back down. The other moms let their babies climb the slide, so I shrugged my shoulders and let Emma do it, too. Only, Emma got stuck. And screamed. And I couldn’t reach her—I was physically too big to get up there to get her. One of the other moms realized my dilemma and climbed up to retrieve my child. I was mortified. I soon learned to visit those places only when I had a very close friend with me or my husband—I couldn’t risk having to admit to a perfect stranger that I was too fat to rescue my daughter.

I faced a similar situation with outdoor parks. I quickly learned to avoid play areas that did not have fences. Once Emma learned to walk, it wasn’t long before she could run—and I was deathly afraid that I wouldn’t be able to run her down. A very popular park near our house not only doesn’t have fences, but it is near a very busy road. I couldn’t risk
Emma getting away from me and my not being able to catch her. So we just didn’t go.

Anytime we were invited to a playdate, I had to scope out the location and size up the possibility for disaster. Bounce houses? Forget it. How was I going to be able to climb in and get my child if he or she needed me? With my luck I would deflate the damn thing! You know how the mall has Santa trains at Christmas time? No way. I knew I wouldn’t be able to fit in those little cars, and my children were too young to ride by themselves. So we only went when Daddy could go with us and I could feign the excuse of having to stay out and take pictures. And let’s not even talk about the little chairs in the preschool classes. When Emma was two, her class hosted a mommy’s day tea. All the moms were to sit at the little tables, on the preschool chairs, and have tea and cookies served to us by our kids. Only I couldn’t trust that those little chairs could hold me, or that I’d be able to get up once I managed to actually sit down in them. So I stood up and drank my tea like a moron while everyone else sat, acting as though it was perfectly normal. No one said anything, thankfully.

There are literally hundreds of examples like that when it comes to being a fat mom. I remember seeing mothers sitting on the swings at the park with their babies in their lap, pumping their legs, going higher and higher to their kids’ delight. Eli asked me to swing him, but I told him we had to hurry up and get home. I couldn’t admit to my son that I was afraid the swing would break under my weight. I avoided paddleboats with Emma because life vests were mandatory, and I just knew there wouldn’t be one to fit me. Instead of risking the humiliation of
finding that out in front of a crowd of people, I feigned a headache and said we had to leave. At a birthday party, I told the other moms I got carsick, and asked if they would do a hayride with Emma. I watched on the sidelines as another mom held my daughter on her lap and I took pictures. I was too scared I’d cause the trailer to scrape the ground.

Probably the worst thing was water. It’s been duly noted that I avoided wearing a bathing suit for years—I just couldn’t bear “baring it all” in public. But what are you supposed to do when you have young children who can’t swim? You can’t just send them in the water and hope for the best. This may explain why Emma was two and a half before she ever saw the ocean, despite our living only an hour and a half away from the coast. The first time Emma and Eli stepped foot on the beach, I made sure I had reinforcements, taking along both Michael and my mom. They each grabbed a hand and took my babies into the water while I watched from the sidelines, fully clothed. The next year, Mom couldn’t make it, and Michael and I took a day trip to the beach ourselves with the kids. I still couldn’t bring myself to buy a bathing suit, so I watched as Michael tried to handle two toddlers in the surf by himself. He was more than a little annoyed with me, and I was so sad I was missing out on the fun. I knew something had to be done, but I couldn’t imagine being in a swimsuit, weighing more than three hundred pounds. Friends would invite us to their pools, and I always made an excuse. I just couldn’t put myself out there.

My biggest disappointment as a fat mom was pictures, or the lack thereof. When my children were born, I did the obligatory hospital photos with them, me looking dazed but happy
alongside my pink newborns. And even when we first brought them home, there are shots of me outside holding them with the stork in our yard announcing their birth, giving them their first bath, or simply gazing into their tiny faces. But very soon after, I started to do my usual: avoiding the camera at all costs. I, as a fat woman, became the official picture taker. In other words, I avoided being in the shot by being the one behind the lens, which is really ridiculous when you think about it—my husband makes his living as a photographer, for Pete’s sake! But I could not stand seeing photos of myself, hated the thought of leaving tangible proof behind that I was ever that big. Remember: In my mind, my situation was temporary; I was always on the verge of unlocking the mystery and finally getting the weight off.

Yes, I regretted not having pictures of me posing with Emma in her first Halloween costume, or a photo of Eli and me as he met the Easter Bunny for the first time. Pictures and videos of all my children’s birthday parties will show my mother-in-law or my mom presenting the kids with their birthday cakes, waiting for the candles to be blown out. It’s a job I should have done as their mother, but I was too embarrassed to get in front of the camera, so I stayed behind it. It made me sad, to be sure, but I figured, or at least hoped, that there would one day be plenty of pictures of me with my kids, once all of the weight was gone.

In my darker moments I beat myself up for once again letting down the ones I love. Of course my kids will notice I am not in any of the pictures. Will they wonder if I was even present for their big events? I put so much time and planning into birthday
parties and Christmases. Will my children ever know how much effort I gave to make their lives picture-perfect, including leaving out photographic evidence of their big fat mother? I used my guilt to further torture myself, providing proof that in addition to having a husband I didn’t deserve, I now added two wonderful children whom I had no right to have in my life.

In the moments I tried to feel better, I would remind myself that my kids were too young to realize what was going on. I didn’t have to be embarrassed around them, because they didn’t know what fat meant or that Mommy was morbidly obese. But we all know that kids are far more perceptive than we give them credit for—mine certainly have shown me that time and time again. One day, when Emma was barely two, I was on my way out the door to pick her up from preschool when I spilled Coke on the front of my shirt. I hastily changed and hurried off to her school. As soon as I walked into her class, she came up to me and said, “Mommy change her shirt?” She remembered that four hours before, I had worn a red shirt and now I was dressed in black. And she was two!
What else did she notice?
I wondered.
Could she see that her mommy was bigger than all the other mommies? Did that make any sort of impression on her?
I started to really contemplate what my being so overweight meant for my children.

I wanted to set a good example for Emma. I so didn’t want her to struggle with her weight and her appearance like I had as a child—and I certainly would never want her to evolve into the mess that I found myself in as an adult. On the one hand, I was very strict with what she ate and the food choices that she was allowed, but what would happen when she was old enough
to challenge me? How long before she realized I was setting standards for her that I didn’t bother to keep for myself? And Eli—I know it sounds childish and stupid—but I wanted my son to be proud of his mother, to feel good about having me meet his friends. Were we that far from the your-mom-is-so-fat jokes among his peers? Would I see the day when he didn’t want me to pick him up in front of the school, afraid of what others might think?

I knew being a fat mom would only grow tougher. Eventually I would have to put on a bathing suit, for heaven’s sake. Michael wouldn’t always be there to take the kids swimming for me—eventually I’d have to figure out how to get them to the beach and pool. And wearing a T-shirt over my bathing suit as a cover-up wasn’t going to work, I learned. Years before I had kids, Michael and I went with my brother, his wife, and their young daughter to a water park. Normally I would never have agreed to such an outing, so afraid was I of having to wear a bathing suit in public. But we were on a beach trip with them for a week, and I really wanted to see my then-three-year-old niece enjoy her first trip on a water slide. Michael convinced me to go, and I agreed, thinking I wouldn’t get in any kind of water, I would simply watch from the sidelines. Even though I’d managed to go the whole week without one, I did actually wear a bathing suit, just in case, but I put a T-shirt and capri pants over it, thinking I would never, ever take them off.

Well, I don’t know what in the world happened to my senses, but by the end of the day, I was tired of looking at everyone else have the fun; I wanted to participate. Michael could
hardly believe it, but I followed him and my brother up the big, winding staircase to the tall, swirling water slide. My sister-in-law and niece cheered me on, staying down at the wading pool to watch me slide down. I couldn’t believe I was doing it, but I figured one time wouldn’t hurt, and besides, I planned to still wear my T-shirt over my bathing suit. Plenty of people did that to avoid sunburn, right? For once, I decided to let go and have some fun.

We got to the top, and I watched my brother go down the slide, then Michael. When it was my turn, the young teenage boy manning the slide stopped me. “I’m sorry ma’am, you can’t wear your shirt on the slide.”

What?
He said something about how my shirt could get caught and I could get stuck. I was mortified, but I didn’t have time to stand there and debate what to do, there was a line of people waiting for their turn. I sure as heck wasn’t going to draw even more attention to myself by trying to argue with the kid. I quickly took off my T-shirt and sat down at the top of the slide, putting my shirt across my body. I was thinking (hoping) it would provide me enough coverage.

Of course, you know what happened. The slide was twisty and curvy and wet and jumbled and I got thrown all around. Before I knew it, I hit the daylight and the wading pool in one big splash, legs all akimbo, my T-shirt crumpled in my hands, providing no coverage whatsoever. I’m splayed out like a Thanksgiving Day turkey, and the best part is, I have my whole family there waiting for me, taking it all in. Michael immediately stepped in to help me, while my brother turned and walked away as discreetly as he could. As gracefully as possible,
I stood up in the water and got the heck out of there as fast as I could, ringing out my T-shirt and putting it back on, sopping wet. Humiliating doesn’t even come close to properly describing the situation. It would be years and years before I dared to don a bathing suit in public again.