Thick Girl Couture, Part Deux: Minecraft Strikes Back

Yep, I'm going to talk about my kids again.  Why?  Because I don't get out much.  This is my life.  Mom by day, Badass by, um, I think the remaining 7 minutes and 34 seconds.

My kids are pretty average boys at 11 1/2 and almost 13. (Well, other than their inherited above-average intelligence, but enough about me.)  And like most adolescent boys they love video games.  This includes an old PC game called Minecraft that's been around for ages.  If you have a kid around the same age as mine you've heard of it.  If you haven't heard of Minecraft, can I please come live with you?

So back in August we were back-to-school shopping and my kids saw some Minecraft t-shirts and lost their damn minds.  Lost them.  I gave in and got them each two of these coveted shirts after spending nearly thirty minutes deciding who gets which design.  $10 a shirt.  No biggie, right?  It made them happy.

My oldest wore one of his shirts on the first day of school.  When they came home from school my youngest proceeded to tell me that "everyone" (read: one kid) totally made fun of his brother for his shirt, calling him a nerd and a gamer. My oldest quickly piped up and said, "I don't care who likes my shirt.  I like my shirt and I'll wear what I want."  Yay!  Good for him!  ASD continues to be a life saver in the self-esteem department.

My youngest son flat out refused to wear the shirts.  Refused.  I tried to talk him into it.  I tried to guilt him into it.  I tried everything.  Mostly I was ticked off that I spent $20 on shirts he'd never wear but I also hated the fact that he could be so easily influenced to just toss away something he was so excited about.

He finally decided to wear one of the shirts this week I think in an effort to either make me happy or prove a point to me, which in any case was a win-win for him.  He got off the bus, came in the house and said, "See!!  I knew this would happen!"  This same kid that likes to pick on my kids for everything they do and overshare all kinds of explicit sex mis-information that I then have to correct (without the benefit of wine, mind you) decided to call my kid names and make fun of his shirt, including calling his shirt "gay".

I lost my shit.  I really did.  I told the boys that they should not be worried about what other people think.  That this kid wasn't the end all, be all in fashion choices.  That maybe they should consider not hanging out with someone that made them feel bad about themselves all the time. That if I ever heard them use the word "gay" as if it was some kind of insult that embodied wrongness I would tear their Minecraft world apart, block by block. Then the doorbell rang about three minutes later.  That kid wanting the boys to come out and play.

I didn't yell.  I didn't cuss (gold star for me).  But I told this kid in no uncertain terms what I would and would not accept from him if he wants to play with my kids.  Mostly I scared the scrap out of him.  Could have been the fact that I hadn't showered all day but I think it was my fierce Mom-tude.

Any way, the kids still went out to play with him, my kid will wear the shirts, the mean kid stopped himself from being a turd and apologized to my kids mid-insult.  I win, right?

Except I don't.  All of this crap reminded me of junior high and peer pressure and all that.  It sucks, right?  It's horrible for everyone and I can totally sympathize with my son for wanting to fit in or at least not stand out in a negative way.  I get it.  I wanted those things, too.  I wasn't usually successful at them but I wanted them.  I don't blame him for feeling that way but, God, I want it to be different for him.  I want that so badly.  So much so I would give up all the Guess jeans I ever fit in to in order to make it different for him.  Oh, wait.

Here's the deal.  I have really spent the last year getting my shit together.  I'm not there yet but I'm so much better than I was.  Working on body confidence has been a HUGE eye opener and I know I've come a long way.  But God damn if I didn't fuck it all up when I first started this blog.

To date one of my most widely read blogs is my blog on fashion for the thick girl.  I basically tried to tell you what and what not to wear.  I've had so much guilt (my number 2 talent, shame being number 1) over this stupid blog in the last few months it's made me crazy.  Do you people not like me?  Do you not care enough about me to tell me when I'm talking shit?  Seriously, what's a girl gotta do to get you to smack some sense into her?

I don't know a God damned thing about fashion and I admitted as such.  Everything I told you came from a place of, "You can't get away with wearing that" or "You're too fat to wear that" or "Don't draw attention to yourself or any of your imperfections".  That's how I have lived my life in regards to fashion.  Well fuck that.  To quote one of my very favorite internet personalities, Fit Mama Training, "What you think of my body is none of my business."  And that applies to what I'm wearing.  And it applies to what you are wearing, too.

So lets just break this down, bit by bit, and revise my previous rules on fashion:

Jeans:

I tried to give you advice on pocket flaps vs. no pocket flaps, bedazzling, whiskering, wash, skinny legs vs. bootcut.  Jesus.  This from the girl who can't find one pair of jeans to fit her right to save her life.

Revised rule:  Wear whatever the fuck you like.  You don't owe it to anybody but yourself to like your own damn jeans.

Shapewear:

I didn't so much as give you instructions to wear Spanx as I did bitch about it but this still bears mentioning:

Revised rule: You are not obligated to smooth anything.  Real women have lumps and bumps and cellulite is not a defect but a perfectly normal part of the body, especially the female body.  If you feel confident in some shapewear, do it.  But don't you dare do it for someone else.

Ankle Straps:

For real?  I wrote about this?  I have talked about what I have perceived to be my "cankles" many times but I know I said this: "Your fat ankle does NOT need a belt."  Sigh.

Revised rule: First, I'm a moron.  Second, wear whatever the fuck shoes you like.  Third, I'm having a love affair with a man named Vince Camuto who made the first ever wide width strappy high heel shoe that makes me feel like I'm walking on air.  And guess what?  It has a fucking ankle strap.  And it even fits around my ankle.  Booyah.

Bras:

Ok, I'm not budging on this one.  If you want to wear a bra and I'm certainly not going to be the person who says you have to, you really should make sure it fits right.  You owe it to yourself.  The right size bra can make you feel like hot shit.

I recently had a woman from Nordstrom size me.  I had it done before but it seems the recent weight I've gained has landed on my chest.  She asked what I thought I was and I told her and she immediately said, "No you're not."  Um, ok.  She took me to a dressing room, measured my band and told me my band size and then said, "Now take off your bra and let me see your breasts."  I immediately followed her directions without her even giving me so much as a cocktail and she sized me by sight.  That's some damn good skills.  And she was right and the bras were amazing.

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I talked about not showing too much skin. I talked about not having words on your ass.  I talked about not wearing big, baggy clothes.  And not one damn person told me to shut the fuck up.  You all are on notice.

Here's what I want you to know.  What you wear is your business, no one else's.  How it makes you feel is the only thing that matters.  You don't owe it to anyone to hide from what you think are your imperfections or live up to other people's preconceived notions as to how you should dress based on your weight or your body or your interests.  Go on and wear your Minecraft shirt, damn-it!  That's how I'm going to make this different for my kid.  I have to be different first.

This right here, from my another of my favorite online self-love advocates, The Militant Baker, is from here on the only thing that matters when it comes to others judging what we wear.

And for the love of God, next time I'm talking out the side of my neck give a girl a heads up, ok?  Sheesh.

Oh, that reminds me.  You need this.  Just because I said so.

Too School for Cool

Two weeks ago was 'Back to School' for my children and most of the other kids in the state of Minnesota.  While it wasn't punctuated with the normal crisp Fall back to school weather there was still the smell of new folders and the sharp pencil leads and composition notebooks.  I love notebooks.  All kinds.  And if there is one thing people can count on to make it feel like back to school again it's my Facebook statuses and countdowns.  This year I had people filling in the meme blanks for me, tagging me in photos or posting on my timeline.  I didn't even have to Google for anything.

This year I got the impression from many people that they truly believe I don't want my children around.  It started to have a real negative connotation and frankly put a major buzzkill on my Back to School festivities.

And festivities there have been.  In the past we've celebrated with high fives at the bus stop.  I've had standing first day of school coffee dates with a friend every year.  I've had back to school cocktails and first week of school sushi lunch dates.  I've even threatened to make a man out of that bus driver a time or two. This year I had a long coffee date with an old coworker from the gym. There's always some way to celebrate.

The truth is, aside from my time as an employee at the gym, I have been self-employed for seventeen years.  I've run my own business at home since around my one year wedding anniversary, partly due to some changes that were taking place at the company that I worked at but mostly because I knew we would someday have children. I thought it was a good time to try for a career that I could have at home while caring for babies.

I did very well the first few years.  Work was abundant.  Setting my own hours was perfect and I had plenty of time to spend with my husband.  About three years later we decided to move to another home so that we'd have room for a family.  The work load was still great but I struggled with staying focused during this time.  I like to call these The eBay Years.  How else was a girl supposed to find everything she didn't know she needed for her new home?  It's not like Amazon was invented yet.

Not long after this I did manage to get pregnant with our first child.  Enter the Pregnancy Website Months, Motherhood Books Weeks and Babies'R'Us, the mecca of all things baby and time wasting.  My expanding uterus had no interest in getting any work done and I struggled with taking advantage of the busy season.  Dumb move since it was the last season I'd ever have with uninterrupted work.

My oldest son was born at the end of December in the year 2000.  My line of work is usually fairly slow from Thanksgiving till New Years as people are focusing on the holidays rather than new construction.  But come January, the impending Spring building season has everyone clamoring to get their blueprints ready.  I remember working two weeks after he was born, via c-section I might add, sneaking drafting time during naps when I should have been sleeping myself.  Rigging a musical toy over a Pack N Play next to my desk so I could get more work in.  Nights.  Weekends. Any possible moment I could steal away because we couldn't afford for me not to work and at that point daycare made no financial sense.

I got pregnant again when my son was 8 months old.  If I thought working at home was tough before it was nothing compared to having two babies.  The days that I got them both to nap at the same time I thought I was Anne Sullivan, the damn Miracle Worker.  When my toddler dropped a nap I was reduced to the ultimate shameful mom practice of letting him watch tv while I worked.  Still I wasn't making enough money.  I wasn't keeping the house clean.  I had my husband pick up take-out a little too often.  Mom of the Year I wasn't.

When you are going to have kids you are faced with a big decision as a mother.  Do I keep going to work or do I stay at home?  It's a tough one and there are pros and cons to both.  But there is a third species and it's called a WAHM.  Work at home mom - it seems like the answer.  What could be better than staying at home with your little bundle and still bringing in money?  Everything.  All the other options are better than working from home when you have young ones.  I would encourage you to please, please choose one of the other two options.  Trust.

There is never enough work done.  The house is never clean enough.  You never spend enough "quality time" with the kids.  Dinners are half-hazard things you can throw together, assuming you have groceries because no one wants to go to the store with two babies.  (Seriously, my first outing by myself with a 17 month old and a newborn resulted in the toddler puking all over himself and the baby shitting all the way up his back to his hair.  Both requiring car seats to be hosed down.  I went home, cleaned everyone up, wept and vowed never to leave my house again.  Ever.)  Showering was completely optional and being romantic with my husband?  Pffffffttt Whatever.  Pretty standard SAHM troubles but throw work deadlines in and it's a hot mess.

I was pretty much failing at ever aspect of every one of my jobs.  WAHM's are spread so thin all the time (not to say that SAHM mom's aren't.  It's tough all around.) that they pretty much suck at everything.  Or maybe it was just me.  Maybe I couldn't hack it.  This may come to a surprise to you and you may want to sit down but...  I'm not really the Earth mother type.

I did have a nanny two days a week for a year or so in the form of my niece and she helped immensely.  But I'll be honest and tell you that it's still tough to run a business from home with the sounds of tag and Play-doh in the house.  Not to mention the kids still knew I was there, hiding away in my office, and I would easily fall pray to my control issues and step in whenever I heard my niece struggling.

And then... School (cue angels singing)

School is the WAHM's wet dream.  School is the answer to all her prayers.  School means she can get work done during the day and still be a mom at night.  School means not having to choose who gets more of her attention during those work hours and not feeling the guilt that is bound to go with either decision.  School is my air.  By the time I had both kids in school I really thought I'd made it.  But I forgot about one thing.

Summer.

This Summer was particularly tough.  I had an enormous work load.  And with both boys and my husband (yeah, he works at home, too - how's that for fucking togetherness) with me 24/7 it was constant chaos.  I would like very much to plan all kinds of activities for my boys. I would love to take them on fantastical fieldtrips to museums and parks and playdates and waterparks and the zoo.  I would love to even send them to some camps so they could have fun with friends but they won't go anymore.  Unfortunately I can't do all these things.  I have a business and when you are self-employed and there's actually work to be had you just don't say no.  You never know when the next dry spell will be.

Working from home in the Summer makes me feel more inept as a mother than anything I do.  The mom guilt is overwhelming and the resulting shame of not being good enough tears me down daily.  I know I'm not the first mother to have mom guilt but we, and by we I mean all of mom-hood, don't really talk about it.  I promise you this, though.  Any mom who says she doesn't have mom guilt is lying through her box of wine.

With all the guilt of being a shitty mom, a shitty money earner and a shitty wife it's really hard to spread myself any thinner.  So instead I got fatter.  I know I when I wrote in June I said I hadn't gained any weight over the last year since leaving my job at the gym.  Yeah, that's no longer true.  I've gained weight like it's my job the last couple of months and apparently that's the one job I can do even with all the distractions.  I haven't had a gym membership and I've literally had no time to take care of myself fitness-wise.

But you know what?  I did my best.  Could I get up and go for a run at 5am to make sure I got my workout in before I started my day as super mom / wife / drafter?  Bwahahahahhahaa  No.  I can't.  And I know that about myself.  What I couldn't do after feeling like I already was the worst mom ever for an entire Summer was go and leave them in the evening to get my workout in.  I did the best I possibly could to take care of my work obligations and my family and it came at a little expense to myself but that's the way it is.  And I'm at peace with that.   It's a small sacrifice to make to be able to work at home with no pants on.

I have a new gym membership that I started attending during the first week of school.  I had my shiny new padlock and my shiny new gym shoes.  It was my own "first day of school" where I knew no one and couldn't figure out where to go.  But I've got 9 months of homework to do as I take advantage of having the time and freedom to take care of myself and relieve a little stress before it starts all over again.  It's a fair trade.

So I survived.  And I celebrated.  And it doesn't mean that I don't love my kids or that I don't want them around, regardless of what my Facebook friends may think. I've more than paid my mom dues over the years.  I just can't be everything to everyone at the same time without the guilt.   And if that means I have to let taking care of myself fall to the wayside a little during the Summer then so be it.   Back to School is, I think, the Universe saying "You did well.  You survived, you are a great mom and you shall be rewarded greatly for your efforts."

Of course then I got knocked-on-my-ass sick for more than week immediately after school started.  I'm still sick. Well played, Karma.  Well played.  I see what you did there.