I have an interesting relationship with my body. I get the impression that many other women hate their flabby belly, their stretch marks, their soft breasts. And to be fair I still am confused when I idly grab a fistful of loose skin that was not there 5 years ago. I think that it’s more surprise than anything – it still seems strange to think all my body has gone through. My fingers like to gently feel my skin beneath my belly button, feeling the slight divet created by the stretch marks there. It’s this visible, tangible mark of how my body gave at the end to accommodate my largest baby. And I don’t know, I guess it’s become a kind of comfort item to me, a familiar mark like a mole or scar, but with so much history bound up in it. My body gave me my children, something I didn’t know if it would ever do.

Yes, sometimes it is sad to think that I will never have that 22 year old body. But isn’t that just the passage of time? Hairs turn grey, joints get stiffer, skin gets lines. It changes, always in the direction of more chaos, not less.

I know I should be eating healthier, and I know if I start working out I could lose some of this fat that is left behind, I could tone things up a bit. It’s never going to be the same, of course, but there could be improvements. But right now I think I’m just getting used to this body that I have. I’m just going to sit with it a while. I feel like I need to get acquainted with this new body first.

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It’s a wonder how fast childrens’ bodies grow. You don’t even really notice it day to day but suddenly your toddler has huge long legs and they are fitting into clothes that looked so giant in the store. How the hell does that even happen? And how uncomfortable must it be for them? The more I think about it all – the teeth, the growing, the brain development – the more I think it’s a miracle that children sleep well at any point.

Kate is wearing 2T now – even 2T pants are fitting her, her legs must have had a growth spurt recently. She’s right around 29lbs and approximately 34″ tall. Ember is in 3-6M but I feel like some of them are already getting snug on her, especially with the big cloth diaper butt. Which is a bummer, since I think by Christmas she will have already outgrown the Christmas outfits Kate wore. At 4 months she weighed in at 14lb 1oz and 24 1/4″ – which is around 50th percentile for height and weight. She seems so big to me, but apparently she’s actually average… just big compared to what Kate was.