TGIW: Thank God It's Winter

It wasn't until after I lost the baby weight that I really started to worry. I was back at my starting point, number wise, but let's just say things had settled into a most unsavory final resting place.

After taking an afternoon to think about it I came to my final decision. I was going to have full body plastic surgery.

But then Nick, my husband, said that wouldn't be a good idea.

A few days later my neighbor asked if I wanted to join her neighborhood workout group. I agreed because I know myself well enough to know my total body makeover was not going to happen if left to my own devices.

I'm a squirrely little thing and I need someone watching me like a hawk. A trip to the gym usually meant dropping my kids of in the nursery and me sitting in the bathroom stall reading In Touch for an hour and a half.

After about nine months I have noticed some significant improvement in my overall jiggling, and most of my hangy parts seem to have lifted an inch or two. Also, I ran a 5K with my sister last weekend in 28:51 and I can carry two squirmy kids through a parking lot faster than you can say “I TOLD you not to touch anything.”

But there are some things that I'm slowly, sadly, coming to grips with being a permanent part of my body until I save up enough money from writing blog posts to pay for my full body plastic surgery behind Nick's back.

For instance, will that flap of fat that hangs over my c-section scar ever go away? Will I ever not look like a flying squirrel when I wave goodbye in a sleeveless shirt? And what about the hail damage on my butt? Going with me to my grave?

With my clothes on I look just like everyone else, but take them off and someone goes blind. It's just so frustrating because I have always really really wanted to become a Brazilian swimsuit model.

But I also really really want to eat three lunches every day.

I truly admire those women who proudly refer to their stretchmarks as “battle scars”. My stomach looks like a topographic map of Sao Paulo and I have recurring nightmares where I'm at a public pool in a bikini and I can't find a cover up.

I mean, I get it. It's all part of having kids and people who are able to rock a bikini after giving birth are probably aliens. Not that I could rock a bikini pre-kids.

No one has ever used the words “awesome” or “normal” to describe my body. But wee doggies things sure went south in a hurry.

So I guess this is it, then. Thank God for winter.   

By Hannah Mayer, events and family life blogger for SmartParenting

Hannah Mayer recently traded her Blackberry Smartphone for a Strawberry Shortcake when she retired from her 12-year career in advertising to become a full-time Mom to 3-year-old daughter Elliot, 2-year-old daughter Lillian, and 1-year-old daughter Hadley ("Hey, my husband is hot, okay?"). In her free time she enjoys eavesdropping on her neighbors' cordless phone conversations through the baby monitor, volunteering as an English tutor for the St. Louis Public School district and bucking the stigma that accompanies three car seats by challenging fellow drivers to freestyle battle raps from her mini van.

Hannah has written and published several fictional short stories but her entree into baring her soul to the world can be found at her blog sKIDmarks and her novel in progress Cute Little Bundle of Crazy. You can follow her on Twitter at twitter.com/the_sKIDmark or become a fan at facebook.com/sKIDmarking.