Post Gearing up for Post Baby Weight Update This Weekend: 53 lbs of baby weight down and one muffin top to go!

Some how, some way in my pregnancy I gained about 60 pounds. I started out at about 118 pounds and made my way past 168 pounds. Ok, so you are probably thinking I was indulging myself in craving after craving. Quite the contrary for the most part. I mean there is the occasional cookie and frozen yogurt cup that had be had but very occasional. I think it all started to go really wrong with my emergency appendectomy which I think led to pre-term labor and was put on bed rest at 29 weeks. This is when the weight went nuts. Anyhow, the 60+ pounds i gained during pregnancy was a really hard pill to swallow once my little guy arrived. I held on to the hope that breastfeeding would literally suck the pounds off. I had friends say that no matter how much they ate they could not keep weight on and they were skinnier than they had ever been. HA! So not the case for me. Night sweats took care of the first 20 pounds, so that was pretty good. But the next forty were tough. Between yoga, baby boot camp and circuit workouts at a local park after about 6 months, another 20 pounds came off. Holy moly! 20 pounds still to go and my little guy was a year old. What?!?! Never in my wildest dreams did I ever imagine having this sort of weight problem. Extra weight was one issue but my confidence level was another. I have dreaded having any pictures taken. As I peruse my pictures online, I hardly having any pictures of my with little guy. Very sad! And then there is the “getting dressed” ordeal every day. I can never seem to find anything to wear that I feel good in. Inevitably, the muffin top seems to spill over the top of my pants and every shirt seems to accentuate my love handles. It doesn’t matter how many times my hubby tells me I look beautiful…I still want to cry every time I get dressed. So in the last month. my girlfriend drug me out for a zumba class. I was skeptical about it, but willing to try anything that helped burn extra calories. As it turned out…It was awesome! I have taken 10 classes in the last month and lost over 7 pounds. AMAZING! I feel my confidence levels rising and feeling more like the me I used to know pre-pregnancy. Do I still sport a muffin top? Yes ma’am, but its much smaller and getting easier to hide. For the first time in 16 months, I have hope to lose my muffin top once and for all; however, while I write this post I am left wondering why I feel/felt so much pressure to lose the baby weight as quickly as possible. Why is that I don’t feel comfortable in my own skin with the extra weight? Any other mamas deal with post pregnancy weight? Low confidence issues post birth?

Helicopter Parenting or Due Diligence (Contributor for SavvySassyMoms.com)

The other day I ventured over to our local park to let the little guy enjoy some fun in the sun with some of his buddies. It seemed like everything was going well and then it happened….a little kid came running from one side of the park over to my little dude and smacked him right on his little noggin. My jaw dropped to the ground and I was temporarily speechless. Thoughts were racing. Did what I think I just saw really happen? Would a kid really do that? And then I snapped out of my haze and reverted my attention to my little guy whose bottom lip was quivering and a silent tear out of his eye. Where was this kid’s mother? And just as this thought was running through my head, I was in mid “swoop” to pick my kiddo up….SMACK! It happened again, except this time I grabbed the kid’s hand before he was able to run away and calmly yet firmly said “we don’t hit people.” It was right in this instant that the mother appeared and glared at me as she took her child away. No apology, no embarrassment, nothing. With my heart racing out of my chest, there were a million and one things I wanted to say to this woman but inhibitions set in. I know toddlers and young kids test boundaries and don’t always know right from wrong but we as adults should. If that was my kid, I would put my little one in a timeout after he apologized, ask if the other kid was ok, and say I was so sorry to the mother. For the longest time, I thought that this was the “right” way to ensure a more positive social outing until I came across an article about “helicopter moms.” What the heck was a helicopter mom?!?! Wikipedia states it best by describing it as “ parents who try to resolve their child’s problems and try to stop them from coming to harm by keeping them out of dangerous situations.” Was this me? In my defense, my little guy is just a little over a year and a half. He cant defend himself. He was just playing nicely on the jungle gym. I know a lot of parents will say “kids will be kids,” and I totally agree but I certainly do not want to be a parent of a kid that turns out to be a bully later in life because I subscribed to that theory when my little dude was a wee toddler. Veteran mommas out there… What are your thoughts on this situation? Was I being a helicopter mom or a diligent parent? How would you have handled this scenario?