Armed with my convictions based on the last two mornings without coffee, I woke up this morning, threw on some workout clothes, and turned on the coffee maker. While the small people ate breakfast then, I sat and drank my coffee.
It’s amazing how much more vivid life can be after a caffeine fix. It felt like one of those Claritin Clear commercials, the yesterday versus today comparison.
It was with my newfound alertness, then, that I received the astute observation my first grader made as we climbed the stairs to his room after breakfast. He was behind me, and without segue, he informed me, “Mom, your legs are fat.â€
!!!
!!!!
I stopped and turned around.
“Excuse me?â€
He half-paused and clarified.
“Well, not the bottom of your legs. But they get fat at the top.â€
This from the boy with chicken legs, who, not from a lack of trying to explain on my part, still does not understand why some people don’t consider being fat a neutral state of being.
This from my little bastion of truth.
In another room, I could hear low chuckling coming from LCB.
It’s always nice to have witnesses in times like these.
After the boys were in school and we sat quietly for a moment, drinking our coffee and looking at the marsh, LCB said, “So, are you going to blog about it today?â€
He didn’t have to give his question context. We both knew what he meant.
Heck, yeah, I’m going to blog about it.
I have to deal with it somehow.
This winter my Son #3 informed me that I grew up to be such a big and fat woman because I ate so much healthy food when I was his age. This on the heels of many talks about nutrition and making healthy “grow-food” choices.
Don’t you love it? So beyond the whole fat issue, which is such a lovely issue in and of itself, there’s the whole issue of sending the wrong message when you were likely putting deliberate and substantial effort into sending the right message. It make me groan when I think of what must come out of my kids’ mouths at school, delivered as a truth “from my mom.”