First, I’ll just say that when Sara made her organ bib during the Health Unit at school, I rolled with laughter.  She cut those organs out herself, and to her, that was far more amazing than the fact she turned her body into a hot dog vendor sign, covered in internal organs.

OK, so here’s the thing: I’ve put on 15 lbs.  I’m not one to obsess about weight because I was born to tiny pixie people.  By today’s standards, my parents might qualify for the “Little People” show.  But all metabolisms eventually slow, and I spent most of Christmas day jumping off and on my Mother’s bathroom scale, screaming it was broken.  Oh, how she laughed.  After all, her metabolism hit the wall decades ago…she’s over it.

I’ve thought back over the last few years of my yo-yo’ing weight and realized the reason I’ve stayed thin after children is that I’ve been sick.  Wanna lose some baby fat?  Easy: put your babies in daycare and catch a couple of rotoviruses; add a norovirus just to mix it up; get tonsillitus…twice; breastfeed for 10 months (I called it the “eat Big Macs and donuts all day and still lose weight” diet); and just when you think you can’t get any thinner, catch a good case of giardia on a rare dinner date with your husband.  When you both realize what you have, pledge to put up with it until your combined weight loss is over 20 lbs.  Your doctor will laugh at you later, but you won’t care, because it’s June and you can fit into all of your summer clothes.

I felt like crap, but I was at my pre-pregnancy weight.  SWEET.  So…now…not so much.  Because you see NOW, I’m HEALTHY.  I take vitamins.  I drink water.  I tried to forget that McDonald’s even has a #1.  I love you #1.  I don’t Supersize because it doesn’t actually  mean you get a bigger BIG MAC.  If it did?  WOOH BOY.  Apparently, all this healthy living is a recipe for disaster for skinny people.  When I cut out Dunkin Donuts?  Yep…I put on 5 more lbs.  After almost 4 decades of ribs and fried biscuits, my body is confused.

And while I’m on my soap box, if it ticks you off that I dared to type the words, “skinny people”?  GET OVER IT.  I’ve spent my life hearing, “You are so skinny…I hate you”; “Don’t EVEN mention your weight…I hate you”; “You can eat anything you want…I hate you”.  I’ve never, ever, ever thought to tell someone that I hate them because of their weight.  Why?  Because it’s a RUDE THING TO SAY.  Somehow America believes that if you are thin, you are also rich and happy and bath in all sorts of treasures, and for this genetic “flaw”…you should be despised.  Hey World, it’s OK to be mean to me…I’m THIN.  I can TAKE IT.  But I digress…

Sara is out of diapers and Kelly is out of daycare; these days the most I can hope to catch is a bad cold.  Those nasty rotoviruses that take off 8 lbs overnight are just a pleasant memory to me now.  It doesn’t help that Sara’s horrible sleeping took a wrong turn into disaster city a few months ago.  Want to put on some real weight?  Break up your sleep for 5 straight years.  By normal medical standards, I should be roughly the size of a barn.

What can I say?  Asking me to give up carbs is like asking Tiger Woods to stop putting his hoo hoo dilly into every cha cha that comes his way.  I joined a gym, you know…a gym.  Blah.  The kind with the big smelly machines and the guys who walk around between those machines, sit down, and then get back up to flex, and then sit back down…and then look around, and then maybe do ONE REP.  WORK OUT YOU TOBOGGAN WEARING FOOL.  And while I’m yelling at you in my head, it’s like 1000 degrees in this gym.  Let me point out that you are wearing a knit toboggan.  Just how hideous is your sputnik head that you need to wear a winter hat inside this sauna of a gym?  I shouldn’t yell; it’s not his fault that I gave up beer during the week and ballooned out like a blimp.

So I’m going to go root through the pantry for a snack.  Greg is eating a carrot.  He offered me one, but I declined.  After all, if I eat that carrot, I’ll probably go up a pant size.  Maybe I should opt for the nachos and cheese..just joking.  We’re out.  What would a carrot dipped in cheese and salt taste like?  I’ll get back to you on that one.