Weighty Issues

When I was a child, I was thin (a condition that I have long since overcome!) and short. Not just regular kid thin, but wearing a size less than my age in slim with a belt thin. My redhead and my littlest one have the same build I did as a kid. My sister (the one I like) was not thin. She was not obese by any stretch of the imagination. She was just a little bigger than average. My darling Emo Snow White has the same build, healthy but far from skinny.

When my sister and I were children, strangers felt compelled to share their opinions about our respective sizes with my mother. They would stare at me and ask my mother if she ever fed me. My mother, being the wonderful role model she was, would respond with such gems as “but if I feed her, I’ll never get rid of her.” I know that they would also stare at my sister (people suck) and make snide remarks (people really suck) but I’m afraid that I was so egocentric (I was a child) that I don’t remember what the people said or what my mother might have said in response.

I would love to say that people are no longer as rude as they were, lo those many years ago, when the world was young and so was I. I would love to say it, but I try not to lie on the internet. (I want to be unique) When my Emo Snow White was little, people would stare at her and tell me things like, “don’t worry, a little exercise will slim her down.” Being who I am, I would normally respond with something like, “and a few manners would do wonders for your personality.” When my redhead was little, she perfected the meanest looks and few people were brave enough to comment on her figure. When she started kindergarten, an older child told her she was too little to be in school. My delicate little thing responded with an uppercut. My littlest (and she still is a tiny thing, weight wise) was not spared any remarks. I had one lovely grandmother figure ask me if I ever fed the poor thing. I said no, she feeds herself. (She was two by then.)

Speaking of lovely grandmother figures, I always want to slap them. Okay, not all of them, just the ones who think, because they have somehow managed to live past 50, they have the right to sit in judgment. Like the one who told me how cute my little boy is (I’ve never had a boy) and when I told her my youngest is a girl, she told me that my daughter, whom everyone said looked so much like a darker version of me, had a boy’s face. This happened on one of the rare occasions I actually dressed her in pink! (The outfit was given to me, I would never, never, never, never buy pink!)

Finally, this is directed to the idiot’s mother (I know he won’t read this and she probably won’t either), my children were given perfectly good, if a tad unusual, first names. I did not pick these names out of a hat. I did not surprise your son with them after the girls were born. I did not pick these names to upset you. Remarkably, I did not even think about you when I was considering what to name the fruits of my womb. Their first names may never meet with your approval. That does not give you the right to refuse to use their given names. Oh, and the redhead’s first name? Your son picked it out.