What's up with this fat shaming/ anti fat shaming thing?

Recently I've been seeing a ton of "(s)he put fat shamer's in their place" type of articles. I just don't get this trend. In all these pieces, the subject, who happens to be over weight, encounters someone, or something, that makes them feel bad. They then do or say something to put that other person in his/her place and makes themselves feel better... Does anyone see any flaw in that statement?

1st prenancy,
5 months prego,
only got bigger from there!

First, let me show I'm unbiased, I take no side point of view. I am over weight. Thanks to gestational diabetes and preeclampsia with my second pregnancy, I gained 70 lbs. Buddyboy is 8 weeks old and I still have 30+ pounds to go. I foresee a long journey to my pre-baby weight. I am not a mother who loses her baby weight fast. With my first pregnancy, again gestational diabetes, I gained 59 lbs. It took me 2.5 years and a ton of hard work to rid myself of that weight... only to become pregnant and gain it back plus some. Oh the sacrifices...

Anyway, I know what it's like to live an over weight life. I get the stares, the uneasiness of someone looking at you, I understand. However, I also understand living life at a healthy weight.

So, let us return to my issue. This whole circle of shame that's apparently happening. First, no one should be shamed. No one. Shaming is cruel. Words that are cruely spoken can stick with a person for years. Second, people need to step back and take a look at reality. If you happen to be a judger of others, why don't you pause, and consider the option that you don't have all the facts. I've read so many postings, articles, etc about how celebrity moms don't lose the baby weight fast enough. I'm sorry but every person is different and each person's chemistry reacts differently to pregnancy as well as recovery. Many writers of these horrid posts have no idea if that celebrity had an easy "normal" pregnancy and recovery, or if she had a difficult- high risk pregnancy and/or recovery. They have no idea what has medically been happening with this new mother and should really be ashamed of their behavior towards her.

Now on the non-pregnant side, if a person is over weight there are a MULTITUDE of possible causes. They may have just had a baby, they may have a serious health issue, they may need medication which packs on pounds rather than allow them to stay at a healthy weight, they may have just lost a loved one, house, or job which has caused a great deal of stress (and doesn't help with weight), they may be recovering from an injury and aren't able to work out yet, or yes, they could just eat very poorly, not work out, and not take proper care of themselves. There are a lot of possibilities, so fat-judgers, take a step back and keep your opinions to yourself.

Also, if you happen to be on the receiving end of this and are an overweight individual, you too need to chill out. Not everyone is against you. Not every comment is directed towards you. I read one article about a woman who happened to overhear a private conversation between a mother and daughter. They were discussing a plus size shirt and how the daughter and a friend could fit inside the shirt together. Yes, it seems a ridiculous conversation. Yes obviously said daughter is ridiculously skinny as must be her friend. No, this comment was not meant for you plus sized woman. No they were not trying to make you feel horrible. I don't know how old this daughter was, but I'm imagining a teen. Children, of all ages, make rude and hurtful comments (all the time) while being totally oblivious of their surroundings and what they are saying. Who cares what a 16 year old(ish) girl thinks? (don't forget she as also a stranger) If you get upset enough to need to leave the store, you personally have issues with yourself. You don't like you. If you don't like the fact that two small people can fit inside a piece of clothing which fits you fine, then fix the problem, lose the extra weight. There is no need to publicly share this story and put this mother and daughter down in order to feel better.
(Note: I never read the woman's original post, I only read a piece which praised her for her bravery and for 'putting fat shaming mother and daughter in their place.')

Finally, Skinny people are not the only judgers. I have heard over weight people exclaim "how small these shirts are!" or "this must be for a child. No adult could fit that!" False. The articles of clothing subjected to these statements are in the adult section and yes, there are adults that fit in them just fine. What I'm trying to point out here is that if you are going to judge anyone, for anything, you have to accept others judging you. Fat people judge skinny people; skinny judge fat. For years and years black and white people have judged each other. The same has gone for lower and upper classes. Tall people make rude comments to short people (often without realizing it) and short people do the same to tall people. (My 6'4" husband never played basketball so if you see him don't ask, he'll be grateful you didn't). Apparently it is just the new(ish) thing to publicly shame someone based on his/her shirt size.

We as the human race should really be saddened, or scared, because as a race we haven't learned from past mistakes. People are people. We are all human and no one is perfect. Most of the time you don't have all the facts to why a person looks a certain way. What if we could all stop staring and judging, and instead find the courage to walk up and talk to that different person, one human being to another? Now wouldn't that be nice.

Are we really starting Preschool??

I love browsing store aisles this time of year. They are full of the beginnings of "Back to School" supplies. Bright colored pencils and notebooks fill the shelves alongside markers and crayons. I don't know why but it makes me happy and excited. I don't remember shopping for new school supplies as a child. I'm sure there was a list, and my mom got what we needed, but my mother never enjoyed shopping in my youth so it wouldn't have been an exciting trip to the store for new clothes or trendy folders like Lisa Frank... ah how I always wanted a Lisa Frank folder, or notebook, or anything.

Anyway, as you know, I love the $ section at Target. Well those small aisles also have back to school supplies, but geared more towards teachers. I found some Pre-K workbooks, and super cute-educational calendar supplies. I couldn't resist, and having worked in an elementary before, I know that even preschoolers do the day of the week along with the weather each day. So here we are. My big kid three year old and me. Beginning to learn the days of the week each morning during breakfast.

Cute right?!  $5!

So far we've been at it for three days. Babycake has mastered "Today's Weather," as well as tomorrow's. She gets partly cloudy mixed up and says partly sunny, but really who's to say she's wrong on that one? I think the weather forecasts have been so easy for her to pick up b/c we discuss the weather on a daily basis; "no we can't go and swing b/c it's raining," "would you like to go for a bike ride? It's beautiful and sunny out," "what animals or shapes do you see in the clouds?" etc. She loves to put up the weather forecasts as well as the date. We sing the days of the week and she has learned how to say each day, but does not have the order in which they go down. Really I'm not worried about that. There are second graders who don't know the days of the week, so she's fine. We haven't even touched the month area. July is just up there b/c it belongs there, not because we're at that point in learning.

Over the last year we've done some crafts that involved a little bit of tracing. Babycake loves to get into my pens and pencils whenever possible, so I wasn't surprised when she was excited that the workbooks I got involved tracing our letters. On our first day she sat and did 2.5 pages in the workbook. I figure she'll be a great student once she hits school age b/c she will sit and do crafts for hours, and proved with this activity that she'll sit for a good amount of time working in a notebook.

Babycake didn't want to use crayons
 (why use crayons when you have a "big kid" pencil)
so she didn't color in the pictures as instructed, instead she circled them.

Instead of being nervous or overwhelmed that we're doing "school" stuff as I image some parents would be, I'm actually relieved. By doing these activities everyday I won't have to come up with my own plans or lessons like I have been for the last two years. Of course if I wanted to be mother of the year, I would continue to make lessons and crafts to finish our "Letter of the Week" lessons, I mean we only have Xx, Yy, and Zz. But honestly, I think we'll be taking a break. Babycake already knows all her letters, and coming up with crafts, getting supplies ready, and doing it has proved harder now that Buddyboy has come along. I think I'll stick with filling up prep time with nap time for the time being. Once I have this whole parent of two thing figured out I'll get more detailed and elaborate with our lessons. For now workbooks and calendars will do just fine.

Bugs

Children pick up social and behavioral cues from everyone they encounter. With it being summer, all the critters have come out. One of Babycake's best friends however is TERRIFIED of all bugs- large, small, friendly, scary. I believe that because Babycake looks up to her friend so much she has suddenly developed this fear as well, as if out of obligation. (sigh)

So how are we dealing with this sudden and frankly annoying fear of all things creepy crawly? We went to the library! We got lots of books on all the basic bugs we encounter and are reading, crafting, and learning about these creatures. What better way to conquer a fear than to conquer ignorance and learn there is nothing to fear at all?

We read a few books about flies, butterflies, and bugs. She enjoys reading so she liked this and was interested in all the different kinds of creepy crawlies there are. We also have been having a lot of rain this summer, so every time we go outside we find rained out worms. She doesn't like to touch them, but she enjoys finding them and looking at them. So after a couple days of reading, and a lot of rain, we made some worms because at this point we are no longer afraid of worms. (small victories people)

As you can see we have "normal" looking worms... all worms have two eyes duh... and "alien" worms that have one large googelie eye. These were super easy, and Babycake spent hours coming back to make more. All we used were pipe cleaners cut in half, cheerios, and google eyes.

I also happen to frequent the DollarTree and found a great little bug house. We've spent many evenings catching fireflies to put in it. We do let the fireflies out before going in for bed, which was a hard lesson for Babycake to learn our first night since she didn't believe us that the fireflies would be back the next night to play. We have also housed a caterpillar in our little bug house for about a week (and it lived! yay!!).

Finally, Babycake is also learning that bugs outside get to live, where as the bugs inside are executed. When Babycake finds any bug, pretty much anywhere, she rushes to let us know about it and proclaims we must kill it. However, if we are with her and pointing out bugs, she's interested and unafraid. Babycake and I were out a few days ago... one of the rare days it wasn't raining...  and I was able to point out flies, ants, two different types of spiders, and lots of grasshoppers all in the grass of our backyard. She was very excited to see all the different creatures and explore. I was just happy she wasn't running away crying.

After a few weeks of this intentional bug discussion and discovery in our home we've made great progress. Some days we like bugs, others we don't. Some days she can stomp on an ant in the house on her own, but most of the time she runs to Mamma or Daddy. This may just be a thing we'll have to go through the next few summers. (I have my fingers crossed that we don't)

Letter of the week: Vv & Ww

Well a lot has happened in the last few weeks. We welcomed our newest member of the family and bc of this addition, our crafting and structured  learning has been temporarily put on hold. 

A couple days before "Buddyboy" was born Babycake and I worked on the letter Vv. This letter's sound was a bit difficult for her. For some reason she kept wanting to make the F sound. I finally got her to look at my mouth when making the V sound and that did help, though I'm not convinced it will stick.

Our crafts we created for the letter Vv were vegetables, a vase w flowers, a volcano, a vulture, and a violin which also had V's to trace and that was very exciting to trace.

 We then took our letter hiatis for a few weeks and have just gotten back to it with the letter Ww. Our Ww crafts were wings, a watermelon, a wagon, a walrus with whiskers, and a weather wheel. I hope the weather wheel clicks in her head about the different things we see outside being weather and not simply snow, rain, clouds, and sun.

It was so nice to get back to learning and crafting with Babycake. We both had a really great time, and the fact that we did all these crafts in one day says we missed this.

Simple Day Crafts

Today is Mother's Day. My Mother's Day was nearly perfect. I have to admit that with this pregnancy I've never had a perfect day as I have always been in some sort of discomfort or sick. Today was pretty relaxing filled with the simplicity of family togetherness. My husband and daughter finished the final paint touch ups to the baby's room and fixed some parts on the kitchen floor which have been in need of repair for months all while I was sleeping in. <3

After waking I was served a deliciously homemade breakfast and gifts. Afterwards my husband played his guitar and sang while Babycake danced and twirled and I got to watch and enjoy their talents. I would have enjoyed watching the impromptu show for more than the 30 mins Babycake allowed, but she saw that I had set out some craft supplies in the kitchen and insisted we switch our form of entertainment.

Now Babycake and I love to craft together. It's our was of learning and exploring the world. My husband is not a crafter and assumed that we would leave him to his music. Nope! It's Mother's Day, and I wanted Daddy to join in Babycake's love and joy of this form of art. Since Babycake's birthday party, where we had to save toilet paper rolls for a couple months to get the 12 we'd need for an activity, we've kept the the habit of saving  the rolls after the paper is gone. However, I haven't brought up and crafts requiring our growing stock of empty rolls until today. Today I decided we'd make some fun and simple crafts that Babycake will be able to play with for the next couple of days (before I throw the out when she's not looking).

Our first craft, to my husband's unreasonable dismay was a kaleidoscope. I don't know why, but when I told them what we'd be doing he sighed as if thinking I was going to be torturing him, while Babycake cheered, even though I know she had no clue what I was talking about. Anyway...



The materials we used
*toilet paper roll
*construction paper
*crayons, stickers
*glue
*foil
*tape
*beads
*sandwich bag
*rubber band

We cut the construction paper to size and glued it onto the roll and decorated it with stickers. Then we cut the foil to size and taped it inside the roll. Make sure the shiny side is the side you see when looking in the tube. Finally we threw some "pretty" beads into a sandwich bag, placed it over the hole of the roll, secured the bag with the rubber band and cute off the excess of bag.



Our second craft was a kazoo. The hubs, the lover of music, was much more interested in this craft. It could possibly be that he was also surprised by how simple and neat the kaleidoscope was, that he was intrigued to see how the kazoos would turn out.

The materials we used
*toilet paper roll
*crayons, stickers
*push pin
*wax paper
*rubber band




This craft was SUPER simple. We colored the rolls, added stickers, made some holes using the push pin, put a small square of wax paper over one end of roll and secured it with the rubber band.

Both Babycake and my husband had a great time humming into these for the next 15 mins. I was not so good at getting the correct kazoo sound but tried my best and we all had a good giggle.

Letter of the Week: Tt & Uu

While planning Babycake's birthday party as well as taking care of more things not part of our normal routine we took a little hiatus from a formal education routine. Letter Tt crafts spanned about 3 weeks while we just did our Uu crafts today as its a cold morning.

Here are the Tt crafts we made, a tiger, train on tracks, and tree.

Today we also made a tractor.




Our Uu crafts we made this morning: unicycle, Up, underwater, and umbrella.

We went through all the Uu crafts I'd prepared in one morning so I'm hoping to come up with some more to get her to practise/learn what sound Uu makes.

Babycake's Rainbow Birthday Party

This weekend we celebrated Babycake's 3rd birthday. I had a great time planning and setting up the party. It was by far much more than we have done for either of her other birthdays, and my husband asked if all her parties after this are going to be as "extravagant." I responded by explaining that no they will not all be as big a deal as this year, but this is Babycake's last birthday as a single child. I wanted her to feel special. We only have a few weeks left before her world (and ours) will be rocked with the arrival of her baby brother. Because he is such a good man, the hubs quickly agreed in understanding.

My husband and I did most of the set up the night before, so when Babycake awoke and came out of her room the first thing I heard was "Oooooo I like that!" as she spotted the chain links and rainbow sign in the stairway. I then listened as she tiptoed down the stairs to touch the streamers. She then noticed through the streamers that the kitchen had been rearranged and descended the remaining steps to investigate. There was a squeal of glee when she say the streamers and balloons followed by her pitter patter into the living room to see if anything else was different. She found more chain links there as well as another birthday sign. She then scrambled back up stairs to wake my husband and I exclaiming "Momma! Dadda! Come see come see!" She was so excited to show us all the new and colorful decorations. Then as we finished the final preparations through the morning she danced and sang outside the front door awaiting the arrival of her party guests... in her pajamas ;-) We did change into her party outfit before anyone arrived.

Happy Birthday sign I printed out and hung on wall.

A few months ago I asked her what theme she would like and gave her the choice between a Rainbow party and a Frozen party. I honestly expected her to pick Frozen despite the fact I've been secretly researching rainbow party ideas on Pinterest for the last year. I was pleasantly surprised when she chose rainbows over Frozen. I asked her a few more times to choose between the two themes just to make sure she would be happy with the rainbow theme and not melt down that I had done the wrong one the day of. She consistently picked rainbows :-)      

Here are the decorations and party games we did. All supplies were either bought at the DollarTree or on sale at Target. I don't think I spent more than $20 for decor including goodie bags as well as plates and cutlery.

  

Front door welcoming sign,  chain link decor (which Babycake did an excellent job helping to create), Happy Birthday 'Babycake' Rainbow sign in stairway. 

All the kids (and adults) enjoyed walking through a rainbow.

Rainbow colored goodie bags, cupcakes, rainbow jello cups, and ice pops.

The most expensive thing bought was all the food. We had hot dogs and mac and cheese as well as fruit and veggie trays with each color of the rainbow represented. (Strawberries, clementines, bananas, green grapes, blue berries, purple grapes, red bell peppers, carrots, yellow bell peppers, broccoli, and blue corn tortilla chips b/c I couldn't find a decent blue/purple veggie) 

I had three activities prepared for the party, though we only did 2, some kids did 1, and some did none. As with any group, some of the kids liked the games, some didn't, Babycake loved it all and that's all I cared about. I knew that not all the kids would enjoy craft activities but Babycake is all about crafts and loved it all and having the birthday girl love her party is all that matters.

 

When guests first walked in they were greeted by the excited birthday girl, and invited to make a Rainbow necklace. This consisted of yarn, a name tag cut to look like a cloud, and fruit loops. For those kiddos who attempted to make a necklace (including Babycake) it quickly went from stringing the loops on the yarn to just popping them in the mouth :-)

Once all guests had arrived and settled in as much as is possible at a toddlers birthday party, we launched the second activity- a Color Hunt. This Color Hunt consisted of the kiddos walking around the backyard searching for stickers to put in their Color Book. Each page had one color of the rainbow and they needed to find the correct color sticker to put on it. I placed bowls around the yard with signs says "Hooray! You've found (color), good for you! Here are some stickers, take a few." To hunt for these stickers each child had his/her own set of rainbow binoculars. I, along with grandparents, had saved toilet paper rolls over the last month to make little binoculars which I wrapped in construction paper and hung with yarn.

The third activity I had prepared was Rainbow streamers which consisted of ribbons of each color of the rainbow and shower curtain rings. The kids would have been able to run around flying rainbows. However, our party was only 2 hrs long so there wasn't time to do it and that's ok. I think Babycake would have enjoyed it, but she's still just as happy not knowing or having done it. 

I think overall all the kids, family and friends who helped celebrate with us had a good time. I know I did and Babycake was over the moon all day. We are so lucky to have such wonderful people as we do in our lives and we're so thankful they were able to join us in celebrating my big girl.