The Nut Necklace

“I realized today that I don’t even know when the last time he showered. Ugh. Mom of the year” I mumbled to my mom. I was sitting in my closet, surrounded by a pile of clothes and hangers. I was in the middle of a fat shaming pity party when she called. She asked about Q and I told her he was showering. In the spirit of the pity party, I confessed to my mom that I didn’t know when the last time my child was actually clean. I truly felt like I was a fat crappy mom.

A day or two after that, on December 4th to be exact, I realized we hadn’t started Q’s LEGO advent calendar. Again, mom of the year over here. I busted it out and told Q we were 3 days behind and he could open doors 1-4. Y’all on day f*ing 5 I remembered that the point of the advent calendar is to count DOWN to Christmas…well this mom of the year has her child counting up. Ugh.

On December 3rd, I was making the 2 hour drive home from Huntsville. I’m blaring my 2000s rap and in an effort to get comfy I lifted my left leg up in the seat. A few minutes later I dropped the lid to my Diet Coke. It felt funny when it hit my lap so I looked down and saw a huge a$$ hole. At some point, my fat legs ripped my “fat” jeans and since I was drowning Q’s YouTube kiddie stuff out with Kanye’s Gold Digger, I didn’t even hear them rip. Cue the fat shaming pity party.

The next day, when I picked Q up from school, he told me he had a prize for me. He proudly held up this large brown walnut. He said it was a treasure that he found on the playground and tucked it into his pocket. We ventured over to my dad’s shop and Q showed off his treasure again. While I was up front, Q asked my dad to help him make the nut into a necklace. Poppy, the new necklace maker in town, was able to help him out and whipped up a nice nut necklace which Q insisted I wear.

The next morning, Q and I were getting ready to leave for the day and he saw the necklace on the counter. He grabbed it and said “momma, don’t forget your pretty necklace. You’ll need it in case you miss me.” (We would be spending the night apart so I could go back to Huntsville to visit my new nephew.) Once I got Q to school, we were talking to his teacher and he was telling her to look at my necklace. Q said “I gave it to my mom because she is pretty and nice to me.”

You guys! It took everything I had not to fall to the floor right there in the school lobby and ball like a baby. For the past week I had been mom & fat shaming myself but Q didn’t see any of the negative things I saw. I saw a fat girl who ripped her pants with bags under eyes. He saw his “pretty” momma. I saw a bad mom who didn’t do parenting by the Pinterest bible this week. Q saw his momma being nice to him.

As much as I want to say that I’ll never fat or mom shame myself again, I know that’s not true. But for now, those sweet words will keep me away from the pity party for a bit and if I find myself slipping, I’ll wear my nut necklace to remind myself that I’m being too hard on myself.

I think all moms do this. Maybe not fat shame, but definitely mom shame themselves. We all need to be better about looking for the best and forgetting the negative. Kids perception, thankfully, is totally different from ours and most of the time their perspective is 100x better! Next time you find yourself at a pity party, look at your child’s smile and remember that the cake at the self love party is MUCH better.

If you see me sporting a walnut on silver wire, just know, I’m not trying to make a fashion statement, I’m just trying to RSVP no to the pity party.

PS: I typically type my posts on a computer in silence. Tonight, I’m being lazy and doing things from my phone, in my bed, catching up on Dr.Phil…so excuse any formatting issues and spelling problems.