The Kittens are 4!!!

I can't believe it's been a year since I posted Mama Kitty's birth story (http://daisytosunflower.blogspot.com/2012/09/our-kitty-babies-are-3.html). We're celebrating the kittens' birthday on Friday with a can of tuna and some extra hugs. Happy birthday Ava and. Lucy!

Love and Comfort II

What seems like a long time ago, I wrote about the fuzzy feeling you get when you fall in love and what happens to it after a while: it turns into comfort based on trust for your partner.
That trust has sustained Shawn and I through many years (6 years next month) and through my very puke-y pregnancy with Bernice. Now that she is here, I find myself uncomfortable in a vague sort of way. Like I felt long ago when my body first started to change in 6th grade.

I'm too hard on myself once again. Even though I am doing my best to get some kind of familiar shape back I know my body will never be the same. Even though I fit in a lot of my pants again I have the loose mommy-tummy skin from being stretched to the stretch-mark point for almost a year. I don't know what I expected before I had Bernice and I don't know what I expect of myself now but whatever it is, I'm not meeting my own subconscious expectations.

It makes being anything but cuddly with Shawn kind of difficult. No matter how much he reassures me that he thinks I am beautiful, I just don't feel that way about myself. In my mind he deserves a woman that looks much better than I do with no clothes on. He doesn't know I feel this way precisely... although he will after he reads it today. I know he can probably guess that something is wrong from the lack of eye contact and vehemence, and that something is Me.

I'm uncomfortable with myself right now, whether I "look good" or whether everyone including my pre-pregnancy sized pants are lying to me (which is doubtful). That is what I must focus on changing. Not my waistline, not the way I dress, not my hair. ME. I want to be comfortable with myself again so that I can be a good body-image role model to Bernice and a good, happy wife to my husband.

At least it's good to know after thinking about this that the only thing that has changed the feeling of comfort in our relationship is Me. And I have the power to fix it. Now to find the strength...