Fat Mom

Last night I took a bath with Pepper and Beckam.
The rest of the house, dark.  All lights off except the bathroom, there in the nucleus of the house.
I soak, nestled with my little ones.
From the bath mat Beckam looks up, grins and bicycles.
Pepper stands above him grinning as if she made him all on her own.
"I gotta go pee," she whispers to herself.
And she gets busy with the ritual.  She even empties the tiny toilet into the big toilet.  Rinses out the cup and puts it back.
"I need tah-lit pay-per."
Which she delicately unrolls from one end of the floor to the other.  Then she looks up at me through her bangs and asks,
"Okay?"
"Okay Pep,"  I reply and smile.  She smiles back because I understand.  Which actually I don't.  I only know it is an important process because of how gently she goes about it.

I stand up from the water and feel my weight come back to me.
The water level instantly drops 6 inches.
I used to watch my mom do this, and her breasts sag.
Mom is fat, she'd tell me.
Oh, I thought, that must be why the water goes down when she gets out.
Because she takes up so much space.
My Mom had 6 kids in 10 years.  I am the oldest.
My siblings taught me how to want goodness for someone else.
I'd give them the first turn, the bigger piece...the last piece.

Now I am in the mirror, sanding the callouses off my feet.
My nursing breast joggles back and forth.  It is not pretty.
Fat Mom.  My conditioning says.  Then I look again.
I am my Mom.
And I almost cry, because she had no one to tell her,
'You're not fat.  You are beautiful.  You are healthy.  Look at all you do.  Look at the lives your body has made.  You have so much to be proud of.'
I didn't tell her.  I wish I could have known.
I would have thanked her at every bath.  Every time she got dressed and lifted her saggy nursing boob up to put it into her bra. Because now I do that.

I smile at myself in the mirror.
The smile of a mother.