An Open Letter To My Mommy Pooch

We need to talk.

Let me begin by asking you, very kindly, Mommy Pooch: why are you still here?

If you recall, your stay upon my person was supposed to be temporary. Remember? We were both there when the doctor said that you would probably vacate the premises within a year of having the baby. She even used your full name, so you know she meant business, Mommy Pooch — or should I say, Diastasis Recti!

You scoundrel, you.

Now, I don’t want to get pedantic with you, MP, but I will politely point out that our conversation with the Doc was more than a year ago. In fact, our baby is almost eighteen months old, so, kindly explain to me why you’ve chosen to take an extended stay? After all, I’ve been more than generous. I’ve allowed you to stay, stubbornly fixed upon my midsection, rent free, and to be frank: you just don’t carry your share of the workload around here.

Then there was our unsuccessful bout with physiotherapy, MP. Do you remember how you duped the therapist into thinking that all was going well? I do. I don’t know how you did it, you lovable little scamp, but you slipped into hiding right when I needed you to show yourself. Months of devoted physiotherapy led to nothing but broken dreams, MP. You let me down.

You know what else? I lost a whole mess of weight — fifty pounds! This, I was explicitly told, would lessen the degree of pooch and yet, again, my efforts were thwarted! By you! I watched my body slim down, and I gleefully slithered back into my skinny jeans with ease. I exhumed too-small clothing from the catacombs of my closet that I’d forgotten about completely, and slipped comfortably into those, as well.

By the way, I read that the 90's are making a comeback — thank goodness: I still have some signature pieces in my wardrobe circa 1998! I only wish I knew what happened to my old purple Doc Martens, but alas, even my feet got bigger when I was pregnant; yet another permanent body change that has me more than a little disappointed. But that, MP, is an open letter for another day, to a different addressee.

This letter is about you, MP. You see, I lost all that weight, and you are still here, somehow, protruding rudely and directly out from my otherwise slim middle. I want to make one thing clear, here: I had no silly expectations about my post-baby body. I promise. I am, after all, no fitness guru (although, my next open letter might just be to those social media fitness moms; the ones who claim to be struggling with their postpartum bodies, captioning their woes in a professionally posed photo in which they casually drape their marvelous, bikini clad figures over a sandy beach at sunset. “Struggles,” they say. You know, I believe I will send them a strongly worded letter!)

I knew what to expect with motherhood, to some degree, and I can live with the loose skin and stretch marks — those, you see, are my battle wounds. I admire them because they are a subtle reminder, MP; a reminder of my beautiful experiences as a sweaty, puffy, pregnant beluga whale — er, Warrior Goddess. I can also appreciate that, after two toddler-sized babies waltzed out of my nether regions, I have to be extra careful when I sneeze — but I can accept these particular plights. I happily sacrificed my crop top-wearing days to bring babies into the world, and I’d do it again and again, if necessary.

But, you! You absolute cad! You scallywag!! (I should have lived in a different era altogether; my insult game is superb.)

You are no longer welcome, MP. Did I mention that I am tired of gently correcting people who congratulate me on my pregnancy, and seeing their faces fall as I tell them that no; I’m not expecting, that’s just my weirdly-shaped squatter sticking out in an ill-devised attempt to confuse and mortify the masses? You’re the epitome of an unwelcome, disappointingly non-psychic Kuato, MP, and it’s not a good look.

Hey, you know what? You know those fitness moms I mentioned? Why don’t you take up residence with one of them, and help them build their social media audience? I think that would make us all so much happier, MP, especially since I have a sneaky suspicion that those foxy fitness moms would be able to obliterate you into dust with a single, collagen-laced, kale smoothie. It’s just an idea, though.

And, why the deuce do you hide in the mornings, making me think I’ve made some progress on the mom-bod front, MP? Everything is fine and dandy until I eat a solitary grape and you suddenly pop out like an inflating balloon. I’m not a health nut, but I’m fairly certain that we both need food to live, so not eating isn’t a logical solution to our little conundrum, here.

MP…I’ll level with you for a second. I’ll give you, at least, some credit, where credit is due: I admit that, if it weren’t for you, I would never have experienced the joys of motherhood. Without your incredible propensity to expand to astronomical dimensions while you housed my beautiful baby Hulks, I wouldn’t have been able to create and give birth to the cuddly little beasts in the first place. So, for giving them the room to wriggle around like over-sized tapeworms, I thank you.

But your stay is quickly coming to a close, MP. With the knowledge I continue to pick up from the internet as my spear, my stubborn resolve as my shield, and God as my witness, I will defeat you.

And if not, MP, so help me, I will smother you in the tightest confines of Spanx you’ve ever come across in your pitiable life. So there.