Friday, July 25, 2008

No, that is not a baby!

I teach a kindergarten class Mondays, Wednesdays and Fridays. There is a little girl Zoey who like the pat my stomach and always asks if it is a baby. Sometimes I tell her yes and sometimes I tell her no...mostly NO! For crying out loud, I am not pregnant and have never been with anyone. But bless her heart, she thinks there is a baby in there and maybe to her if she touches it, the baby might kick. It is really quite cute. If you think about it, she probably has had a little brother or sister on their way in her family. I cannot really get mad at her. How, when everyone here is pretty skinny, can she know the difference between just being fat and being pregnant.

I just don't want kids touching my stomach because it serves as a reminded that I am getting pretty fat. Oh! believe me I know...I checked the scale just yesterday!

Maybe I have a "sympathy" stomach per se; maybe I wish I had a husband and a baby on the way. But then again I would have had to had the wish for a while because one summer ago I worked for a couple of days at my old work before I went on my internship and a co-worker there came up to me. He asked, "When are you due?" ACK!!

"NO, I am just fat." I replied with a quick quip remark. You could just see his face drop and any words forthcoming were silenced in horror. Neither did I have for a few seconds. He muttered, "I thought that because of the kind of shirt you were wearing..." Geez...poor guy. Probably scarred him for the rest of the day.

But what a social faux pa, but oh well. I don't blame the kids here.

Also this week I subbed for the morning kindergarten class and even more kids said, "baby?" as they patted my stomach. "NO, that is not a baby!" How embarrassing, but what I can expect when I am fat. *oh yes, I have seen pictures.*

I just need to do something about it. I will start by eating less and then slowly adding exercise.

Also I think it might be due to something I started doing last October after my then boyfriend broke up with me. I had a mind set of, "well, if he doesn't like me for who I am, then why not be ugly and when someone does finally like me I will know it was for me and not my body or pure physical-ness." To tell the truth, that is the same reason I cut my hair. If I looked like a boy, no one would even look at me as "potential".

But I need to get in shape for myself and my health. I am not careful, I could slip into diabetes, which runs in my family. I kinda want to stick around for a while. ;)

So, I best go to work and make a positive change!

1 comment:

becca said...

hey Erin! It's Becca C. from the Russian House... looong ago, I know! It's so exciting that you're in Taiwan! Live it up girl! In the best way possible of course :) Your post reminded me of when I lived in Nicaragua and everyone would pat each other's stomachs as a greeting... drove me nuts, especially when middle -aged men would do it. Talk about an invasion of personal space =P
Take care!!