My New Year’s Resolution

There’s something to be said about a body that grows and births three babies.

I mean, think about it, really…

What starts as the size of a poppy seed eventually exits the body as a breathing, crying, beautiful tiny human. A person that your body made.

How cool is that?!

But three babies later – three beautiful, exhausting, incredible tiny humans later – and this miraculous body is almost foreign to me.

There’s jiggle in places I didn’t even know could jiggle, hips that don’t lie, a stretched-out, droopy belly button, and a flat, non-existent “mom butt.”

I am four months postpartum and struggling to recognize myself in the mirror. At four months postpartum with kids 1 and 2, I was much closer to fitting into all of my clothes. But here I stand as a new-ish mama of three with about four outfit options in my closet. With about ten pounds that refuse to budge and with zero minutes in the day to find time to exercise.

I have been working hard to be patient, to give myself and my body time to find its way back. But it’s hard, y’all. Hard to walk around in a body that feels unfamiliar.

The other night as I got out of the shower I tried to avoid looking at myself in the mirror…but then I caught a glimpse of myself and I saw it.

A new stretch mark to the right of my belly button.

But instead of being upset or ashamed or embarrassed, I thought it was beautiful. The perfect little signature from my third baby, my caboose. The perfect little reminder of what my body has done, the battle it won, the gifts it has given me.

So this January, you won’t find me at the gym with all of the New Year’s resolution gym-goers. You won’t see me agonizing over the food I put into my mouth. You won’t hear about how my goal is to lose X number of pounds.

In this New Year, I resolve to love this body…to respect what it’s been through, what it’s given me, and the mama it allows me to be each and every day.  I will go for a run when I can, I will eat a cupcake when I want one, and I will think of my babies every time I see the shimmer of that stretch mark beside my newly-sagging belly button.

I will try to find the balance between living and loving life, between living in and loving my body. Because in thirty years, I won’t remember the little extra jiggle…but I will remember the days this body gave me my children and the way it allowed me to run around with them in our backyard and roll around with them on the playroom floor.

My New Year’s resolution?  Give this body, these hips, that saggy ol’ belly button some grace.

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Jessie Peele
Jessie is a happy-hour-loving, cupcake-eating, running-obsessed, reality-tv-addicted single mama, currently living in Carrollton, GA. She was born and raised in Columbia, SC, attended Clemson University (Go Tigers!), and taught elementary school for about ten years in Winston Salem, NC. Life brought her to Carrollton in January of 2014, and after four years in Georgia she's still getting used to living in a small town. Jessie was a stay-at-home mama for 3.5 years, but when life took an unexpected turn, she became a divorced mama who found her way back to the classroom. With three kids in tow (Cameron Kate, 7, Everette, 4, and Brooks, 2), she is now a full-time elementary school teacher and a part-time skincare business owner via Rodan + Fields. In the nooks and crannies of her day, she loves running (bonus if it's WITHOUT the stroller!), binge-watching on Netflix, baking and eating anything sweet, drinking a good craft beer/vodka cocktail/cold margarita, and blogging about all things mama-hood on her blog Cupcakes & Running Shoes: http://cupcakesandrunningshoes.blogspot.com/.