Remind me to check my facts before I start my journalistic career.

Fact #1: I weighed 136 pounds on my bathroom scale the week after my baby girl was born.

Fact#2: I weighed 154 pounds on my bathroom scale yesterday.

Fact #3:(this is the one that I slipped up on) At some point between the birth of my daughter and yesterday, someone, and I’m not naming names (I’m almost positive it was my makulit little 2-year-old boy) changed the calibration of my bathroom scale to start at 10 instead of 0.

Please don’t call me an idiot to my face. Say what you want behind my back, though. I deserve it. I know I shouldn’t be so wrapped up in body image. I had thought I had it all under control, back before I got pregnant the 3rd time. I thought I had such a progressive view: “I don’t need to be a certain weight or size, as long as I’m healthy and feel good.” Then I gained some weight and girth, and suddenly I feel like nobody should like me, like my husband will want to leave me, like I can’t be seen in public. I realize now that the reason I felt fine about my image back then was because I was skinny, healthy, and I could run 10 or 12 miles whenever I wanted. The running part is more of a bragging rights sort of thing, but you can’t deny that a person who can run 10 miles nonstop has got to be in some sort of good shape.

So the point is that I still care too much about weight, and that my self-worth is tied up in this. I know this sort of behavior is passed on to children, so I hope I can cure myself before my kids start caring about their appearance. And I don’t mean whether to wear the Superman socks or paint the toenails pink.