Posts tagged " pregnacy "

On the “Mothers’ Tan”

June 27th, 2016 Posted by Tabula Rasa No Comment yet

I’m not sure whether it was here or in my mind, that I went on a crusade about post-baby beach body shame. Whatever the case, my conclusion was that there should be no shame, and that we should all flaunt our imperfections all over the beaches of the world, while having fun with our kids.

I did not practice what I preached.

Until today.

It was not because I came to terms with the new shape that hosts the same person, but because it was week two of summer vacation and I’d run out of fun indoor activities 13 days ago. And the “let them be bored” doctrine was failing, simply because I was also bored. I discovered that spending a few hours at the beach with an over-active three-year-old, is very different to the good old days, where I just strapped baby in his car seat and came back whenever it was feeding time. Usually less than an hour later.

Today, I packed extra bathing suits, towels, change of clothes, healthy snacks, snacks demanded by three-year-old, beach towels, sunscreen for him, sunscreen for me, shovels, rakes, dump trucks, and other plastic parapharnalia, water, a hat, and a floater, car keys, house keys, and wallet, all while taking out the rest of the toys he was stuffing in the beach bag.

After 30 minutes of are we there yet and mommy, look a truck, we finally stepped in the sand. Before I had a chance to take my shoes off, he was in the water. I pulled him out, undressed him, sprayed sunscreen in random places while trying to pin him down, threw off my clothes and ran into the sea behind him, floaters in hand.
For two hours, I sat waist-deep in lukewarm shore water while he jumped and splashed around me, made sandcastles, succumbed to the eating of unhealthy snacks, and finally walked in and out of the sea, from shore to a rough 15 meters and back, countless times.

I don’t remember the last time I saw him this happy. I also don’t remember when the last time I went swimming without applying sunscreen. I’m Russian, and as white as it gets, I used to go through bottles every summer. There is no time for sunscreen, let alone post-baby body shame. You just throw off those clothes and go.

In the car home, I felt my upper back stinging. He snored in his seat, hair already blonder, it’s texture that beach-bum mess that we all spend hundreds of dollars on hair products trying to achieve. Years ago, I’d asked one of my friends who had kids earlier than me, why she didn’t lay out on her back at all. The front of her body and her legs where constantly white, while her back a perfect brown, minus the then-abhorred bathing suit tan line. I had not yet become acquainted with the mothers’ tan.

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