Oh...the dreaded swimsuit season

Oh how I dread swimsuit season. Especially this first season after I've had a baby in the last nine months. Especially when I still have about 18 pounds to lose to get back to where I really want to be. (I TOLD you I was going to be transparent.) Slowly but surely, the weight is coming off but definitely not as fast as I'd like. All of the orange juice I drank and snacks I had to eat while being pregnant as a type I diabetic (even though most of them were really healthy) added up and helped me...should I say...blossom with a nice pregnant body. And after a thyroid problem at about four months postpartum...it's been a journey getting the scale back down to where it is. But again...slowly but surely, I'm getting there.

So, we just joined a neighborhood pool in Wichita Falls that I'm super-excited about going to this summer. It's a membership-only place that's really family friendly. You even bring your meat to grill and the side-dishes on Tuesday nights and the pool provides all the trimmings. You eat family-style with everyone else there. (For all you WF peeps, it's Fain Pool. Check out the site at www.fainpool.org).

However, this means I have to wear a bathing suit.

Now, I don't know about you, but I put bathing suit shopping up there on the list with jean shopping, trips to Wal-Mart (which I've started to avoid AT ALL COSTS), getting bit by fire ants, and childbirth (and I pushed for over two hours, folks).

Ben, Grant, and I were at Academy a couple of nights ago looking for some toys for Grant and a new swimsuit for Ben as he's training for a few sprint triathlons. (Yes...he's a man of many talents. But yes...he's taken, ladies.) So I thought I'd try on a bathing suit or two. And then I had a flashback of a couple of years ago...trying on a bathing suit in the SAME dressing room at the SAME Academy. Here goes:

I saw a cute little bathing suit (tankini with bikini bottoms) that I decided to try on. Put it on, looked in the mirror, tried sucking in a little, and decided that there must be bad lighting in that particular dressing room. I decided to ask the HORRIBLE question that we women ask our husbands...


"Babe...does this bathing suit make me look fat?" I ask.


"No, babe. But sometimes, when we look in the mirror, it's what we really look like..." he says.


"UM...WHAT?!" I calmly ask.


"No, no...you took that the wrong way. I mean, we gotta be okay with ourselves the way we are," he says.


"UM...uh huh. I think I'm not buying this bathing suit," I calmly and lovingly say.


Where I KNOW, without a doubt, that my husband was not saying I was fat or trying to make me feel bad, that story has become quite infamous amongst our friends. He meant well. I did learn, however, to not ask that question in a bathing suit again.

So, flash forward to this week. I tried on the bathing suit at Academy...and I actually looked okay. And Ben made up for his previous remarks and told me I looked great. Hmmm...I actually got a little boost of confidence in the dressing room, even though I am 18 pounds from where I want to be, while in a BATHING SUIT.

So...maybe Ben is right. Maybe we "gotta be okay with ourselves the way we are." I did earn every stretch mark I own, right? And I've got the most precious little boy to prove it.

But that question is now off-limits in the Hoover household. And will NEVER be asked again. I'm all about honesty and transparency...unless I'm in a bathing suit.