Throw off the baggage and lift me up!

A few days ago I posted a photo on Instagram and Facebook of me lifting my daughter up with the following caption:

Reason #1 for being fit right here! Being able to play with my daughter! Throw her in the air!make her feel as light as a feather! 

It is so important for me to be able to pick her up and cuddle her as long as she wants to. When i was 5 my dad told me i was "too heavy" to be picked up. I wasnt. I was never overweight as a child. But that was my first memory of being ashamed of my body. I never want her to feel that. So its up to me to be strong enough.  

She scraped her knee, somebody hurt her feelings, or is just tired? Mommas gunna pick you up and give you a big hug. 

Follow me @ddpuff

When I posted this on my Facebook page, with the same caption - I got some flack. And that's been bothering me since.. 

Now I want to be clear on a couple things:

1. I don't plan on walking around with her on my hip all the time like I do now. I can already tell she is an independent child. And I know there will be a time (quicker than I want) where she isn't going to want to be hugged by me. So if she is upset and asks to be picked up and hugged, or scraped her knee and wants to cuddle, or wants to be thrown into the pool - I cannot think of a single reason why I wouldn't want to do that for her.
2. This was not an attack on ANYBODY. It was not an attack on my dad, my mom, my cousin, my friend. If you dont pick up your own kids that is fine - you are their parent. Not me. 
3. This is MY issue. We all have baggage from our childhood that we take into our parenting roles. Some people will never spank, because they were spanked too often. Some people demand kids make the bed, because their house growing up was a sty. Baggage comes in all kinds of different sizes and shapes. 

The biggest part that bothered me about the comments - was that it felt like justification for their own actions (#2) and they also felt a bit like the underlying statement was "oh just watch, you'll fail". And that never fails to get my back up. 

But thanks to those comments, I've been able to think a bit more - go beyond the surface of this goal of mine, and think about why its so important to me. (and any good goal setter knows that having a why behind your goals will push you to succeed)

For as long as I can remember being picked up has been a fantasy of mine. The white knight picking up the princess and sweeping her away. When I was a teen it was a handsome boy who would carry me in his arms all sexy like - hell that still plays, except now its Thor, but I digress. 

For so many years I was told I was too heavy to be picked up. My parents both did, my skinny boyfriend when I was a teen did (he also told me I should eat low fat sourcream, because I'll get fat from full fat sourcream. clearly I am better off). These important people in my life all telling me I was too heavy. And this small statement reverberated through me. Something so innocuous, never meant in malice, became a part of my baggage, because I believed it.

Then came my husband. There is no such thing as too heavy for my husband, at least when it comes to me. At my heaviest (that's 220 lbs!!!) he could still pick me up and carry me. But the belief of being too heavy was a hard thing to shed. He's been picking me up and putting me down for 9 years now - and I'm just starting to feel the burden of that issue leave my shoulders. 

So now I am a parent, thinking about all of the things I want to do for and with my daughter, the baggage I want to avoid giving her (#3). And one of the things that has been a steady goal of mine, since I found out I was having a daughter, was to give her a positive self image. I new a big part of that would be to show her I had pride in my own body, but I also knew I would have to watch the statements I said about my body, other women, her body and weight, etc. We already know girls face an inordinate amount of outside influence saying their body isn't good enough. I view it as my job to counter that. 

Since being picked up carries such baggage and underlying meaning for me- I want to make sure that it doesn't for her, and to me - that means I pick her up if she needs it. I know it wont be forever. I'm not going to be walking around with a 13 year old on my hip. But while shes young enough to want it, and innocent enough to still ask for it - I will be there to try my hardest to do comply. 

If my husband can pick my 220 lb ass up, why can I not pick up a 30, 40, 50 or even 70 lb child up? Why can I not make it a priority to be strong enough to do so? I can pick up my 90 lb dog and cuddle with him on the couch, so why in the hell would I not do that with my own daughter when she needs the love? 

So in the end, thanks to the comments for making me think this through harder - to see my own issue, because now that I have seen it for what it is, I can start making sure it is dealt with, off my shoulders, and remains off. And it showed me a great "why", so I can follow through on this goal years down the road. 

Me picking up my niece when she was 10 years old and i was at my most unfit!
See it's very realistic to me!