3 Tiny Stories

We all have a story…or lots of tiny stories swimming around in our brains, waiting to be told. Here are a few of mine—they’re embarrassing, ridiculous, and a little awkward.

Don’t Say Nipple

One of our kids learned the words “mole” and “nipple” at relatively the same time. I only know this because the child would squirm onto my lap and push the mole on my forehead, whispering, “Nipple,” approximately 2 cm from my face, squinting at it to get a better look.

Those kinds of incidents are so funny when they happen in the privacy of your own home. But the level of parenting embarrassment reaches an all-time high when you’re surrounded by a crowd of strangers.  

One time we were in a coffee shop, and that sweet child of mine stretched a pudgy little finger toward my face and shouted, “Momma! MOM-MAAAAAA!! I can see your NIPPLE!” Strangers either turned and laughed or pretended they didn’t hear. Blessings to both. 

Being a parent of toddlers is equal parts gratifying, exhausting, and exasperating, with a dash of embarrassing. 

I’m A Criminal

My parents owned a restaurant for 25 years, and in 1995, when I was in 5th grade, they had had a string of break-ins. Like three in a matter of months. It was a lot.

After one of those break-ins, the cops called my dad to give him the details because we were on vacation, visiting my grandparents in Florida at the time.

The glass on the back door was smashed. Cash was stolen. Nothing else was taken. But there was something strange this time.

The cop said the thieves were showing a sense of humor. They left a ransom note in the office, written to one of our employees. It said:

Dear Bob,
Give us $5000000000000000000, or elses [sic].
-The Robbers

They were dusting the typewriter for prints. 

My dad started laughing. The note wasn’t from the thief. It was from his kids. 

My siblings and I had written Bob that note right before we left for our trip to Florida. I remember watching my brother hold down the 0 button as the typewriter made machine-gun clicks with each number it stamped. (Using the word “typewriter” in a story about my childhood makes me feel like I’m 100-year-old Rose in Titanic.)

When we accidentally typed “else” with an extra “s”, we debated whether or not to fix our mistake. But we ultimately decided the extra “s” made the ransom note sound more unhinged and a little intimidating, like it was written by a serial killer with no regard for proper grammar and spelling. Then we grabbed a hot pink highlighter on the office desk and colored the last two words for extra emphasis. We wanted Bob to be scared for his LIFE!! (We were in elementary school, you guys. We weren’t super advanced in the art of intimidation.) 

But I remember feeling incredibly guilty that night because I was convinced Bob would believe our note was real and that someone was really threatening him and that he’d be worried sick because where would he ever find that much money to appease the robbers?!? Apparently, I’ve always been a naive and sensitive soul.

But, WHAT ARE THE CHANCES we’d actually be robbed the night we left the ransom note?! (I mean, I guess if we were robbed three times in just a few months, it wasn’t all that surprising. But still…)

I’m always amazed when coincidences like that happen–the timing of events line up so perfectly that it blows you away, and you wonder, “What are the chances?”

My Tummy Tuck

I was four weeks postpartum when I bumped into an old classmate. A local church was having an Easter egg hunt at a nearby park, so we brought the kids and watched chaos ensue with a horde of kids and parents searching the premise for candy-filled eggs. 

I use the word “search” loosely because the plastic containers were dropped in plain sight, tossed by the bucketful onto the freshly mowed grass. 

After the egg hunt, I chatted with another mom. We had gone to school together, and almost two decades had passed since I’d seen her last. 

We talked about our kids and their ages and what we’ve been up to for the past 20 years.  My husband was holding our one-month-old, and I was keeping an eye on our toddler as he raced around the playground. I pointed to our two kids, and the mom said I looked great for just having a baby. She said she was surprised I didn’t still have a belly.

Which made me feel both weirdly proud and incredibly self-conscious because why is everyone always looking at our bellies?! So I made an awkward comment about how my belly is definitely still there, it’s just, you know, tucked in, gesturing toward the corset that was smooshing my belly flab and postpartum squishiness into place.

And then she made a random comment about how she always wanted a tummy tuck too. But it was too expensive, and she’d never be able to afford one. 

And I thought, Well, that was weird. I wonder why she said she wanted a tummy tuck too. But I laughed and said, “Yeah…” like I knew what she meant and was somehow in a knowing agreement. 

And as she walked away, it hit me. When I said my belly was tucked in…like tucked into my super tight girdle and spandex because I was still recovering from a c-section and my scar was healing and my mommy pouch was uncomfortably poofy…I really meant it was TUCKED in. My girdle was working magic, you guys. Absolute magic. I had gained 50 pounds during that pregnancy, and the weight absolutely did not disappear in the first month after delivery. 

But it was too late to correct the misunderstanding. Because she had confided in me that she wanted a tummy tuck. And I couldn’t go back and make an already uncomfortable conversation more uncomfortable by trying to fix it. So here I am, just living with the knowledge that someone out in the world thinks I have the means to surgically remove the belly fat from my postpartum mom-bod. I’m living a LIE, you guys!

This is not a sponsored post–I am just a genuinely happy customer. If you just had a baby, and you want the illusion of a tummy tuck, you need to get a Bellefit Postpartum Girdle Corset. It works wonders.