Big Mama & Fat Mama

Remember this post about how Big Guy couldn't decide what to call us? Well, I just remembered I hadn't shared here about his most recent idea of what to call us. A few days before he went to the hospital, he asked me, completely seriously... "Can I call you Big Mama and Fat Mama?" He wasn't joking, nor was he attempting to be offensive. I burst out laughing. No, honey, you cannot call us Big Mama & Fat Mama.

I asked him which one of us would be which, but he couldn't decide. And I'll readily admit, after all, we are both big and fat.

One of Big Guy's biggest obsessions when he was first with us was talking about how we were fat. We taught him the word chubby, which he didn't know (he's 9 but has a very limited vocabulary for a child of his age and intelligence level). We tried to teach him that fat is not a bad word, just like gay (another word he used as a pejorative) is not a bad word. It's just an observation, and though we shouldn't tell someone they're fat because it might hurt their feelings, it's not really an insult. We made it clear it doesn't hurt our feelings and that we're comfortable talking about the fact that we're fat and he's skinny, which is a topic of serious fascination to him. He loves science so we've talked about what calories are, why peoples' bodies are different, etc. Sometimes it's just as simple as saying "G-d makes people with all different kinds of bodies, isn't that cool?" Other times he wants a science-based explanation of why he's not fat. Good thing I'm in the healthcare field!

Signing off,

Big Fat Mama