Dear Tootie,

you're the size of a lemon! I just thought you should know.

I've been very tired this week. My body must be knitting together some really important/complicated part of you right now. Something is sure wearing me out.

I just wanted to let you know that, although there are some exceptions, I have been trying to eat as well as possible lately. For the first three months, I just ate whatever I could stomach. This diet generally consisted of Chick Fil-A biscuits, tater tots, and relatively bland pasta. Now that my stomach is less picky, I'm trying harder to stick to organic and farmers' market foods. You seem to be responding well to the Trader Joe's yogurt.

I feel that I should apologize in advance for what a "mean Mom" I'm going to be when it comes to food. I have pretty strong ideas about where my food comes from (those 3 months notwithstanding), and I am going to want to make sure you're eating the best things we can find. This means that, someday, you're probably going to complain to your friends about how horrible your parents are because they won't take you to McDonald's. It may not make sense at the time, but there are several reasons that I will be loathe to feed you fast food. I don't want to support a lot of the industries involved in making that sort of food, and I also don't want to squander our money when we can honestly cook at home for less money.

Mostly, though, I don't want to jeopardize your health. I'll tell you more about it when you're older, but I ought to tell you that I struggled with my weight for a lot of my early life. My excess weight robbed me of my self esteem (for many years, anyway), and it kept me from having a lot of the experiences that young people look forward to. I do NOT want this life for you. So please cut me some slack when I force you to go outside and play. Forgive me when I don't give you a ton of treats. Don't get too angry when I say that certain restaurants are only for special occasions. I may go overboard, but I promise you, it comes from a place of love.

Love,
Mom

14 weeks, 2 days in the oven