From Kegels to Warts to Pee in a Quart

It all started with a tinkle of pee dripping down my thigh. I first leaked mid-Jumping Jack during a kickboxing class. It was a couple of years after my second baby was born and I was finally feeling motivated to whip my tired, sagging, post-pregnancy body back into shape. But now damp and horrified that I was suddenly incontinent, I stopped jumping and dashed into the ladies’ room to dry off.

“Practice your kegels, ladies!” I remember my pre-natal yoga instructor barking at us. I occasionally would squeeze one in as I sat on the subway or the toilet. But I wasn’t kegel committed. Now I was paying the price.

If pooping on the table at delivery isn’t embarrassing enough, peeing on yourself during any bounce or jolt may be the ultimate penance of childbirth. But this was just the beginning of the traumatic changes that send shockwaves and irreversible damage throughout my body – a change that few of us realize may last forever.

My friend Johanna, mom of two, told me last month, without a hint of embarrassment, that she has Plantar Warts on the soles of her feet from pregnancy that must be painfully removed. “My podiatrist tells me that she sees tons of pregnant and post-partum moms with warts,” Johanna said matter-of-factly.

From worry warts to Plantar Warts, for moms where will the humiliation and toll of motherhood end?

One day while walking, I felt a surge of pain that I self-diagnosed as a pulled muscle shooting electrical sparks from my right butt cheek down through my leg. I thought it was random and arbitrary, only to later learn that it’s sciatica, courtesy of my second born.

Don’t even get me started about my varicose and spider veins that my dermatologist reassuringly promised he could magically zap away after I was done having kids. What he didn’t tell me was that the cost to be de-veined could put my child through a semester of pre-school. Needless to say, my legs continue to be webbed and expanding in their geometric designs at an alarmingly fast pace.

And then there are the skin tags and other growths that sadly are neither covered by insurance nor my Laura Mercier concealer.

My once perky breasts have been dragged down by gravity and literally had the life sucked out of them by my babies’ hungry mouths. And my once lovely tush, well, that too doesn’t have the spunk and lift that in high school made it legendary. And finally, we ladies who gave birth the old fashioned way, know that life down there is just not the same.

So seven years later, I can tell you that the body never fully regains its pizzazz after birthing babies. Unless that is you’re Kate Gosselin, who defies all rules of motherhood and laws of physics, with her white bikini clad bod on the cover of People magazine this month. Apparently, this mother of eight Gosselites is more taut than ever before. We know she’s had some help with a highly publicized pro bono tummy tuck captured on her once titillating TLC series “Jon and Kate Plus Eight.” And celeb watchers have also outted her chest as most likely to have been enhanced. There was also the Botox crisis that sent her eyebrows spiking in various directions... but who is keeping score?

So while the rest of us are plagued with Plantar Warts and muffin tops that won’t disappear no matter how many crunches we do, here is Kate – another touched-up magazine cover story of an unflawed celebrity mom.

“I got this body from running” she told People, all pearly smiles and highlighted hair. As perfect as she looks on the cover, I’m betting that she has pee dripping down her leg when she runs.

Snack Food Nation: Why Our Kids are Getting Fatter

"I love your ponytail. It’s so silky and lovely,” my 7-year-old daughter Lexi cooed to her Malibu Barbie, in the voice of Malibu’s brunette BFF Jasmine. “Thank you. Is it snack time yet?” Malibu responded.

Apparently, even Barbie dolls need to nosh.

But snack time is not just child’s play. Now I’m not an epidemiologist or a pediatrician, but I am a mom who spends an inordinate amount of time both giving into and fending off snack requests from my kids. Now that September’s National Childhood Obesity Awareness Month has comes to an end, http://www.whitehouse.gov/the-press-office/2010/09/01/presidential-proclamation-national-childhood-obesity-awareness-month I think, we parents, need to collectively wage war against too many snacks.

My hunch is that our overweight nation full of overstuffed kids starts with snacks and begins with babies.

We are all guilty of thrusting a bottle or nipple into the mouth of a crying infant who has already eaten. We then use food as bribes to appease the whining and cranky toddler. From cleverly packaged organic cookies to crisp 100 Calorie chips, we offer snacks as distraction and entertainment. Desperate parents whip out the snack bag to prevent meltdowns on errand expeditions or to occupy the bored child or just simply because it’s easy.

I confess that in my house it started with Veggie Booty – or as we referred to it, Kale Crack for kids. As we hustled endlessly from car to stroller to name-that-enrichment-class, my toddlers were always packing a snack. Granted, most were “healthy,” but still they didn’t go anywhere without a stash of some thing crunchy.

And then there was the sippy cup – their cigarette. A diluted apple juice addiction that soothed them as soon as they gripped the handles As they got older, they moved on to the juice box – 6 ounces of fruit flavored heroin housed in a plastic coated box complete with precious straw. They chased the coveted juice box with abandon. So my bribe often started with something like, “if you’re good while I grocery shop, you’ll get a juice box!”

Recently, CBS Evening News’ Katie Couric tweeted that 50 percent of all 3 to 6-year-old girls think they are fat. Some may blame this statistic on the warped images little girls have of themselves from watching the iCarlys and Mileys on TV. But shockingly today, about one in three American kids and teens is overweight or obese, nearly triple the rate in 1963. And childhood obesity is the number one concern of parents trumping drug abuse and smoking.

Blame it on video games and cuts in our schools’ physical education budgets or hormones in meat and milk and toxic chemicals in plastic. All of these may be contributing to an obesity epidemic in America. But I’d argue that our snack food nation is also at least partly to blame.

We are creating a generation of socialized snackers. Every activity from infant music class to kiddie soccer comes with a treat as a “reward.” Ironically, even on the playground, kids are taking mini-snack breaks. And nursery schools that have children for a mere two hours a day still make time for snack time. Some may argue that practicing patience for your juice and how to conscientiously throw away the cup are important social skills. But seriously, do toddlers really need to eat again at 9:30 am?

What’s more absurd is that school age children who play an hour of soccer or baseball have a parent assigned to snack duty who is charged with bringing treats to the field.

Back in the pre-microwave era when families shared the same meal at the same time and moms didn’t double duty as short order cooks, there was a whole lot less snacking going on. The idea that you were going to ruin your appetite and not eat the meatloaf that your mom slaved over meant that mothers fiercely protected mealtime.

Fortunately, our First Mom-in-Chief, Michelle Obama, has made it her mission to regulate American kid consumption and reduce the expanding waistlines of our nation’s children. Her “Let’s Move” program is aimed at combating childhood obesity at every stage from introducing kids to organic Arugula to increasing cardio fitness.

Aside from upping our kids’ exercise, we need to start curbing the calories and changing our culture of snack-as-reward. I’d imagine that a parent bringing a processed food as a post-game treat to Sasha or Malia’s basketball games may be even less welcome than a Tea Party supporter. So I encourage our First Lady to join in combat against excessive extra-curricular snacks.

For a grazer like me who would prefer nibbling tapas over wolfing three squares, I totally get the desire to eat throughout the day. But the next time I hear my kids beg for a snack, an hour after lunch, I may invent a crazy game called – Let’s See if We Can Go from Lunch to Dinner without Snacking. And whoever wins, gets a juice box.