The Last Biscuit

I fucking love a biscuit.  Monte Carlo, Kingston, Tim Tam … let’s be honest, I’d walk over my kid to get to a half-eaten Scotch Finger.  They have been my downfall since I learned that butter and Vegemite goes on a Milk Arrowroot.

Today I had my last biscuit.  And it’s the third day in a row I’ve had my last biscuit. That’s a lie. I think I’ve said that everyday for the last forty days.  Maybe everyday since my kid was four months… but she keeps leaving half eaten biscuits on the floor and the resolve dies again.

But today I mean it.  Today I put on a dress that I wore while I was eight months pregnant and it was tight.  Not ridiculous tight… but tight enough for me to go, did I was this in hot water?  Fully knowing that no, I’ve never washed in hot water in my life.

I put tights on to reduce the severity of the increased shortness that comes from a dress widening at the middle, put on a cardigan and pretended that I didn’t notice. I walked into my Thursday morning ritual of a breakfast, looked at my favourite mum human and said, ‘Today is the last biscuit!’

We both laughed.  I swallowed my pride and said, ‘No! I mean it.’

‘From tomorrow.’

As a fat girl, some claim former, (but I will always be a fat girl in the mirror) I never noticed when the weight went on.  It’s tough to believe, I know, but when the weight went on slowly and steadily, I never noticed the difference.

My fat wardrobe consisted of tent dresses and cardigans. Tent dresses in glorious fabrics in all of the colour and I wore them like boss. Throw on a cardigan and I was an instant fat hottie.  I joke. I’ve never felt like a hottie and cardigans were certainly never going to make me that way.  But in those tent dresses, there was no real way of knowing if I’d put on a kilo or ten.  They generally always fit.

It’s how I got to the point of surgery in the first place. I ate the biscuits.  I wore the dresses and if they didn’t fit, I bought new ones and the new ones were as big as circus tents and coloured like them too. So one kilo, twenty-seven it was all the same.

But now that my jeans are smaller and without an elastic waist and my dresses have panels and zips and even seams that run through the middle and not just the sides, the kilos are noticeable. Fuck, even the grams are noticeable.

Skinny girls, one more fucking thing you forgot to mention.  Eight months of biscuits, muesli bars and lolly packets have taken their toll and made their presence known in my pants and not in a good way.

Post baby eating has been fun.  I’ve loved the biscuits and I’m not going to lie, I’ve even been ok with her half-eaten smooshed crackers but for the last eight months, I’ve also forgotten to look in the mirror.

I’m slow. I’m unfit.  And the sugar rushes are getting shorter.  Tonight for dinner I made my kid this elaborate mince and vege concoction with whole grains and real food.  I had honey on toast while I cooked brown rice.

Today I ate the last biscuit.  I threw out all of the circus tents – well, I kept one. The pattern was too cute – but I’m not going back to the circus anytime soon.

Poor baby, she won’t be getting any crackers either.