Pruny and Proud.

The other day Lailah was standing in front of me when I was shirtless. (once you become a mom, you always have an audience). She gently put both hands on my belly and said “Mama, you’re pruny.” tracing the lines on my belly with the most delightful smile on her face. Three and a half years ago I would have been mortified; in fact it wasn’t until recently really that I would have been anything but, however, today, it made me smile, laugh a little even. My ‘pruniness’, the lines on my stomach, are not ‘stretch marks’ but a topographic map of the first 9 months of my sweet Lailah’s life. I have found that wearing them with a sense of pride feels much better than wishing they weren’t there. Every breath, every turn, every hiccup, every kick - her growth is embedded in my skin to remind me every day that I helped make something damn amazing. Pruny and Proud, as every stretch-mark afflicted Mother should be.