I have always had a thing for baby bellies, I think they are just about the cutest things in the whole world. ‘Where’s your belly?’ gets the response from my kids of lifting up their shirts and laughing. And that big pink baby belly is just darling, so much stuffed into one small little area, it’s like you can literally see a big breakfast pile up in there. ‘Who’s got the biggest belly?’ and ‘Lookit your big belly!’ is something we say a lot in our household, lots of shirt raising and giggling. The belly is a thing to be praised, loved, admired, no 6 pack abs for this family.;)

So we are on a road trip to go see Grandma and Pop and Ethan is about 2, maybe 2 and a half. His belly is so huge that I am forced to find other pant solutions for him. Anything I buy that will fit around his waist has to be rolled up 18 times so as not to trip over the pant legs. I find the perfect solution in long board shorts sized up… they are supposed to be shorts, they fit my little chubster like pants. Oh well, wardrobe dilemma solved. Oh sorry, back to the road trip… we stop at In N Out burger, not because that is a staple in our diets, but clearly because we are on a road trip and well that is one of the few choices available to us.;)

We are at the counter trying to decide, animal style, protein style… and my left eye that is trained on Ethan sees him start to strike up a conversation with a man who would clearly win the big belly contest in our house. After making sure our order will be correct, no ordinary burgers for us, I take the two steps over to Ethan to hear what he is saying. ‘Lookit your big belly!’ and ‘You’ve got a big belly!’ are what he is telling the big bellied man just like he has won the contest. Eeeek! I mutter apologies to the man and get Ethan mesmerized in some stickers to draw him away from the big bellied man. Never in a million years would I have thought he would go up and tell a complete stranger ‘Lookit your big belly!’ We are now working on not talking to strangers.;)

Luckily Ethan has grown out of the phase where we praise the big belly, he now says things to me like ‘Mom, why is your belly so big, are you going to have another baby?’ Or ‘Mom, your belly has gotten smaller since you had Scarlett, why isn’t your butt getting any smaller?’ Isn’t he just a gem?;)