Those last five pounds..

Or so.

Despite being an actress I am not one to obsess about the numbers - I never have been.  Perhaps I should have, but that's not really my style.  I eat well, I exercise...well, I did in my former life.

Here's the rub.

I did a silly thing today.  I woke up feeling good, feeling relatively trim and svelte for a nearly 40 lady with a 4-month old baby.  I woke up feeling good and decided it would be a smart idea to weigh myself.  I dusted off the old scale that was unearthed in the recent flood [yes, I said flood].  I stepped on.

And ruined the better part of my morning.

I am still wandering around wondering where the hell I picked up the extra 10 pounds I discovered this morning.  I feel in a funk about it in a way I didn't before I knew that stupid number.  I mean, I know I'm not at my tip top best being a busy mother of two only a few months post-partum.  I've been watching 'Rescue Me' lately and doing a little personal body-bashing - even though I think the women on that show are alarmingly thin - I mean, where did they find those actresses -- at an anorexia support group?  Seriously, if that is what I am supposed to look like I think I should quit now because at my best I was never thin like that.  And never really wanted to be.  It's like a race of sorts to see who can deny themselves the most, who can be the most hungry.  Well, I'm not interested in that race, but I would like to work again.  Hell, I'd like to fit into some of my clothes again.

Yes, I know it hasn't been that long but still.

Damned number.  I hate you.

It was all so much easier before when I kayaked a few times a week, had time for yoga and lifting.  When I slept more than 2 hours at a stretch.  I don't know how it happened - is it that inexorable accumulation that comes on slowly with age?  Can I get back from here?  That's my big question.  I mean, I was feeling pretty good before the number - so shouldn't I feel good despite it?  It's just so damned daunting, the idea of finding the time and energy to actually burn the 35,000 calories that will eat up that number.  Somehow I don't think the Obstacle Course on the Wii is gonna do it.

I guess the moral of this story is:  don't be stupid enough to break out the scale when your baby still doesn't even have teeth.

But you know, at the end of the day, I look at these two gorgeous girls.  Every smile line, every extra little soft curve belongs to me because of them.  And you know, that's okay too.

Well, mostly.