born this way.

Let's get real here for just a second.

Every single day, I look at my daughter and tell her how pretty she is. Of course I also tell her how smart she is, how funny she is, how sweet she is, and how bad she is (at that moment).

Just being honest.

The other day after I told her how pretty she was for oh, the three thousandth time, a thought raced across my mind. I was told once to not focus compliments on the physical, but instead to focus on intelligence, humor, or something along those lines. The thinking is so that one wouldn't put too much stock in looks, because looks fade.

While I get that, and I wholeheartedly agree that looks aren't everything, sometimes a girl just likes to hear she's pretty.

I hope that I don't raise BG to only focus on looks. Sometimes I feel convicted about the People magazines laying around touting skinny girls all over their covers or the tv shows with ridiculously pretty people running around in super expensive clothes. I don't want my daughter ever to compare herself to those images and feel she comes up short.

Ever.

I have this odd sense of self confidence. I have NEVER been skinny. When I was in high school, I was super athletic and very toned but I still weighed 150 pounds. Yep. I said it. In numbers. However, it worked for me. Sometimes I felt like a beast among my super skinny friends, but most of the time, I felt great. I dated the most popular guy in school, hung out with all the popular kids, and was Prom Queen. I felt like I owned who I was.

That's not to say that I didn't struggle when I looked in the mirror. My thighs touch. Always have and pretty safe to say, they always will. I have a huge smile with tiny teeth. Lots of gum showing here people. I hate my nose. It has no shape and when I was little I wore a clothespin on it to try and make it skinnier. Didn't work. I got b*oobs at a very young age and tried to tape them down. Now I miss those perky little boogers more than I can even explain. I have very thin, very fine, hard to do anything with hair. Until college, it was board straight and wouldn't do a thing.

But...

I was born that way.

Does that mean that I won't work my arse off to try and get my thighs to freaking separate for the love of all that is holy?

No. I'll work those suckers til I die.

But I've come to accept that I have a big smile. It's actually become my thing earning me endearing nicknames like "the Joker" and being one thing people recognize about me. It's something I search for in my child because I'm dying to pass it down.

My nose? Still blah. And slightly crooked after multiple sports injuries. But it's mine. It tells my stories.

My b*oobs? Well I'm pretty sure they're gone forever. Unless I can convince the hubs that cosmetic surgery would make a great Mother's Day gift one year. Right....

My body tells a story. It tells my story. It's my greatest asset and my greatest insecurity. It carried my child to term, it housed my others for a short time, it walked down the aisle, it paid for college.

It's mine.

I am very well aware that BG will face insecurity. Probably from a very young age thanks to the media and our nation's fascination with size. I just hope that she's confident in who she is, insecurities and all. I hope she owns it and knows that there is a reason she was born the way she is.

So what is it about you that makes you crazy? That you keep hidden? Today is your day.. own it, because as Gaga says "I'm beautiful in my way cause God makes no mistakes, I'm in the right track baby I was born this way".

Word, Gaga, word.