You know what they say about big feet.....

.....they SUCK when they belong to you!

About a year ago, I was sitting on the couch, cuddling my newborn son as he nursed, and contemplating….MY FEET! Yes, as I gazed down at my tootsers—as they’re referred to in my house—I couldn’t help but notice the vast effect this second pregnancy had had upon my feet.

I mentally ticked off the reasons behind this transformation. Had my feet swelled? YES! Had the veins bulged? YES! Had I been plagued with incessant foot cramps? YES! Then there was that one time I put in a full day of teaching (on my feet, aren’t I dedicated?), followed by a never-ending academic competition at a nearby school where I alternated between sitting and traipsing around looking for students. Not my best moment. I arrived home that night just shy of midnight, dropped into the recliner, and begged my husband to put me out of my misery. My feet were HUGE! Erik wanted to get a camera and record those tootsers for all posterity, but I never wanted to see them looking like that EVER. AGAIN.

Yet months later, baby in arms, I realized they really hadn’t changed that much. They were still swelled, still bulging with veins, still HUGE. Not to worry, I told myself then, they will go down eventually. They HAVE to, right?

Wrong.

My son is now a year old, yet my feet show no signs of shrinking. And you know what? I might have been able to live with their size increase, had I not already been striding through life with over-sized feet. My mother has size six feet. Okay, she’s short, but still. Size sixes! One of my friends is significantly taller than me, but she sports mere size sevens. How does she even stay balanced?? Somehow, I ended up short AND big-footed. And had managed to live with this dichotomy quite nicely, thank you very much. Until now.

I don’t mean to whine. I don’t. Because I couldn’t be happier with how things have turned out for me. Seriously, I am SO LUCKY. And I thank God everyday for those blessings. Do I deserve them? No. But I will forever be thankful for them and appreciate them and try to do right by them. All of my blessings.

So I’m trying to think of these HUGE feet as blessings. Cause the bulging veins are almost gone. And while there’s still a lot of sensitivity, the swelling is completely gone. I’m not sure how all that translated into a continued size-and-a-half increased shoe size, but I’m trying to deal with it. Which explains why I’m purging this frustration with my honkin’ feet to all you good people via my blog. I may never hike in heels (yes, been there, done that!) again, but is that such a big price to pay for pregnancy? NOPE!

And you know what? I’ve decided there is one good benefit of having these feet. It’s just occurred to me, actually. Those few extra pounds of baby weight? You know, the ones that I can’t seem to shed? Now I have the perfect excuse for why I’m not back to my pre-baby weight: MONSTER FEET! That’s added at least five pounds of weight, right?!?

See? Big feet? No big deal!