Re-Affirmations

Affirmation by Savage Garden via Grooveshark.  I had originally put a youtube video in here but thanks to Sony Music I can't play it on my blog so I decided to use Grooveshark instead.

There is this line in the song that goes "I believe that beauty magazines promote low self esteem".  That lyric has been stuck with me for about a week now.  It all stems from and interaction with my darling Clover.  I sat down and Clover pointed to my belly and and asked 

"What's that?" 

 "My roll"

"Oh."  She sat there for a minute.  "I love your roll, Mommy"

I had to laugh.  Once again my daughter had left me dumbfounded and at a loss for words.  What do I say to that?  My first thought was something self deprecating.  I as quick as possible had to move that thought out of my head.  I told her Thank You and that I loved her.  

So for the last week or so all these thoughts have been circling around my noggin.  I don't want my negative thoughts about my body to affect my daughter.  I know I have things I need to work on and I am making positive steps in that direction.  But I still have my days where I'm not all that confident in what I am wearing.  This isn't the first interaction with her where I have had to stop myself from making comments about myself.  

I am becoming more conscious of what I say.  Right now my daughter sees herself as perfect.  She doesn't see her scar.    Right now she sees her Mommy as perfect.  She doesn't see any imperfections.  She just sees me and she loves me for that.  Why would I tell her otherwise?  

So where does our self esteem comes from.  Is it influenced by outside sources?  Is it one of those temperaments that we are born with?  This is the part where I reference back to the song because there are some times when I believe that beauty magazines promote low self esteem.  They all at some point or another tell us that we should be comfortable with ourselves, and then offer a contradictory article on the opposite page.  Luckily, I have a few more years before she starts diving into Cosmo.  

For now, I am her first role model.  I know that all I can do is the try the best I can.  I can't be doing that bad of a job since she just came up and told me how pretty I look as I just get up in the morning and haven't had a moment to run a brush through my hair. I gave her a kiss and told her how beautiful she looked this morning.  One of those moments where I love my job.