Kelly Burch

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Parenting a toddler is invigorating, exhausting, dirty, and intense. But since I want my daughter to have cousins (or at least pseudo-cousins) one day, I can’t always share the truth about my tiny tyrant on social media, for fear that my friends and siblings would never reproduce. And because, sometimes, you just want to project the image that you're calm, cool, and collected.

My toddler was twirling in her tutu bathing suit while I shimmied into my plus-sized polka dot bikini.

All writers have publications that are on their bucket list, and for me, The Guardian is one of those. I’ve pitched the newspaper multiple times to no avail, but I know that when it finally happens, seeing my byline in The Guardian will make for a great day.

While I would like to think that I paused for a minute or two to think about what it means to be American, I was mostly focused on looking forward to the fireworks show.
But all of that changed for me last year. Three weeks before the Fourth of July, my husband became a citizen of the United States.

A family's day of celebration became a nation's day of mourning.

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I’m one of those bigger girls that confuses the medical community by being entirely healthy. My doctor body shamed me and lied to me about tests she ran.

“How many time have I asked you….” I say in frustration, and then it hits me. The real question I should be asking is how many times I’ve uttered that phrase.

“Then why are you so worried about the scale?” Why was I? I had finally let go of the scale as an indicator of my own health, but my inability to do the same when it came to my daughter was bringing up the same old feelings of inadequacy and frustration.