It Happened Today.

I was out to dinner at Chili's (my fav) with Thomas. David was working late, and we were killing time before music class sharing our mutual love of carbohydrates. I was wearing a sleeveless shirt (my first of the season); Thomas was wearing his train engineer hat and his "Mommy Digs Me" shirt. The waiter sat us down in a 2-man booth. Thomas was in his highchair to my right. Both of us were happily tanking up on chips and salsa when the catastrophe occurred. Thomas began to choke a little bit on a chip. He was coughing it up, and I did the typical mom thing. I reached over to pat his back until it came up. That is when I noticed it. Surely it couldn't be happening to me. As I was patting Tommy's back the bottom of my arms jiggled. And not just a little jiggle. A lot of jiggle. BAT WING JIGGLE. Yes. It is official. Today I became aware that I have bat wing arms.

I've always known about my unfortunate arm composition, however I thought what I lacked in thinness I could make up for in muscle. For years I've lifted weights to "sculpt" my upper body. Yet unfortunately it appears that even with all this work genetics have won. And you know what? I'm ready to embrace the bats. My great-grandmother Mae, who I have inherited most of my gene pool from, had bats. I remember crawling up on her wheelchair on the 4th of July and watching her arms swoosh and swash a little too close to my face. She always felt so cuddly. I felt safe tucked in beneath her squishy, large wings. These snuggle sessions occurred before I was banned from her lap for pulling her hair to see if it was a wig. My older cousin promised me a whole sheet of fuzzy feet stickers if I would check. It wasn't a wig. She had real hair, and I brought Jeff down with me when I was sent to time-out for an HOUR after my curious escapade.

And so, while some may take my observation as a kick-start to do 1000 push-ups a day, I am not going to change a thing. My husband, as you can see from the picture, digs bats both as animals and as loose skin. And when my child, grandchildren, and great-grandchildren crawl into my lap they too will feel the warm embrace of wings enveloping them.

(Title of this post in honor of Michele)