With all the fuss over Beyonce's body after she pushed out baby Blue Ivy, I'd like to take a moment to talk about all the yummy goodness that was my wife's post-pregnancy body.
I understand that women spend years of anguish fighting with that baby weight, cursing their reflections in every mirror within miles. But that is not necessarily the way this goes down in the husbandly mind.
Even to this day, a decade later, the thought of my wife's post-pregnancy body brings a smile to my face. I think men are biologically wired to be drawn to things that are soft and round and smooth and full and thick and ripe and... well, I think you get the picture. Yes, after she had carted around a human being for nine-plus months, my wife's midsection was not the same washboard that it was when we got married -- when I used to think it was so small that I could almost get my hands around it. But the extra weight around the stomach was just a mere trifle compared to all the wonderful things that had happened elsewhere.
The hips were fabulously rounder, fuller, curvier. (Anytime you can use the word "curvier" to describe one of your body parts, it can only be a good thing.) These post-baby hips just cried out to be hugged, admired, grasped. And since this is a family-oriented site, let me not even get started on the thicker thighs and rounder butt. All of these changes were not just accepted but welcomed, celebrated.
But no change was greeted with more fanfare in my house than the bigger boobs. While she has always been curvaceous and sexy as hell, before the babies my wife was never overly endowed in the boob department. But after the pregnancy? I didn't think such transformations were possible without surgery. It was like a magnificent boob fairy had swept into our bedroom while we slept and waved a magic wand over her. At first I thought, Well, surely these are breast-feeding boobs, my child's new food pantry. Once the breastfeeding is over, they go back to their previous form, like Cinderella after midnight. But that's not what happened. They never got small again. Who said every day can't be Christmas?
You might wonder if my perceptions about my wife's desirability, her enhanced voluptuousness, were clouded by the many months of forced celibacy. Fair question. But let me tell you that these feelings never went away, even after we once again re-established the marital bed. Her body, in its many different forms, has always remained my friend, my playground, my inspiration. Perfection has never been a standard that had any relevancy for me. The belly grew, then shrunk, then grew again, then shrunk again, and by the end of the process of having two kids, of course it didn't look like it did in the early days. But it was still beautiful to me. It has never stopped being beautiful.
As Beyonce gazes into the mirror -- maybe with a recent image of Rihanna dancing in her head -- she too will probably yearn for what she used to be. And with the help of chefs and trainers, she very well may get back to it. But if she doesn't, something tells me her husband, a certain rapper who goes by the name of Jay-Z, will be just fine with that.
This post appeared originally on MyBrownBaby.com.