Eventually, Noah shovels two “Wheaty Bixits” down his throat while I pile anything handheld and edible into his lunch box. After putting all the normal lunch-boxy stuff in, I grab a jar of Nutella, hold it up to the light, and put it in. This is one of our favorite games. We’ve not really got time, but I can’t resist.
“No!” he shouts, his spoon halfway to his mouth. “I can’t eat that!”
“No?” I say. “How about this?” And I put a potato in instead.
“Not that either!” he says, laughing, but still shoveling in the cereal.
“No? Oh, OK. These though, surely?” I say, putting in a tea bag and a couple of dishwasher tablets. He’s got the giggles now, and, by the time I prepare to sprinkle bouillon cubes over the top, he spits Wheaty Bixits across the kitchen in full-on hysterics.
“Noah!” I say, wiping up the mess. I’m not annoyed though. I love that I can make him laugh so much that cereal comes out of his nose.
“Do it again! Do it again!” he says as I wipe his face.
“No, we really haven’t got time, Noah. Come on—finish your bowl.”
I’m on a diet so I just have a yogurt.
And two pieces of toast.
And a Twix.
Then I install Noah in front of Mum’s iPad while I take a shower.
In the bathroom, I step on the scale. Then I realize I’m still wearing the T-shirt I slept in so I take that off and get back on again.
Then I realize my hair’s tied back in a scrunchy so I take that out and consider shaving my head—long hair’s got to weigh a fair bit too, right?
Then I remember long hair’s more flattering on a round face and I get back on the scales again.
Then I realize I haven’t used the bathroom yet so I sit down and squeeze out what I can and then get back on the scales again.
Then I realize I should have weighed myself before breakfast, not after—everyone knows that—so I figure I can probably take off around six pounds from the reading anyway.
Then I realize I ate pasta last night and they always say you shouldn’t weigh yourself the morning after eating pasta as it throws the result completely off. So I ignore the reading entirely and hide the scales behind the laundry basket to stop them looking at me with their evil, judgmental glare.
While exfoliating in the shower (and surely all that exfoliated dead skin weighs a couple of extra pounds too?), I am alarmed to find a gold sticker firmly adhered to my outer right thigh. It reads MADE IN CHINA and probably came off one of Noah’s toys. It takes some serious scrubbing to get it off, making me wonder how long it’s been there.
Oh God, was it there last night when I went swimming?
My meddling aunt bought me an annual pass for the local swimming pool for my birthday. She said it was to help me get fit, but of course she meant it was to help me get less fat.
Now I think about it, I do remember a severe-looking middle-aged woman staring at my thighs as I got out of the pool last night. I just thought she was a weirdo, but she was probably thinking, Good God, do the Chinese make everything now, even our fat kids?
I guess at this point we ought to properly address the elephant in the room. The room being whichever room I’m in, and the elephant always being me.
Because elephants are fat. And so am I.
I’m not crazy fat though, if that’s what you’re thinking. I’m not the kind of fatty that inspires TLC documentaries or makes the news for rolling over and accidentally asphyxiating a cat and not realizing for two weeks. I’m just regular fat. Round, wobbly, that kind of thing. And I’m not one of these fatties who’s all up top or all down below—nope, I’m fat all over, me. Big stomach. Big bum. And in recent times big boobs too. My norks came in around two years ago and since then my body’s just been a collection of perfectly round, overlapping circles. Like a living Venn diagram or a really basic and badly drawn Spirograph pattern.
So, yeah, I’ve got a great rack. But even before the chesticles I’ve always been big. My mum used to call it “puppy fat,” but now I think even she realizes this puppy’s not just for Christmas—it’s for life.
The truth is, whatever I look like, I don’t feel fat on the inside. Non-fat people think fat people must feel differently to them, experience the world in a different way to them, that everything we think and do must be affected by our fatness. But I feel normal (whatever “normal” is). I don’t feel weighed down or like I’m wearing extra padding. I actually forget that I’m fat until I walk past a mirror or get called a name and suddenly I’m reminded, Oh yeah, I’m fat. And I don’t eat all the time either. Or daydream about food. Or sit and devour a cake in one sitting or binge and then starve myself.
I just get hungry. And I like to eat.
Eating quite a lot is normal to me. It’s my normal. But this story isn’t about my weight. So if you’re thinking there’s going to be a “happy ending” where I have an epiphany and become a slim, sexy, health freak who’s into yoga and mung beans (they’re a thing, right?) then think again, sunshine.
This is me. And these are my massive boobs.
Take us or leave us.
CHAPTER TWO
After a considerable amount of persuading, begging, tickling, and jelly-bean-based bribery, I finally pry Noah away from the iPad so I can get him into something resembling a school uniform. He’s pretty big too, so he’s in elasticated “sturdy-fit” gray shorts and, when I discover all his white polo shirts are still covered in mud, playdough, and snot, I find him a plain white PE T-shirt at the back of his wardrobe. As he dances around the living room, I can feel time running away from us and desperately glance at the faded floral wall clock for support, but it glares back at me with the news that, yes, once again I’m going to be late for school.
Dammit.
I hold the T-shirt up in front of him. “OK, let’s get this on quick, Noah, ’cause we’re really in a bit of a hurry now.”
He stops dancing and stares at the T-shirt with a look of disgust on his face.
“But it doesn’t have a thing!” he whines, folding his arms over his round pink belly.
“A what?” I ask.
“A thing!” he shouts, putting his podgy hands around my neck and wiping soggy Wheaty Bixits all over my school shirt, which had, for once, started the day clean.
“Oh—a collar. OK, wait a minute,” I say.
I run off and come back with a black permanent marker pen, which I use to draw a collar onto his T-shirt.
“Happy?” I ask.
“Happy,” he confirms as I pull the shirt down over his head.
There then follows a frantic ten-minute search for his shoes (which we finally discover are in the freezer because yesterday his “feet were hot”), followed by a slathering on of sunscreen, which is no easy thing on a Noah who refuses to keep still. It’s like trying to spray-paint a hyperactive monkey.
I grab our schoolbags, shove a cap on Noah’s head, make our way past the mountains of shoes, coats, scooters, and junk mail in our bogey-green-colored hall until finally we emerge from the house. We’re late, but if we get moving quickly we might be OK.
“I need my water bottle,” says Noah just after I lock the front door.