Well, it looks as if my "BFF" is back again. On
yesterday's post, BFF commented...
"Keep denying that your daughters overweight. holy cow! keep them marshmellows coming.."While it's difficult for me to ignore all the spelling and grammar problems within that poorly written sentence above, I'll try my best.
As I've stated here on my blog in the past, you can pick on me until your heart's content but you pick on MY CHILD...my innocent, sweet baby girl...and the claws come out.
I suppose I should be flattered that you continue coming back to my blog to read about my wonderful life with my beautiful family. However, I can't feel anything but pity for you.
Since I don't want to waste any more of my precious time calling you out yet again, I've chosen to copy/paste my response to your earlier comment, which you left a few months ago.
Now that you've gotten the attention you've been craving, although maybe not exactly the way you were hoping for, perhaps you can move on and leave me and my family alone.
If you need a recommendation for a therapist who can deal with people like you, I'd be happy to help you find someone, especially since I now know where you live.
You can thank StatCounter and Google for revealing to me your identifying information.
BTW, overweight child or not, all children deserve the privilege of a sweet treat every once in awhile.
Here's my response to BFF from back in March....
Yesterday I did a review on the 8-piece fruit and vegetable set from Curious Chef. In the review, I mentioned being happy that the kids were eating a nutritious snack and that, with these new child-friendly utensils, we'd be eating more healthfully.
Unfortunately, that one statement led an ill-informed person, who went out of his/her way to create an Open ID since I no longer accept anonymous comments, to believe that the only food I provide for my children is high-calorie junk food.
Here's the repulsive comment, which I deleted, written by "BFF"...
Well good maybe you can start feeding your overweight, what 5 year old some healthy food. Instead of fighting her brother for the last bagel for breakfast she can fight over the last banana. Shame on you for letting your child become this overweight. Have you checked out her arms in the pis you posted? Or her thighs on the beach in your header? Seriously?You can pick on me...say what you want to say about me...think what you want to think about me...but when you pick on one of MY KIDS, that's where I draw the line.
Since "BFF" chose to hide behind a poorly chosen acronym, thus leaving me no way to personally contact him/her via e-mail, I felt compelled to address him/her here on my blog.
Will he/she come back to read this? I have a feeling the answer is yes, since this person took the time to go through my archives in order to make reference to this
post.
While Bella does fall into the higher percentile in terms of her weight, she is far from the level of obesity of some other children. In fact, at her last check-up, her pediatrician was very happy with her measurements. He has stressed that the goal is NOT for her to lose weight but to maintain her weight as she hits various growth spurts, which will even her out in terms of height-weight ratio.
As far as what she eats, Bella doesn't eat any differently than her siblings. We make sure all the kids eat at least 5 servings of fruit/vegetables per day and we are careful about portion size.
None of my children sit around eating donuts, cake and candy all day long. Occasionally, they get to eat Apple Jacks for breakfast, along with a glass of milk and a piece of fruit. Last time I checked, half of a whole-grain, high-fiber bagel wasn't considered "junk" food.
Bella also gets plenty of exercise, whether it be riding bikes up to the neighborhood park or running around the backyard with her siblings. She's not a sedentary couch potato laying on the sofa for hours, while eating a bowl of chips.
"BFF" asked if I had “checked out” Bella's arms in the pictures included in yesterday's post. The answer is no….I don’t obsessively scour my children’s pictures looking for what others may consider as bodily imperfections.
However, since you asked, I looked at the following 2 pictures which were posted yesterday and her arms look absolutely fine to me.
If you are referring to her RIGHT arm, that's not fat you see…it’s scar tissue, for your information, from an ulcerated hemangioma. The skin that is hanging down from the bend of her arm is nothing more than extra skin which was stretched-out beyond it’s elasticity when the hemangioma grew at an alarmingly fast rate.
Here’s a picture that I took recently at the park, which shows the stretched-out skin on her right arm a little more clearly.
Since you seem to be lacking in knowledge, as well as tact and sensitivity, let me explain. Her hemangioma started out as a dime-sized spot on her arm at birth. When she was 26 days old, it had grown so quickly that it covered her entire bicep, as well as a small part of her forearm, which you can see in the picture directly below.
The following picture shows what it looked like when she was 2 months old, as it began to ulcerate…
From that point, it continued to ulcerate to the point where her muscle was exposed.
I won’t post the rest of the pictures because they are rather graphic but here’s a link to an online photo album, should you be interested in looking.
http://s6.photobucket.com/albums/y202/heltim/Bella/If you even dare to think for a minute that we could have prevented this from happening, you’d be wrong, once again. On the contrary, we desperately tried to stay one step ahead at all times with the sole purpose of preventing it from getting any worse than it already was.
We were at our pediatrician’s office practically on a daily basis, including both Thanksgiving and Christmas morning, as we attempted to get the constant bleeding under control.
Our precious baby girl endured laser treatments, steroid shots directly into the ulcerated hemangioma, numerous cauterizations…she was in constant pain and spent most of her days doped up on tylenol with codeine to ease her discomfort.
I spent hours researching various treatments which might have helped and, in the end, happened to stumble upon a miracle drug that finally worked to control the bleeding.
In addition, we consulted with various out-of-town professionals, two in particular being
Dr. John Reinisch and
Dr. Ilona Frieden, both well-reknown surgeons specializing in children with vascular tumors.
Due to the extent of the scarring, no amount of surgery will ever fully repair the cosmetic damage caused by the hemangioma. The extra skin that sags beneath her elbow can be removed at any time if she chooses, however.
Believe it or not, cosmetic issues and physical appearance weren’t necessarily a priority when we were considering she might have lost the use of her arm after the hemangioma ulcerated down to the muscle.
And you know what? Upon several surgical consults, Bella told us she doesn’t want to undergo cosmetic surgery. She likes her arm the way it is and she’s happy with the reflection she sees of herself when she looks in the mirror.
If her desire to have surgery changes as she gets older, we’ll support her in every way possible.
What makes Bella even more special is her resilience and her lovable spirit . She’s often approached by other children who are curious about what has happened to her arm and she explains it to the best of her ability, often saying, “That’s where I was kissed by an angel”.
In your comment, you wrote how I should be ashamed of myself. No, I think YOU should be ashamed of YOURSELF for picking on an innocent child who has more courage than you ever will.
People with your attitude and ignorance are the reason why we have young teenagers starving themselves or binging and purging…all so they can exhibit how they think they’re expected to look by jerks such as yourself.
Those are the girls with low self-esteem which you should be concerned about…not a sweet, precious FIVE year old child, who happens to have a little extra baby fat on her thighs!
Please know that my issue is not the fact that you expressed your opinion and thoughts on the matter. My problem is the MANNER in which you chose to express those thoughts. You were callous, disrespectful and presumptuous.
I appreciate your concern about my daughter’s weight but it’s well under control. Now that you’ve been assured of that, perhaps your time would be better spent looking deep within yourself to figure out why you are so superficially bent on physical appearances.
I can only pray that if you have children of your own and/or work on a daily basis with young, impressionable children that you are not as judgmental or cruel to them as you have been to my daughter.
Upon reading your comment this morning, I could not stop myself from shaking with rage, after being reduced to nothing more than a heaping pile of bitter tears. I’m not ashamed to admit that I let your comment get under my skin…any caring, protective mother would have felt the same way.
I’ve stewed in anger all day over this. However, now I’m finally letting it go…I NEED to let it go.
I’ve wasted enough energy today on someone who’s so obviously shallow and not even worth a bit of the salt in my tears.
