I woke today wearing less elastic. Which seems quite ridiculous now that I'm a mother of three who is most definitely NOT pregnant, but was recently mistaken for being "two or three months along" at my high school reunion. So much for my belief that only television alum hold grudges. It's not even like I was popular, a poser really. Maybe that's why I didn't get the message that empire waste "BBQ casual" dresses are soooo early stage pregnancy.
So it's not the Spanks that I'm dumping, it's another sexy number known as the standard issue beige cheap nursing bra. The kind that you don't bother to lay flat for laundering or adjust to achieve even a modicum of fit. That's because during late (real) pregnancy, throughout birth, and my kid's first year of life, I wore the thing like a wedding ring. Like a symbol of my commitment to the not so subtle message to Hub that I was still NOT in the mood.
Today I broke free of the bonds of my nursing bra, and the cozy stretch of my life that its departure concludes. Today, BabyNar is now a 100% formula (and various table foods) fed baby. I'd like to believe this day stands only as a comma in the great run on sentence of my childbearing years, where the space beyond provides room for another conception and birth story and eventually another chair to add to my fantasy of a large dining room table twenty five years from now, crowded with people and partners munching on family favorites and gently needling me with memories and jokes; everyone buzzing around me and helping me get the dishes on the table and getting annoyed by me, but loving me and the life Hub and I created for them. Did I mention that this fantasy is about me?
Anyhoo, gosh, I can't even write it, and I wish I had the technical savvy to get the Blogger type to reduce down to like, four point font, so that I could tell you in my tiniest voice that I think today is not a comma but (whispering now) really a big, fat period that tells all the world, especially me, that we're done bringing kids into our family and that pregnancy and even adoption are not likely. Period. Did I say that? I think so and (talking louder now), I guess that means I can let the type get bigger and take a breath and maybe explain things (Hub's done) and then...move on and get a job or something. Yuck. I'm still mourning this, I know. And I'm still secretly hoping that the "accident fairy" will stop by my house, especially now that Hub's least favorite nasty beige undergarment has left the building.
There's one more thing here. I wish this post could be a memory marker instead where I describe the last loving days of nursing BabyNar. The kind of journal page that is my best hope for blogging so that I won't forget the kids' childhoods and how I felt during those days of 1-2-3's or else, please don't push on my bottom with your squirt gun (T), that huffing noise you make during dinner to interrupt me makes me angry (Dee), and the image of non mobile Nar being crawled over at the park by babies half her age while she sits munching wood bark. Mmmmm....
Per usual, however, I'm back to me. Which will likely be the case whether I have three or four or more children. The hope too, when the kid raising is done, is to still have that partner in crime around - Hub - to remind me of the gems I've forgotten or neglected to write down. And also to affirm for me that it's still about me.
8 comments:
I can so relate to the desire for fourth, but wish it would just be an "accident" and then we wouldn't have actually MADE the decision. We are still On The Fence. Crazy logic, I realize. Husband says that I have visions of a Family Stone movie with all of my 20-somethings coming home at holidays and adoring and cajoling me, the family matriarch. Funny thing is there are these 18 years before that, that are soightly harder. Anyway, I have the same delusions.
Dear sexy not-pregnant-looking-but-too-long away friend, I was with you till the part about getting a job:)
hurry back, I miss you!
Um, amen E, NO ONE in this little circle of friends shall do something so selfish as get a job and make the rest of us look bad. There is much starbucks to be drunk, ladies.
XO, darling, I'd say it's a semi-colon and you never know what comes after those little suckers ;-)
WTH? You are not allowed to leave Spokane on your own for such an extended period of time.
Come back so we can re-program you.
Oh,I've missed you so much. I check your blog each night, but, alas, nothing new. And then, TA DA!! You wrote! So, does that mean you're home? Can we play? And can I cook for you and you bake for me? My babies need to play with your babies.I need to play with you. Are you reallly finished having babies? I somehow picture you with 7+children. (: If I had started earlier, that was my magic number. Ah well. You have your healthy happy children, as do I. We have lots to be thankful for. I'm thankful for YOU.
You probably thought I forgot this little gem of a blogspot -- but you obviously gravely underestimate my ability to get sucked into internet space in the late hours of the night instead of reading another hearty psychology text! To read your words here is like getting a delicious slice of you! (or your coconut dream cake). Thanks for a random dose of soul food on a Tuesday night. As I brace myself to take baby Ben to Kindergarten on Thursday -- I can only tell you that comma or period or whatever is followed by a stream of ongoing bittersweet sentences to come -- and many more periods to come (ha! literally and figuratively I guess!). I soothed myself with the thought that the end of childbearing gave me more mindspace and sanity to soak up the littles I had already produced. I know your mother earth self could handle so mcuh more than me -- but here's to soaking up all the goodness that IS. By the way, I intend to be at all your future holiday meals with all my best adoration and cajoling on hand! Also, please know that only you could make a beige nursing bra a sexy mess! Yahoo!
Miss you much!!!!!!!!!!!!
xoxo
KT
Saw the cake you made for @anymommy, and HOLY WOW that is amazing. You're AWESOME!!!!!
So glad you are back writing, whether it's about you or your family. It is your blog after all, so why shouldn't it be about you. :) Congrats on the no more nursing bra thing. That is a good day indeed. Now, you can hoist those puppies back up in a great underwire and head on back out into the world. Or not. Here's hoping that accident fairy seeks you out.
PS-That was one amazing fairy cake you made. Truly a gift.
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