Every morning, I get the kids ready to take Caleb to the train station; sometimes I have to wake them up and slide their shoes on, and sometimes I grip the last moments of sleep as they are running around my bed. Either way, it's a bit of a different morning routine than what we're used to.
Yesterday, as I rolled out of bed, my natural reflexes came in handy—Jacko had pulled his arm back, in preparation to hit me in the chest. I dodged instinctively, which made him really upset.
"Mommy! I wanted to hit you in the boingy things!"
For those of you who don't remember, I wear a 38G bra. My dream is to get a breast reduction someday, but real life often gets in the way of dreams. I am pathological about my chest and loathe it illogically; hearing Jack say those things ("boingy things" and wanting to hit them) sent me through the roof.
I explained to him that they are called breasts, why women have them, and why hitting them would hurt me. He dutifully listened to my chest lesson and walked away, unimpressed. I got dressed in my clinical hardware of a bra, wondering if I am giving my children a complex.
That is, am I passing along my own complex about my chest?
I woke up this morning with a pretty debilitating pain in the right side of my chest. I sleepily imagined that I might have a mastectomy and be a lop-sided gal forever; a G cup on one side, flat-chested on the other. Because my mind is in such a weird place in regards to my chest, Caleb had to threaten me: If that pain isn't gone by this weekend, he WILL make me go to the doctor about it.
Of all of the neuroses to pass down to my children, I am afraid of sharing this one the most. A physical feature of half of the population shouldn't be something to overwhelmingly despise.
Though, I want to add that I would also like to keep the term "boingy things" from the future generations, too.
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