As I was watching the controversial
“Born This Way” episode of Glee on-demand, I kept thinking about the one or two things about my own physical appearance that I would want to change....my less than bodacious ta-tas. Yes, I admit it, I have a
big boob obsession....mainly because, well,
mine are so not. It’s been 6 months since I had the baby, and well, things have definitely flattened out and
gone south. At breakfast this morning, as I sat,
braless in my pjs, sipping coffee, my 7 year-old son was looking at me funny and pointed to my chest, “Ah, mommy are you going to do something about those……
ah floppies?”
And I thought, “Oh no he didn’t! Oh no he didn’t just diss the twins! Wow, maybe he ISN’t gay.” But floppy is as floppy does and before anything would flap about in a breeze, I went up stairs to put on proper
foundation garments. As I came back into the kitchen, decidedly not blowin' in the wind, my thoughts wandered back to a conversation I had had on the subject with my husband, just before the baby was born. And come to think of it, it really wasn’t much of a conversation, but just me announcing my intentions amid the glow of
big pregnancy boobs and, he, more or less ignoring it.
We had been sitting on the couch durning football preseason. He was deeply engrossed in the HBO football series, "Hard Knocks," yet all I could think about were "hard
knockers." Mine, in particular. The one true perk of pregnancy, is, let's face it ladies,
bigger boobs
. It's the one sexy thing we got...as if in some cosmic equation, they were a perverse consolation prize for the hemroids, heartburn, nausea, fatigue, extra weight and kankles...whoever complains about bigger breasts. (Except if you have
DD hooters already, and if ya’ do….you’re not getting my sympathy anyway.)
The only downside I was experiencing was that my décolletage was becoming a collection bin for cookie
crumbs, goldfish, loose earrings, dust, bugs, and the occasional spilt beverage. Thus, I have been taking great care to buff and moisturize my burgeoning cleavage. Late at night, while all in the house were asleep, I would slip out of bed to fluff and powder them until they gleamed with a high powered shine.
"I think when all is said and done with this baby, I want to get a boob job."
"Hmm, yeah...." he was well into the Jets' Revis negotiations.
"I said
BOOB JOB."
"What? For who?" He was perturbed that his attention was diverted from the
business side of football
and driven straight to my breasts.
"For me....I dunno, after the baby....maybe." I couldn't gauge his reaction. It wasn't no, it wasn't yes...he seemed to think about it, but his furrowed brow returned to the TV, much like the time I had declared that I wanted to learn to play the harp, the time I felt I really needed to learn how to cook authentic Indian curry, or the times I wanted to learn to SCUBA dive, swim on a National Master's team, and hone my conversational French with a native-born tutor. None of which have come to fruition.
The real reason for my fascination with my “
lady lumps” was that I knew that the effect was fleeting.. I knew the minute the baby came, they'd pop, and “poof’” I'd be back in the land of shriveled plums and padded push-up bras. I thought my request was reasonable, I wasn't going for anything over 3rd letter of the alphabet....Heidi Montag took all the appeal out of the letter "G" when she tweeted about having to massage her implants to keep them soft. I don't need bowling balls, just a little bit of bounce. Not looking for the added flotation enhancement or anything that I'd need to sling over my shoulder and
tie back with a pashmina the next time I'd go for a run. Just a slight augmentation. A whisper, just enough to show the whole world my
girls can still sit up and beg like the best of ‘em.
For the most part, my feeling of enhanced self confidence was fueling these silly boob job fantasies. I felt, in my on head at least, that I looked better and garnered more looks from men, more than ever before. This skewed logic completely ignored the fact that people really could have been looking, in confused disgust and/or pity, at the 3 unruly children hanging off me or my gargantuan belly as it would
jump out from underneath my shrinking maternity shirts every time I hoisted myself in and out of the car.
Yet, my “a-ha” moment came at a soccer tournament on Long Island. It was the end of the day and we were packing up for the trek home. In the distance, I caught something slowly making its way up the side of the field. There was lots of movement as the game had ended. I was bending over, not to gracefully at the waist, folding up tailgate chairs, blankets and picking up random bits of trash. As I was doing this, I notice the object had stopped and a long shadow was cast over my collection of chairs and coolers...Still bent I looked up to squarely meet the gaze of a mid-forties man in a motorized wheel chair.....who had been very obviously
trying to look down my shirt. I immediatlely shot back upright, preggo belly in full salute and trying to make sure I was covered in all the right places. The man feigned some type of mechanical failure and inadvertently sent his chair into reverse.
I rolled my eyes and sighed. It's never a hottie, celeb look-alike that you catch trying to seek a peek.....its always some pervy creepy “Danny DaVito” with no teeth,
a jersey shore tan and a serious physical imparement. Or some odd ball in the grocery store, who makes a mind-numbing comment like, “Wow! You look like you’re going to have a good time with those!” as you are trying to fly through the express line with infant diapers, a bag of apples and garlic bread. It’s those moments when I realize, you really do, like
Heidi Montag, need to be careful what you wish for. Bigger is not always better, and I guess I'll just have to learn
to be more creative with what I do with ‘em and invest in a wardrobe of killer push-up bras. Yet before I play taps and carelessly fling the
huge pregnancy brassieres into the fire....the one's that now look like Jared the Subway guy's huge pants... when I hold them up and for wistfully moment of silence and
wonder how hell did those underwired cups ever get filled out..
about that, too.
." I get up and fool myself into thinking that the aphorism "Today is a new day, I will try my best," will somehow work. I turn a blind eye to the thought that "trying my best," is really code for "
