Really.
I don’t mean she loves the idea of one day being a grown woman with big boobs who gets to wear pretty bras like her mama. I mean she’s completely and utterly head over heels in love with my breasts.
When she was 2 ½ she finally–after what felt like thousands of failed attempts and pink lollipop bribes and hours of pleading–quit nursing. If she had it her way, though, she’d still be breastfeeding every night until she goes off to college. (Law school, specifically. That girl can convince you a thousand different ways that dogs meow and cats bark–and you’ll believe her.)
But for the second half of her little life, she seems to be making up for her lack of nursing by grabbing my breasts whenever and wherever she gets the chance. We could be at the doctor or at a wedding–she really doesn’t care. She wants my boobs and she wants them now.
There are nights when I lay next to her in her bed and she reaches down my shirt with the most content look on her face and says dreamily, “Mommy, I love your boobies.”
And I smirk and tell her, “You and everybody else.”
At which point she goes, “Huh?” and I go, “Never mind. Shouldn’t you be asleep by now?” And the next morning she wakes up in my bed (I’m never quite sure how she got there to begin with), and we have the same conversation once again.
To be fair, she isn’t constantly reaching down my shirt, though I realize that’s what it sounds like. But she really does know how to pick her moments and catch me during my most benevolent and extra happy moods. (Law school, remember? That girl knows how to read people like the best of them.)
But the thing is that, while she’s feeling me up at night–and lord knows she (and everybody else) would do it far more often if I allowed it–I just want my body back! I want to twist and turn at night to my heart’s content, without getting blocked by an adorable little hand, twisting me into an awkward position. I want to go to the grocery store without having her reach up from the shopping wagon and cop a feel during a “spontaneous” hug. And I want to change my shirt or bra without it turning into a freakin’ party.
Yes, I am a mom, and I realize that my time and privacy and sleep all went straight out the window the minute my daughter was born. And I’m happy to give all of it to her, really. My energy and my attention and my endless, endless love.
But sometimes I wish that my body, the same body that carried her for 9 ½ months and fed her for 2 ½ years after that–could go back to just being mine.
Something (or two things) to keep for myself, in between escorting her to each and every bathroom trip, and running out of the shower with shampoo in my hair because she woke up thirsty.
Something that is mine, and forever will be.
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