Got Milk?

Living in a household of six flat-chested people, a certain part – or should I say parts – of my body have become quite popular.  It seems my family has become enamored with my chest.  Now, this is not something I haven't dealt with my entire life, coming from a long line of well-endowed women, but I would think that after looking at the durned things for the last ten to fourteen years, some of the novelty would wear off.  I know it has for me.

But for my husband and my children, breasts are quite the topic of discussion around here.  Of course, each family member has their own special name for breasts and they freely share their affections with anyone who will listen.  My 5 year-old daughter often announces to complete strangers, "My Mommy has boobies," as if it weren't' noticeable.  She then proceeds to tell them that Barbie also has boobies and that one day, she will have boobies, too.   

My husband – whose only requirement for agreeing to our first blind date was ample breast size – used to call them "titties," which I absolutely loathed just because it sounds so white trash and I'm really trying hard to break free from that part of my past.  And his little namesake, Junior, has also decided upon that pet name, except for some reason he can't get the short "I" sound down, so they have now become "tatties."  Hubby found that so hilarious, he now calls my chest tatties, too.

My favorite pet breast name of all time comes from my second son, who I affectionately refer to as the Bug.  Being the mother of four children forced me to give up any semblance of privacy for activities that occur in the bathroom.  In the beginning of Motherhood, I would wait until my husband came home to take a shower.  Then as his workday increased, which also happened to be in conjunction with an increase in the number of children we had, I was too tired or too stinky to wait on him any longer.  I tried to take care of personal hygiene while the kids were napping, but again, trying to get four children to nap at the same time is like trying to herd cats.  I finally gave up and started showering during the day, knowing and accepting the fact that I would never again have a moment of privacy in the bathroom.

After making sure the kids were loaded up with juice boxes, non-nutritious snacks, and Cartoon Network, I headed to the bathroom.  Having years to practice a personal hygiene routine, I was quite confident that I could shower, shampoo, shave (pits and below the knee only), and cover myself in ten minutes flat with the door open so that I will still be able to yell out threats and referee unruly children.  However, every now and then, the marketing gods from Hasbro throw a curveball into my routine and come up with a commercial that grabs the attention of my children so much so, that they cannot wait for even thirty seconds to let me know that they need this particular toy. 

Just as I was stepping out of the shower and attempting to wrap myself in a towel, the Bug came running into the bathroom to tell me about the newest toy necessity to hit America.  As he excitedly ran into the bathroom, he stopped dead in his tracks as his eyes focused directly on my nekkid body, or at least the top half of my nekkid body.  He stammered for a few seconds, and apparently, I had just hit the curveball right out of the park and diverted the Hasbro marketing gods' devious plan to ruin parents' lives.  He turned his head and slowly started backing out of the bathroom, "Mom, um, your humps are making me nervous…can you put them away?" he stammered.

My humps?  Now, I know that they don't resemble their original shape, but after four kids and 33 years, they don't look that bad…do they?  I mean, every know and then I still get comments or stares from strange men…OK, yes most of them have no teeth and ride in big pickups without tailgates, but that's the danger of living in Appalachia.   My husband still seems to be very interested in them, but then again his favorite TV shows appear on CNN and The Weather Channel. 

My fears of being the owner of humps were finally relieved one day when my dear sister-in-law agreed to watch the children for me.  She brought her daughter with her, who had just recently had a little baby of her own.  The children were quite excited, and they spent the afternoon fawning all over the new little guy.  And new little guys tend to eat quite often.  And my kids had not spent any time with a breast-fed baby. 

When I walked into the door, the Bug came running over to me jumping up and down and giggling, "Guess what?"  Seeing as how I am always up for some good news, I asked him to tell me what was so funny.  He said, "Susie's baby drinks milk from her humps and she's not even a cow!"  After the initial shock wore off, I was quite happy to find out that humps also can belong to 19-year-old women who have only birthed one child. 

Maybe there's hope after all.  I can only aspire that one day, while I'm at the Wal-Mart, my humps, too, will elicit the attention of a strange man, with a full set of teeth, who drives a Cadillac.  So what if he's nearly blind and has dentures? Teeth are teeth.