neuroses

I am not ashamed to admit it. I think it goes back to my days of singledom - buying something for my place - without a care of whether someone else will like it (keep it clean, keep it picked up, etc, etc, etc.) or not.
With that said....
I have a cute rectangular wicker basket that sits atop the toilet in the guest bathroom. In said basket are several crisp white hand towels and washcloths. All neat and tidy, tucked away.
I call them my "Don't-Touch-Towels." They are there for aesthetics. That's right - no purpose whatsoever other than to look pretty.
I also have a towel tray that holds a hand towel (der) directly next to the sink - this I expect guests to use. NOT the "Don't-Touch-Towels!"
I don't understand how these are the first grabbed at by guests after washing up.
I have even had someone use one of the "Don't-Touch-Towels" when apparently I had run out of toilet paper!!!! That's right, it was completely soaked (but rung out) and folded in half, hanging over the sink. The culprit even informed me that it was "okay" because they just went "#1"
Wha? Huh?!?!
Am I alone out here????
You better "drip dry" sister!
"Don't-Touch-Towels" are just that - "Don't-Touch-Towels!!!"
(ok. I'm done.)

Tourette's syndrome... and a feather stroke

oh boy.
where to begin?
Probably by first stating that I looove my husband. He is one of the best things that has ever happened to me. I am extremely grateful to have him and am so blessed with him in my life.

And back to the title of this blog:
so... i fear that J may one day suddenly develop signs of Tourette's syndrome - not any physical tics - just the vocal ones; what most people often associate with Tourette's - the exclamation of obscene words.

"Why?" you ask.
Because she may spring up some suppressed infantile memory of her mother and the beginning weeks of breast feeding...
I could have put any sailor to shame with the language that rolled off my tongue.

I would ask friends and family... "Just when exactly should the pain go away?"
Every answer was different but the longest period of time I got was - four weeks.
So, I waited... and those four weeks crept by. And then six weeks... and still the pain... or as I like to refer to it as the perfect torture.

More specifically... I would tell people that learning to breastfeeding would be the perfect wartime torture. (I suspect the government may already be using this tactic... if not, they should be, it would make a captive reveal any secret.)

Imagine having your arms tied at your sides and being blindfold. You have no shirt on and you are sitting in a chair. A large starved rat is then placed at your nipple. This rat gnaws and nibbles while you are in inconsolable pain. Tears are streaming down your face and sweat beads are rolling down your brow. And no curse word in the world - ones you've heard or ones you are cleverly making up - will do the trick to make those tiny little teeth subside their "eating" of your flesh! Now that you are about to pass out and just may have done so, the rat is removed... but then placed on your other nipple! After about 20-30 minutes of enduring this torture you are untied, allowed to go back to a normal breathing rhythm and life resumes as you know it - just long enough to let your tender, cracked, red, possibly bleeding nipples heal.... And then they find you and you do it all over again.

But in real life, the torture continues... every 2 hours to be exact. For weeks.

My sister was a godsend during this learning experience. She was quite the master of diversions - a mug of ice cold water with a straw, gently soothing my "birds nest" hair and softly hushing "shhh's" in my ear; telling me to breathe. The best thing was the feather stroke. This is a light touch done with the fingertips... skimming up and down my arms, neck, shoulders and back. It will give you goosebumps and a slight chill - which is heaven when you feel your body temperature rising to a degree of pain that you are certain could make your head pop right off.

Once my sister and her family returned to their home, my loving husband adoringly took her place and continued to console me during these times of "torture." However, B had no where near "mastered" the feather stroke. My husband was deathly afraid of me during this phase - from the corner of my eye I could see his face... white, shocked, scared (his jaw slightly dropped and eyes open wide.) I'm sure he thought he was witnessing an exorcism.

It would be time to feed the baby again... and B would mimic what he saw my sister repeatedly do - yet slightly different. His very large , very heavy, very hot hands would touch every square inch of my arms, neck, shoulders, etc. His fingers curled like a cat about to pounce. And I would close my eyes, attempt to drink that cold water (while still making sailors blush with my foul mouth) and I would violently thrust my shoulder back at him in attack.
"FEATHER STROKE!" I would whine.
"THAT'S WHAT I'M DOING," he would protest.
"No. No. No. NO. You are using all your body weight. It's supposed to be light. LIKE A FEATHER! And you're not supposed to touch every square inch of skin!"
Very confused he asks, "Can't I just use a feather then?!?!"

... huh? wa? huh?!?! what?!?!?
I wanted to scream, "YES HONEY! YES! USE A FEATHER! GO ON OUT AND FIND A FEATHER AND THEN COME BACK AND USE IT! SURE! THAT WILL BE MUUUUCH EASIER."

lol. Poor, poor man.
He was so patient.

sigh.

Praise God that after about nine, maybe ten weeks, the feedings got easier and easier (pain free!) and my language cleaned up.

Now I pray Jeorgia was toooooo consumed with all that warm milk to have payed any attention to mommy's potty mouth... it certainly didn't prevent her from stuffing her face.

A quote from one of my favorite movies:
"A Christmas Story"
Ralphie: In the heat of battle my father wove a tapestry of obscenities that as far as we know is still hanging in space over Lake Michigan.