Breasts

My mother in law has beautiful breasts. You may be thinking that I am being euphemistic and sentimental, reflecting on the 8 children she has nurtured and fed at them, including my husband, the occasional time when she has offered them to a fussy grandbaby when I have been out and they have needed comfort, and other applications of the word beautiful, but I’m talking purely about aesthetics. This woman is over 50, did you catch the part where she breast fed 8 children, and her breasts look better than I think mine ever have, and I just turned 29. They are perky, they look great under a spandex workout tank that she wears around bra less with the impunity of a 15 year old.

I haven’t been able to go bra less since I was 13. I was a DD when I got married, I had babies and moved up to an E cup. My husband would, carefully, joke about having to look near my knees to find them after each baby. But give me another 20 years and he may not be joking, I definitely don’t expect them to look like his mother’s. Until I had breasts I wanted them. I would look at Archie comics and wonder if I would ever have Betty and Veronica curves. Never mind that they were exaggerated caricatures of the ideal body, I was dying to look like that. Since then I have spent a lot of time and energy in search of the perfect jogbra to keep them from bouncing painfully every time I move. I only wore jogbras for a couple of years before I understood the wonders of underwiring.
When I was 15 I would still try to go without a bra on Saturday mornings, by lunch I was aching. Maybe those Saturday mornings are why they droop so much now. (Hale Berry told Oprah her breasts look so good because her momma told her to always wear a bra to bed, something I never tried.)

My dear mother with her little b-cups went shopping with me for lingerie before I got married and she was appalled to see just how unlike hers mine are without support. She immediately started teaching me the exercise from her school days that goes to the chant of “WE MUST, WE MUST, WE MUST INCREASE OUR BUST.” while violently jerking our arms to the sides at armpit level. And then we both broke down in giggles in the dressing room at the absurd sight of my breasts pendulous motion beneath some filmy and completely unflattering bit of pseudo sexy negligee. The last thing I need is an increase but she swears that those exercises are why her breasts continue to draw compliments today.

My husband commented the other day about me showing him my nice perky breasts and I wondered for a second if he had me confused with someone else. I prefer to think that he is fond of my body with all of it’s unconventional beauty, for he continues to keep me believing that he really likes my breasts, though I know his preference is smaller.

So back to my mother in law and her stunning mammories. She had none to speak of until my husband was born, and then she woke up one night in agony as she grew two cup sizes in a few hours. She describes the first few days of breastfeeding after each baby as pounding her breasts in a door repeatedly. My other friends with smaller breasts have shared similar stories. I’m stunned to realize that it is painful for some women as I have never found it uncomfortable, until the teeth come in of course. So this is one way that my breast size is a blessing, I have enjoyed the newborn nursing times. But then, they have never had chest and back pain after running, and neck pain from the jogbra. I think we come out even. After all, as teenagers we all envied the girls who had breasts to show off, as we get older we start to envy the woman who can still wear strapless dresses. But I’m hoping for my little girl that she doesn’t get her breast size from me.