Mundane flaws, Nov 14, 2003

Okay, I have to get this off my chest. My husband is a handsome, strapping young man, well groomed and polite. But there's a glaring flaw if you spend enough time with him (like, a year)-he picks his nose. Digs around, comes up with some prize, looks at it on the tip of his finger, then flicks it in no particular direction. The first few times I saw him do this I felt horribly embarrassed that I had seen my prince charming do something that I feel most third graders know is kind of taboo, with seemingly little shame involved. Then it just got under my skin-BAD. I was pregnant, and seeing him do that, while in the car, for instance, where I felt trapped and doomed to witness it, just made my blood boil for some reason-I've never had a 'pet peeve' before this but now I know what the term really means. It's like something going on that is the equivalent of fingernails on a chalkboard and you start panting like a tiger with fuming emotion swirling around inside of you to where it's all you can do to keep yourself from screaming out at the top of your lungs, 'STOP DOING THAT!!!' I tried those really fast audible angry exhales while shifting in my seat to show irritation, hoping that without speaking a word he would get the picture that I find it totally gross and he would stop without us ever having to discuss such an unsavory topic. But he was oblivious and kept digging around his nose. Now this doesn't happen all the time, I don't want to make it sound like my husband has a hard time getting things done in life, what with all the nose picking, but still-once a month of my noticing this little scene was WAY more than I could handle…and still is. I finally exploded during my last weeks of pregnancy while we were watching a movie snuggled on the couch together and demanded, 'Could you please stop doing that in front of me??' in a kind of 'I've-had-it-and-am-totally-exhasperated-so-just-agree-with-me-and-we'll-all-have-a-chance-at-getting-out-of-this-conversation-alive' type of voice. He just looked at me as if I had done something awful and he couldn't believe my nerve and said, 'No!' Well that took me off guard. I was so worried about him feeling embarrassed at my bringing him up I never considered the tables would turn so quickly and he would actually find me at fault for asking him to stop what was apparently his god-given-nose-picking rights. I momentarily felt guilty, as if I had just asked him to stop breathing. Then I remembered how much it had been eating at me for six months, and I calmly said, 'Well it's really distracting and irritating for me, blah blah blah' (can't remember exactly how this conversation went, months later). I do remember that we never reached an amicable conclusion about the nose picking, and every couple of months at least, I'll see him at it and my temperature shoots up and my heart starts pounding with wrath. I wish I could just leave the room and do some sort of yoga meditation trick to get over it, but I find myself frozen and immobilized by my sheer irritation and I want to go over and grab his hand away and ask him if he's ever seen any adult do that in public and did he find it particularly charming???? I know "for better or for worse, in sickness and in health" surely includes disgusting bodily habits, but man, does it HAVE to? My college boyfriend used to get so irritated when I would pick at the skin around my cuticles-I've been doing that disgusting habit since my mom moved me from Hawaii and I found it deeply relieving to let the stress out that way-I pick at the dry, thick skin around the nail until I can slowly peel pieces off, sometimes even causing it to bleed (but not too often). I still to this day have little places around my fingernails healing from recent attacks by my digging fingernails. Now I don't know for sure if it's a stress thing or just a total long term habit because I don't necessarily feel like it's something I do for stress relief, I just like the sensation of getting rid of dry, rough, or already-peeling skin around my nails (using a fingernail clipper works great, and leads to less bleeding but I'm lazy sometimes about getting up and getting one). I am also nuts about giving myself and others manicures and pedicures, so you'd think I'd shudder to do that to my hands, know it ends up making the area so unattractive.

Anyway, enough about disgusting habits. Today has been a lovely indoors type of day, the only rhythm or schedule Aleksi and I have been following has been to change his diaper every 60-90 minutes, which kind of breaks the day up into nice little pieces. Of course we went two hours between 8 and 10 this morning, since we were sleeping. J I love how Aleksi finds that sleeping from 10pm to 10am is totally acceptable, with maybe a couple of short snacks lazily thrown in there to keep him assured of constant boobify-ability (we say I 'boobify' him when I breastfeed him-doesn't everyone? ;) ). I like to sleep a lot, so it works out nicely. I don't know how I would handle it if I tried to put him in another room, in a crib, and would have to actually get my head off the pillow when he stirred and needed a little 30 second bout of active comforting. I am not good when drowsy. I don't even actually trust myself to hold him until I've kind of come out of my fog, because I am clumsy until I get fully awake, and my grip isn't so tight. Yet, when we sleep tummy-to-tummy I never feel like I am at the slightest risk of rolling on him or anything-I never move a cm from the position we fall asleep in. I think it's a mommy-instinct to keep her baby safe even while she's asleep.

I've found that Aleksi likes my taste in music. Earlier we were jammin' to the Indigo Girls and just a few minutes ago I danced him around the room to old Police songs (the 'Every Breath You Take' album) and he seemed pretty thrilled with our 'doo doo doo daa daa daa' dancin'. (you know the song right?) I find myself cherishing every moment with him being this small and immobile, just carrying him around the house in the björn and tenderly holding him close and sniffing his head. I feel like any day now he's just going to whoooosh-grow-up-on-me and I won't be able to keep him still for long enough to get a really good snuggle in. So I snuggle the heck out of him now and am really, really happy about it. I thought that moms had to go through the process once to realize how quickly babies grow up and to really enjoy the infancy stage, but I think I am doing a pretty good job of appreciating that reality already, even though I'm a new mom. I think it was in 'The Poisonwood Bible' by Barbara Kingsolver that she described mothering a first child as kind of being thrilled about each maturing stage and pushing them forward into the world with an eagerness about getting them up-and-out into the world, whereas with your last born, you hang on tight to every moment of babyhood and then childhood and kind of wistfully hate to see them grow up. But for me, I am kind of proud of myself for grasping how sweet it is to have this little baby next to me, even if I have 9 more after him, because one day Aleksi will be a grown man, looking down on me and I will remember how wonderful his head smelled when sleeping against my chest and wish I could just have him safe and close to mama again for a little while.

I'm such a fool, sitting at home every day this week in hopes that the delivery man will come. I forgot, when shopping up a storm on ebay, that I would have to BE HERE, waiting at home, for packages to arrive-ugh. I just want to go to the store, or for a walk, or to Laura's café, or something for a little while, but I have about 5 packages, at least, that I am waiting for that could very well arrive today, so I sit at home and wait. It's probably best that I have stayed in this week because all week I've sort of felt like there was some kind of bug or virus or something stalking me. After 10pm I'll get a scratch in my throat and think, 'Uh-oh' and run to the kitchen, eat an orange or chop up a couple cloves of garlic into tiny little juicy fragments and swallow them with a glass of water. Or I'll stay indoors with socks on, drinking warm tea (so as not to get a chill) plus about a gallon of water over the course of an evening so I'm constantly running to the bathroom to pee. So far these little immune-system-boosting-tricks have kept the bug at bay and I haven't gotten sick. But today, lest get cocky, I again felt a little twinge in my throat, so I've been downing more garlic fragments a-la-Angelica-the-apothecary (I feel like such a clever little mad scientist in the kitchen with my chopping block and garlic). I feel like this bug is a crafty predator that is caging around my apartment just around the corner in the next room ready to leap out and strike me down. But so far I'm winning this battle…yay!

Oh, I had my post partum check up a couple weeks ago and I must say I'm not impressed. My counseling on contraception was this: Do you know you can get pregnant? Yes. Have you thought about contraception? Yes, but I'm uncertain of what to use because I'm not interested in hormones and I want something easily reversible in the short term (since we don't know when exactly we'll try to conceive again). Yes. -end of conversation, proceed to vaginal exam portion of this fun-filled morning- Of course, so far contraception hasn't been needed in my marriage, but I assume at some point again it will be, but I'm totally lost on options and need advice or at least stories of others' experiences. I don't want hormones, I want easily reversible, and the thought of an IUD creeps me out entirely. I guess I'll figure something out when the need arises….

Back to index   NEXT