TheBanyanTree: Life Stories 125

Fri Jan 19 07:21:26 PST 2007

January 19, 20000000007

Dear Here,

	Meyshe hates shaving.  Every once in a 
while, we'll take him into the bathroom and fire 
up the shaver (the best they had), and we'll flip 
up the trimmer and get the first few layers of 
his beard off.  Then we'll use the shaver heads 
to clear away the remaining brush.  He shrieks in 
pain at some of this.  Men: does shaving hurt? 
This is with one of those three circular headed 
shavers that has a trimmer attachment that you 
can push out from the body of the shaver. 
Anyway, when he's done, Meyshe looks splendid!  A 
handsome man.  Then when I try to offer to help 
him shave in a couple of days, he refuses, and 
after a while, it's back to beard and moustache, 
and we have to do the whole thing again.  I 
wouldn't object to a beard, except that his is 
still straggly and he doesn't know how to trim it 
into good neat shape so he doesn't look like a 
street person.

	Personally, I don't shave.  I shaved 
under my arms, once, when I was 19, but that was 
it.  The raw skin rubbing against raw skin with 
little prickly ends sticking out convinced me 
that it was stupid.  Feyna's aforementioned 
friend, Alex, once told her, "Feyna, shave under 
your arms.  It's not easy on the eye."  Really 
tactful, and of course, none of his business to 
tell Feyna how to manage her body, but there it 
was.  The weird thing is, she did it.  She rued 
it later.  Felt bad for caving in and swore that 
she'd never let him do that to her again.  But 
then he told her she should wear big hoop 
earrings because he liked the slutty look.  And 
whaddayaknow, she showed up with big cheap hoop 
earrings.  It did not look in keeping with 
Feyna's natural look.  She took them off and I've 
not seen them again.

	One of my suitors once showed me a page 
in some fashion magazine.  A scrawny model was 
posed near a king's cane chair and hassock.  She 
was wearing laced see through pants that were 
cuffed at an extreme angle, and a low low cut 
v-neck blouse to match.  Black.  He said, "This 
is you."  I told him that it wasn't me.  It was a 
scrawny model in New York, and that I was 
satisfied with my weird wear, the wraparound full 
length skirts and the layers of Asian jackets 
over a kurta, the rings on every finger, the 
Chinese standard issue decorated mary janes and 
the stockings with silk screened photos of 
various familiar sceneries on them.  He insisted 
that this photo was what I ought to look like.  I 
was shocked.  I told him that he couldn't dress 
me and to stop trying.

	He didn't last long.

                         WWWWWWWWWWWWWWWWWWWWWWWWWWWWW

Breast Pump

	For the first six months of their lives, 
Feyna and Meyshe were sustained by my milk alone. 
I was warned by many people that it was not 
possible, that I wouldn't be able to manufacture 
enough milk to feed two growing babies, 
especially since I was so petite a person.  But 
there were warnings of every kind.  There is 
something about the whole process of pregnancy, 
giving birth, naming the baby, nursing and care 
of infants that brings out the kibbitzer in 
people.  They give all manner of advice: advice 
not needed, advice not asked for, catastrophic 
warnings, and a lot of, "I heard that . . . ".  I 
had to insulate myself from it.  It was a 
powerful blast.  Not only did they tell me I 
couldn't nurse twins, they also told me my milk 
must not be good.  Meyshe had colic.  They'd see 
Meyshe fussing at the breast, and they'd furrow 
their brows.  "Something might be wrong with your 
milk."  I would point to Feyna who was hitched to 
the next breast over, note that she was doing 
just fine, and wait for the reaction.  "Some 
babies aren't as sensitive to bad milk," they'd 
improvise.

	What was it about a woman nursing twins 
that inspired such a torrent of criticism, such 
negativity, such discouraging tactics?  Did they 
loathe the fact that I had twins?  Was it 
jealousy?  Or did twins just sound some tribal 
instinct that it was unnatural, a hex, bad joo 
joo?

	You may think that babies are born 
knowing what to do.  They just look for the 
breast and suck out the juice.  But it's not the 
case.  Some babies latch on quite well, and do 
their jobs quietly and efficiently.  Some babies 
don't close their mouths completely over the 
nipple, and they take in air with every mouthful 
of milk.  This is unpleasant for a rudimentary 
digestive tract, and it keeps Mom up, too.  Some 
babies keep falling off the breast and have to be 
shown what to do.  This was not easy for me, 
because I didn't know what to do.  I was doing 
all this instinctively.  I just knew that they 
needed one breast apiece, at the least, and I was 
equipped.

	I learned quickly that when one of them 
woke up to nurse, I had to wake the other one to 
nurse.  They had to be on the same schedule. 
Otherwise I'd be nursing all the time.  The input 
and output, when staggered, wreaks havoc on the 
Mom.  Nursing one while changing the other's 
diapers, then doing the reverse in half an hour. 
I had a nursing pillow made especially for twins. 
It was like a big puffy horseshoe, thick and 
cushy for the babies' comfort.  I'd position 
myself sitting up in bed, back against the wall, 
and plop the nursing pillow on my lap.  Then I'd 
take one infant at a time and lay it down with 
the feet aimed out to my sides, and the head 
towards my core.  Then the other.  I'd hold onto 
their little heads while they nursed, and the 
milk would drain out of me along with all my 
waking energies.  It was a contest of sorts. 
After nursing, they'd fall asleep, and during 
nursing I was begged by my body to do so.  But I 
resisted.  I was running the show, yes?  It was I 
who had to hold on to their little wee skulls and 
keep them attached.  If I fell over, what would 
become of them?  It's not as if they could sashay 
across the blankets, grab a breast and reclaim 
it, the mother asleep, regardless.

	After a few months of this routine, I was 
in to see my gynecologist, and we figured out 
together by crunching numbers that I was nursing 
twelve hours out of the twenty four.  This gave 
me pause.  Emphasis was placed on this pause when 
that day, as I sat up in bed doing the double 
breasted suit, I watched the quilt undulating, 
waves crossing it as if it were a lake, the 
gentle tide lapping up onto the shore.  Oh.  No. 
The quilt is not undulating.  I'm hallucinating. 
I decided to give myself a break and fed them by 
bottle for the middle of the night feeding.  I 
fed them mother's milk, made possible by the fact 
that I'd been saving excess milk with my handy 
dandy breast pump.  This was the industrial 
strength model, electric powerful sucking action, 
stood about four feet tall it seemed, and came 
with all sorts of tubes and funnels, accordioned 
suction efficators, and dual sterile receptacles. 
It stood by my side of the bed, a formidable 
piece of furniture, making the bedroom look like 
a mad scientist's laboratory, minus the Tessla 
Coil.  When I hooked myself up to the breast 
pump, I was fully committed.  All I could do was 
read a book, or knit baby booties, crochet a 
diaper bag.  But I don't knit or crochet, so I 
sat there, turning the pages of a book while 
teetering out of consciousness.  And the breast 
pump went:  FOOOOOOM - EWWPHHHHH - FOOOOOM - 
EEWWPHHHH - AHFOOOOOOM - EERWPHHHHH.  With every 
FOOOM the machine's air tight seal on the tip of 
my breast pulled the nipple straight out into a 
transparent funnel attached to a tube.  Five jets 
of milk would get squeezed from me and splatter 
down through the funnel.  The suction was so 
powerful that the whole areola was sucked into 
the funnel, and the nipple stretched like the 
rubber protrusion on a jumbly toy.  FOOOOOM!  And 
the nipple extruded.  EWWPHHHH, and the little 
accordioned suction efficators re-armed 
themselves.  FOOOOOM!  	EWWPHHHH!  AAAAAAAAH!  as 
it rested before rewinding.  FOOOOOM!  EWWPHHHH! 
AAAAAAAAHHH!

	Once when I was being milked, Alex 
knocked on the door.  He needed to tell his 
father something.  David invited him in.  I 
covered myself quickly with the sheets, and tried 
to look innocent.  But FOOOOOOOM!  EWWPHHHH! 
AAAAAHHH! and the rich sweet mother's milk 
splattering down the transparent tube.  Alex 
tried to look the other way.  I have to hand it 
to him.  I would have reached over and turned off 
the pump, but the gasp when it shut off was 
almost worse than the racket while it was 
working.  FOOOOOM!  PHEEEEEOOOOOWWW - 
GHAAAAAAaaaaaa - THUNK - FFFFfffffffth.

                         WWWWWWWWWWWWWWWWWWWWWWWWWWWWW

-- 

Tobie Helene Shapiro
Berkeley, California   USA

tobie at shpilchas.net