Backne and the sweetest (not) husband ever

Sometimes, my husband can be quite...blunt.

For example, one of the nasty side effects of my pregnancy is that I have a terrible case of "backne*". I have never had any backne pre-pregnancy, but now they have happily formed little communities and constellations spanning my entire upper back (you'd think that they would at least be considerate enough to grow around my lower back area so as to be more discreet on the occasion that I wear low -back outfits, right???)

I suppose I have to be thankful overall, though, as I never experienced the even nastier side effect of vomiting, nausea or other similar symptoms of pregnancy.

*Backne- My coined word, short for "back acne"

I expressed my gratitude over the fact that my backne was not growing on my face. I then asked,

I: "Hun, if my backne were growing on my face, would you still love me?"

He: "Well, I would perhaps take more time getting to know you better..."

I: "...And if this occurred before we got married, would you still marry me?"

He: "I would find it more difficult to look at your face, and instead focus on your other body parts (looks at my chest)"

He then helpfully added, " if your backne would converge in a much smaller area such as your face, your face would then be a big boil..." (winces)

In times like these, I really feel 100% sure that I married the right man...

Getting creative when in pain and prior to sleeping

There are days when you are bursting with stories and feel especially eloquent. Then, there are those days when you just can't be bothered by something as irrelevant as proper words/ English.

After just the first year together as a married couple, we found a way to make our lives easier (and make speaking more efficient) through coining a few useful daily conversation terminology:

I. On the topic of pinpointing where to massage me, highlighting painful areas (an official medical chart of the back shoulder muscles has been provided below for reference):

Brad Pits: massage of the underarm (arm pit) muscles (or close to it anyway, with shirt on, of course or that would be gross)

Chicken wings: massage of Teres minor (see diagram below)

Ground zero*: pain central

       * Oftentimes, there is not just one ground zero, so this is further subdivided into several         subcategories, conveniently named in bullet points, such as ground 0.1, 0.2, 0.3, and so on and so forth...

Then there are a few more, honestly, I can get quite creative when in pain and duress, but as I usually don't have a notebook beside me at the same time, some crucial keywords have slipped out of my memory bank. I'm sure it will come back to me, it's just like riding a bike, as they all say.

II. On the topic of the bedding landscape:

"P.M. me":  Contrary to popular culture, this does not mean "Private message" me (oh, please... how lame). Instead, it means, "Pillow Mountain" me. As in, (help me) build a mountain of pillows of varying firmness and terrain according to the shape of my body to prepare me for a better sleep.

Now, obviously, this is way too long to explain to my husband every night. So that is where "P.M. me" comes in quite handy.

"De-slut the rabbit"-

My husband bought me a pregnancy pillow during my second trimester (I didn't start using it until towards the end of this semester, but we thought buying early would somehow make more sense as we'd end up buying it eventually anyway).

I chose a cute light pink rabbit print pillow that has little drawings of a girl rabbit going about her daily routine (such as watering the plants, walking her...dog(?!), pushing her baby in a pram, holding a bunch of balloons, you know... usual things that rabbits enjoy doing.

It honestly did look like this at the start, as it was advertised on the shop's online site:

However, after a few weeks of usage, the two "legs", shall we say, refused to stay together, and the fillers moved about in all the wrong places, and thus had to be shaken upside down to get the fillers back to where they should be, and slapped silly to get the two "legs" to close...

Thus, the term, "de-slutting"...

Oh, the things I learned in a very strict all-girls Catholic school upbringing.

On a side note, this is on my wishlist:

You can probably guess where each part of the pregnant woman goes, the photo is quite self-explanatory... As almost every part of my body aches (even parts I didn't know even existed), I would really really love to get a professional massage. Not that my husband's aren't enough, but well... yeah I suppose they aren't...but he did give me an always replenishing, never dwindling supply of "100" free massage coupons from a "hunky" masseuse (Read: him) as one of his gifts last last Christmas...

I find it impossible for any massage therapist to take me on as a client here in Shanghai, even the TCM (Traditional Chinese Medicine) doctors who specialize in special care (and who could need more special care than a pregnant woman?) gave me a look that was bordering on "Are you retarded?!?" when I asked to book a session with the TCM masseuse doctor.  In fact, the only time I was able to soothe my aching muscles professionally was when I went to the blind massage parlor next door to our village. And that speaks loads that the only reason I was accepted as a client was because my masseuse was .... visually impaired.

With this bed, I can bypass their lame excuses of not being able to lie flat on my stomach, I mean, hello?!? Isn't this China, the world's factory? Aw come, on! They could make this at a snap of my fingers, for sure. Wouldn't it be awesome if it were available here? :)