A Pedicure Will Not Cure Foot-in-Mouth Disease (Especially Somebody Else's)

Breaking News: I don't like having my feet touched.  Not for a massage, not for a pedicure, not fer nuthin'. 

There's the tickling issue, but then there are also myriad other things that make me squirm and go all self-conscious.  A weird freckle on the inside of my big toe.  An immovable callous here or there.  The toenails that I try to keep trimmed while pregnant, but Heavens to Betsy...that's almost more trouble than it's worth these days.  (Kind of like shaving.  Don't even get me started on the safety hazards and rude indignities of 9th-month shaving.)

Even just telling you so many intimate details about my feet is giving me the shivers.  It's like you're looking  at them and...and...thinking about them.  Shudder.

As such, you can imagine my horror to remember how close a gaggle of doctors and nurses will be coming to my feet while I'm in bearing down position sometime soon.  No, no -- the fact that they'll be down there doesn't worry me so much as knowing that my FEET might gain their attention.  The horrors, right?

So, to avoid any awkwardness on the delivery bed (hah), I made myself go in for a pedicure.  The second pedicure of my life.  The technician was kind and careful and skilled and...I have to admit, my feet look gorgeous.  It's nothing short of amazing (perhaps it's nothing short of crazy) how much more prepared I feel for labor and delivery over such a silly thing. 

But I'm beginning to think that my choice at the salon today was for naught.  That maybe I should have sprung for a different package of personal detailing.

You need to know, for this next part, that my husband swears he remembers the specific sort of beauty I possessed when I went into labor with Lauren, over 3 years ago.  He said I was remarkably pretty that night, and that I had a glow he'd not seen before.  Very complimentary, right?  He's such a sweetheart...

So this morning, while I was getting myself ready -- another undignified process whereby I cannot gain my balance and my clothing at the same critical point in time -- Justin looked at me to say something.  It was early.  He hadn't really gazed into my eyes yet.  Basked in my 9-months appearance.  But he looked at me, then did a double take with squinted eyes of concentration.

"What?" I asked.  It was too early to have something stuck in my teeth.  What was he looking at?

He shook his head.  "Never mind -- I thought for a minute that you looked especially pretty today, and I was starting to freak out that you'd go into labor."  Here, he let out a relieved puff of air.

"So..." I ventured skeptically.  "False alarm?"

"Yeah, you just look..."  Cue the sunrise and the dawning of a misspoken phrase.  His eyebrows rose as he realized his blunder, and he started shaking his head and hands in equal parts submission and appeasement. 

Don't worry.  I gave him h-e-double-hockey-sticks.

Still, it made me wonder if I shouldn't have sprung for the facial instead.  But then I remembered: nah.  Nobody's going to be looking at my face in the delivery room.

I swear, it'll be all eyes on my gorgeous feet.  Right?