Monday, Monday, Monday. Curse thee.

  1. Woke up late today.
  2. Seriously considered getting busy with The Bean, but alas: no time (see line item #1).
  3. Began contemplating whether or not we could find time to have a little “busy time” later today… but no, The Bean has an evening class…. maybe tomorrow morning? No… I work out tomorrow morning…. and I have plans tomorrow evening – besides, The Bean has another night class….. Maybe Wednesday morning…?….
  4. Became seriously depressed at the thought that not only is my life so busy I have to “plan” something as fun and spontaneous as “busy time”… but I’m not even sure we do have time, even if we did plan it.
  5. Got in the shower, pouting.
  6. Couldn’t find the razor to shave my legs, which mean I wouldn’t be able to wear the business skirt I wanted to wear. Instead, I would have to wear my too-tight, too-high, kinda too-short in the legs “wow-I-look-like-a-mom” pants.
  7. Considered not shaving and just taking a chance nobody would actually look at my legs today.
  8. Looked down and saw the long, full forest of leg hair that currently adorns my leg undulate gently in the breeze.
  9. Decided to go with the pants.
  10. Stuffed myself into pants.
  11. Stared morosely in the mirror. Ugh. Fat.
  12. Drove to work.
  13. Stopped to get coffee— Mmmm. Coffee. At least one thing went well, right?
  14. Received a phone call from The Bean letting me know I had forgotten half of the parts to my pump at home, which means pumping will take twice as long.
  15. Got to work.
  16. Put things down at desk.
  17. Immediately spilled 30 ounces of coffee all over my desk – watched in horror as 30 ounces became something like 425 bazillion ounces and covered everything in sight.
  18. Galumphed Ran nimbly and lightly to the breakroom to get paper towels.
  19. Spent 30 minutes cleaning. Congratulated myself that I managed to sop everything up without losing a single bit of electronics to the coffee madness.
  20. Tried to begin work.
  21. Realized that I did have one casualty – my keyboard, which once again decided it did not want to type the letter “t”.
  22. Tried to fix keyboard.
  23. End result: A keyboard that ONLY types the letter T. T. Ttt. TtTtttT. Pages and pages of TttttTTTtttttttttttttttTTTtttttttttttttttTTTttttttttttt.
  24. Disconnected keyboard, opened laptop.
  25. Look at the time: 9:30am. Only seven more hours to go.
  26. Take a break, type up a post complaining about it, post it to blog.
  27. Look at time: 9:46am. Back to work.

He’s MINE, girls… BACK OFF!

It’s the middle of the week, and both the Bean and I have just arrived home after yet another glorious day in California traffic.

As usual, The DragonMonkey is making loud, noisy laps around the house.

“Eeeeee! Hahahahahahahahah! Kick doggie! Hahahahahahaha! EEEE!!! EEE!!”

In a perfect, 1950s world I’d be donning my apron, patting my perfectly coiffed hair, and getting ready to lovingly prepare a healthy, nutritious, and delicious warm meal for my family.

Unfortunately for The Bean, this is 2011 and I ain’t no June Cleaver.

“Hey Bean,” I holler, trying to be heard over the racket the DragonMonkey is making. “Grab a hotdog out of the fridge for the DM. It’s dinner time.”

Hot dogs are considered healthy, delicious, and nutritious, right?

Please don’t answer that.

“We’ve only got one,” The Bean hollers back. “What else do we give him?”

“Ummmm…..” Let’s see… rice takes too long… I’ve cooked fish three times this week…. I did chips yesterday….. Ah-ha! “Applesauce. Give him some applesauce.”

There. Protein and fruit. Maybe it’s not a culinary masterpiece, but it’s gluten-free and filling. Yay for me.

From the living room, the Squidgelet begins to whimper quietly. Hello? Hello? Has everyone forgotten about me?

I flatten myself against the wall, preparing to push myself between the Bean and open refrigerator door and the narrow kitchen doorway so I can go pick him up.

Thoughtfully, the Bean shuts the door slightly, so I don’t have to actually suck in my flabby belly beautifully toned abs to squeeze past. I shoot him a smile, but he seems distracted.

As I scoot past him, I see the door jerk in my direction… once, twice… accompanied by a muted “Pa-choo! Pa-choo!”

I stop, and stare at the Bean incredulously.

“Did you…Did you just pretend to hit me with the refrigerator door? Complete with cartoony sound effects?”

The Bean flushes, and his eyes drop guiltily.

“Yeah.”

“Why? What on earth would make you do that?”

He shrugs like a teenager, still eyeing the floor guiltily. “I dunno. It just seemed like it would be fun. Like a videogame, or something.”

*******************

Actual Excerpt from Gmail Chat:



Sigh.

They never grow up, do they?

Three Dollar Hooker

I’m a three dollar hooker.

It’s sad. I always thought I would do more with my life. Write a book? Travel to Scotland? Balance a checkbook?

Funny, but “sell my body for slightly less than the cost of two king-size Snickers bars” was never very high on the list.

Still, a girl’s gotta do what a girl’s gotta do.

After all, the Bean refuses to buy condoms.

It’s not that he has anything against them—

Oh, who am I kidding? The Bean hates condoms – he just never comes right out and says it. To butcher a quote from Grey’s Anatomy: There is a land called Passive Aggressiva… and The Bean is their king.

What can I say? My husband is a prude when it comes to buying condoms, and I can’t say that I blame him. We’re both kind of prudes when it comes to buying birth control. The problem is, every time we get down to business (It’s Business Time!), he is accompanied by several million eagerly swimming little non-prudes.

With both of us hating to buy condoms, this is kind of a problem. I’d go on the pill, but the pill seems to be completely ineffective on my fertility.

So, what’s a fertile girl to do? Unfortunately for me, I seem to have all the self control of a rabbit in heat where my husband is concerned. Despite my better intentions, the same thing happens every time.

The kids are asleep, and I feel that familiar rub on my side….

I turn to him…..

Many short-breathed moments later, I gasp out, “Babe, we need, to uh… we need.. you know…”

And with that, my normally brilliant husband suddenly develops all the mental acuity of a half-dead houseplant.

“Huh?”

“We need to, you know… We can’t get pregnant…”

“Huh?”

“We need protection….”

“Mmmrphrmph…” He makes a noncommittal noise and tries to distract me.

Apparently he forgets how much I hate being pregnant. I am not that easily distracted.

“We need to do something about it!” I bite out, frustrated in more ways than one.

“Like what?”

Like what? SERIOUSLY? I’m supposed to believe this sudden onset of confusion from the man that carries a 4.0 in his university classes while juggling two jobs, a wife, and two kids? Yeah. Not buying it.

“REALLY, Bean? Do I have to spell it out for you? PRO-TEC-TION.” I bite out the syllables.

“Why can’t we just do what we normally do? It’s worked for us so far…”

“Who’s to say we just haven’t been lucky? Huh?”

He evades the question by trying to distract me yet again, and this time nearly succeeds. I surface like a drowning swimmer, clinging to my last remaining shred of self control.

“No, BEAN! You know what you have to do – did you pick any of them up?”

The Bean has been under long-standing orders to buy some condoms from his school. The school offers them ridiculously cheap, but you need a student ID to take advantage of the offer. He has one. I don’t.

Besides, we’ve been married three years and we have two kids. Maybe it’s time for me to pass the birth-control reins onto someone else.

Moreover, I think I offered him a pretty good deal. “Six months,” I told him. “Six months of you taking point and then I’ll take over all the embarrassing purchases.” The Bean agreed. Six months vs. a lifetime? That seemed reasonable.

And yet….

“No, I haven’t had a chance to get them yet…..” He tries to distract me yet again, but this time I slap his hand away.

“I’m gonna end up pregnant,” I warn.

“You won’t get pregnant,” he says soothingly.

I am not soothed.

I give a disbelieving snort and push him away. “Sorry. No babies. This shop is closed.” I know there are other ways of taking care of our “dilemma” but as far as I can tell, if I don’t take a hard stance, he’ll never learn anything.

I roll over on my side and face the wall, frustrated. The problem with taking a hard stance is that I’m not really sure who I am punishing.

Thirty seconds go by, but it feels more like thirty minutes.

“Fine.” He heaves a heavy, woe-is-me sigh. “I’ll pick some up tomorrow.” His hand touches my waist.

I look over my shoulder with a grin before pouncing on him.

The next day, when I text him, “SO??? Did you get them???” I receive vague excuses as to why he hasn’t had a chance to stop by. The line was too long. He was late to work. A giant herd of unicorns stampeded through the hallway and blocked the entrance.

Don’t get me wrong – I love my kids. I just don’t need thirty of them.

It didn’t seem fair that I had to be the adult in the situation. It takes two to tango, right? Shouldn’t it take two to wander up to complete strangers and ask them for sperm-blockading devices?

On the other hand, it was obvious we weren’t getting any closer to that goal, and who needs to live in a constant state of worry each month?

So I decided to take matters into my own hands. I came up with a plan and I put it in motion.

I bought a bunch of condoms.

I stocked them in “the drawer”.

And if the Bean wants to use any of my condoms instead of the much-cheaper condoms he can pick up any time…. Well, then he has to pay a premium.

Three dollars worth of premium.

I mean, come on. I’m a working mother with two kids. I don’t have the time or the energy to be worth $5 of premium.

And you know what? So far, the system seems to be working pretty well.

He no longer has to try to summon the courage up to ask a complete stranger for a big box of condoms.

And me? I no longer resent him for not going to the store. In fact, I actively discourage it. After all, it may only be $3, but it adds up.

So, yeah. There you go. Me love you long time.

But apparently only three bucks worth of long time. If you want some of that five-dollah lovin’, you’ve got to go to the ritzy side of town.

(Actual screenshot – names changed to protect our lascivious identities. I sure hope Wells Fargo doesn’t closely monitor transfer descriptions. )

A Nighttime Symphony

A Symphony of Sounds

brought to you by:

Our Nighttime Household

*CLICK* goes the light switch.

*WHIRRR* goes the fan.

Dark goes the room.

*Snore* goes the husband.

My eyelids grow heavy, and after rolling around for a few minutes I drift off. I enter my second life – my vivid dream life. Brilliant colors, background music, swashbuckling adventures await… I don my secondary persona and dash off into adventure….

“MEEEEEEEEEEEH!!!!

I’m ripped out of my dreamworld as Squidgelet gives an angry, hungry grunt and whips his head from side to side. Sleepily, I roll over and pop open the nursing bra clasp. He latches on with a grumpy grunt.

I drift off into a semi-awake state.

*SNORE* goes the husband.

I pop off the Squidgelet and switch him to the other side.

I drift off into that half-awake state again.

Snore goes the husband.

Whirrrr goes the fan.

I’m having a relaxing, half-dream about horses.

The sound of the fish spitting the pebbles against the side of the aquarium wakes me with a jolt, and I realize that Squidgelet is pretty much done. Since I don’t really enjoy being a human pacifier, I pop him off, heave myself up with a grunt, and put him in the swing at the end of the bed.

I crawl back into bed, and after about 10 minutes of tossing and turning, I manage to drift back to sleep. I keep one ear open in case the Squidgelet decides he wasn’t done nursing, but it appears he’s back to sleep.

*CLINK! CLINK! CLINK!* The stupid fish spit pebbles against the glass walls of their aquarium prison. I lay there with my eyes shut, hating them.

CLINK! CLINK!

At some point, I manage to drift off again.

“MEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEH!!!!”

With a grumpy sigh I lurch up and crawl across the bed, grabbing the Squidgelet. I hobble on my knees back to my side, and lay down to nurse.

He grunts and latches on angrily. I wince.

I drift off.

The left side begins to run dry. I can tell, because instead of calmly nursing, it feels like the Squidgelet is trying to suck my soul out through my nipple.

I pop him off to switch sides and he squawks angrily. He whips his head about blindly, too angry to latch on to what’s right in front of him. When he finally finds it, he bites down frantically.

I hate growth spurts. I know he’ll be back to normal in a day or so, but in the meantime… C’mon, Squidgelet. Mommy likes having normal boobies. If she was into BDSM and pierced nipples, she’d bring it up with Daddy. Please, please be gentle?

I drift off.

CLINK! CLINK! CLINK!

I hate fish. Tomorrow night we’re going to have goldfish sushi.

Snore goes the husband.

Whirr goes the fan.

My eyelids grow heavy.

“WAAAAAAAAAAAAH!!!!!!!” goes the DragonMonkey.

I lay there a moment, feeling sorry for myself. I glance over at The Bean, who is laying face down, arms akimbo, blissfully sleeping through the racket.

I spend a few moments hating him and his ability to sleep through everything.

“WAAAAAAAAAAH!”

The DragonMonkey begins to shriek louder, and The Squidgelet stirs. With a sigh, I heave myself out of bed. I could wake the Bean, but since I’m already awake, there’s no sense in both of us being up at the same time.

I stumble into DM’s room, where he’s sitting cross-legged in his bed, wailing inconsolably.

“Aww, sweetie, what’s wrong?”

The wailing shuts off mid-scream as he thrusts an empty bottle at me. “NEW BABA. BABA. BABA NEW.”

I take the bottle from him, and he scoops up his blankie, takes a disdainful sniff, and thrusts it at me. “EWWW. Wash blankie,” he demands imperiously.

I pick up the blankie, expecting to feel it soggy with pee… but nope. It’s perfectly dry. Lately the DM has been obsessed with the just-from-the-laundry smell, and apparently the blankie that was washed that afternoon no longer smells like dryer sheets.

I hand it back to him, shaking my head. “I’ll get you a new baba, but your blankie is just fine.”

He thrusts it back at me. “Blankie EWWW. Wash. WASH!” he demands.

“I don’t think so, buddy. You did not just wake me up at one in the morning to demand I do your laundry. Nuh-uh. Not happening. Now lay back down.”

He flings himself sullenly on his mattress.

I warm up a bottle of vanilla soy milk (gag!) and give it to him. He accepts it begrudgingly.

I return to bed.

The feel of my weight on the mattress wakes the Squidgelet. I sigh, and pop him back on to nurse.

Whirr goes the fan.

Snore goes the husband.

Clink, clink, go the stupid, idiotic soon-to-be-short-lived fish.

I drift off.

WHINE goes the dog.

I jolt awake, disbelieving. No. I didn’t just hear that. No way.


WHINE, WHINE
goes Max.

Forget the fish. Forget sleepless nights. Forget traffic, and coffee stains on white blouses, and living in the city. Forget cancer and Hitler and rheumatoid arthritis.

I don’t hate any of those things anymore.

I hate the dog.

WHINE, WHINE, WHIIIIIIIIINE goes the dog.

I burst out of bed and go charging down the hallway like an angry Minotaur.

The dog takes one look at me and averts his eyes.

I fling open his kennel door and he skitters outside, sniffing the ground and circling.

I wait by the sliding glass door, toe tapping furiously. Pee, already. Pee, you dumb, whiny, sleep-depriving, useless animal. I glance at the clock on the stove – two in the morning. The alarm goes off at five. Yaaay.

Max finally pees then returns to the door, looking up at me lovingly with his tail stump waggling. I love you. I love you, my mistress. Thank you. Thank you for letting me pee. I love you.

I relent, and briefly reach down to scratch behind is ears. I still resent him, but I no longer daydream about tossing him down the garbage disposal. “Good boy, Max. Go to bed.”

He does.

So do I.

“MEEEEHHH…” Squidgelet wants to wake up, but I’ve already anticipated him and I pop him on a boob before he can get going.

Whirr goes the fan.

Snore goes the husband.

Clink, clink go the fish.

I drift off.

Mawwiage

“Ooooh, yeeeeeaaaaaahh….” The Bean groans, head tilted back, eyes closed.

In front of us, the hotel tv blares out the jumbled words of a late-night comedian, but neither of us is paying attention.

“Right there?” I whisper softly.

“MMMMMMMMMmmMMM!” He groans loudly in response, and the baby stirs slightly in his swing beside the bed.

“Shhhhh!” I caution, hands still moving.

“Sorry, sorry,” he whispers back. “It just feels so good.”

“It’s been awhile, hasn’t it?”

There’s a small pause, and then the relative quiet of the room is broken again with another moan.

“OH, YEAH, Becky… YEAH… MMMMmmm!”

I wince at the sudden noise and glance worriedly over at the baby, but this time the Squidgelet doesn’t even stir.

“Mmmmmmm…” The Bean makes another pleased noise, and I take a moment to wonder whether our neighbors can hear us. The hotel is booked solid after all.

Screw it. It’s my anniversary weekend. Neighbors be damned. If they didn’t want to hear us then they should have booked in one of Bakersfield’s better hotels.

“Are you ready?” I run my hands over him, poised.

“Oh, yes,” he whispers back, eyes closed in anticipation.


CRACK!

“MMMmmmm!” The Bean groans again, lips curving into a smile as I finish cracking one of his toes.

“That was a good one!” I give his foot a small rub, then move onto his right foot. “Ready?” My fingers hover over his pinky toe, ready to pull.

“YEAH, baby. I’m ready. Do it!”

CRACK!

“Wow! MMmmmm. Crack the next toe!” he begs, wiggling his foot enticingly.

Hey, maybe they don’t make dirty movies about moments in marriage such as this, but it’s the little things that keep a relationship alive. Mawwiage. That bwessed awangement. That dweam, within a dweam….

Two babies. Three years. Forty bazillion toe crackings and “Bean, do you know where I put my cell phone?“s later, life is good.

What Kind of Car Am I?

The Bean loves cars.

I know a lot of women say that about their husband, but I’m being serious. The Bean is constantly checking out other cars.

He studies them as we drive by them on side streets.

He talks about them when he sees them on billboards.

He reminisces about cars he used to own, daydreams about cars he will one day like to own, and is constantly ogling cars we pass on the freeway like some kind of philandering husband.

It’s an odd sensation. We can drive by a pack of roving 20 year olds in bikinis and he won’t blink an eye (at least while I’m around him), but if we pass by an Aston Martin he practically crawls out the window in an attempt to get closer.

I’d make fun of him, but I’m the same way. The Bean strains to catch glimpses of every Porsche, turbo Miata and 7-series BMW we pass, and I rubberneck every time we pass a horse trailer.

Who am I to judge? The Bean feels about cars the way I feel about horses. Everyone has their passion. It just kind of sucks that both of our passions cost so much money.

I remarked to him once that if he could just feel about horses the way I did, then we’d really have it made.

He didn’t miss a beat in responding. “Horses do ‘do it for me’. I just like mine all crammed under the hood of a sexy German sports car.”

I’d like to say that I understand his passion for automobiles, but I really don’t.

Horses are living, breathing, beautiful creatures that respond in unique ways based on their environment.

A car is a big chunk of metal balanced on four little rolly rubber things. You plug a nozzle into its side, dump a bunch of decayed dinosaur goop into it, shove it full of random crap, people, and discarded fast food bags and sit in it as it moves from point A to point B.

How in the world can that compare with a horse?

Horse:

Car:

Horse:

Car:

Horse:

I don’t get it. To each his own, I guess.

Moving on!

This morning the Bean and I were running a little ragged.

The Squidgelet had a horrible night. He woke up every hour, whiny and grumpy. Since I’m still on maternity leave and the Bean is running himself into the ground with a full-time job, a part-time job, and full load at the university, the night shift kind of falls to me. I did my best to keep the baby from getting too loud, but since the three of us are all crammed in the same bed, the Bean was up nearly as much as I was.

By the time dawn rolled around, the two of us looked pretty ragged.

Bleary-eyed and bumping into walls, The Bean stumbled into the shower, leaning against the wall in exhaustion.

I dragged after him, yawning hard enough to make my jaw creak.

The two of us talked in sleepy tones, making plans for the day and daydreaming of the uninterrupted sleep and lazy afternoon naps of our youth.

The conversation turned to cars, as it often does with The Bean.

Apparently Porsche has updated their look, and he really appreciates all the minor changes they made.

I’d give you more details, but to be honest I wasn’t really paying attention.

What I did notice was how his voice had suddenly perked up. Whereas moments before he had sounded like he had just survived the Holocaust, his voice now had a bright, eager, warm tone.

In fact, if I didn’t know any better, I would have almost said he sounded aroused.

Crabby and disheveled, I watched him in grumpy silence as he expounded on all the fascinating details that set this particular hunk of metal apart from all the other hunks of metal out there on the road.

As his hands floated in graceful, lustful arcs describing the tight, sexy curves of the car, I finally interrupted him.

After all, enough about the car. More about me!

“You know, I’ve always wondered what kind of car I would be.”

Yeah. I blame the postpartum hormones. It was a stupid question, and I should have known that nothing good could come out of surprising him with a loaded question like that so early in the morning.

“Huh?” replied The Bean, eloquently.

“A car. I was wondering… what kind of car would I be? What do you think?”

I blinked up at him, batting my eyelashes as I waited for his response.

The Bean pondered for a moment, and I held my breath, awaiting my compliment.

Sexy Corvette?

Lusciously curvaceous Porsche?

Priceless Aston Martin?

The Bean brightened suddenly. “I know! Mater!”

“Wait…. What?!” I sputtered. “Mater? As in that old rusted, falling apart truck off of Cars?”

“Yeah!” said The Bean, warming to his topic.

“But he’s falling apart! He’s all rusty and gross!” I frowned at him, waiting for him to realize his mistake.

Silly me.

“Yeah, but he doesn’t care that he’s falling apart! He’s easy-going!” replied The Bean happily, as if that solved everything. “Remember him in the field when they go tractor tripping? When that big, angry combine is chasing them?” He grinned over at me. “And Mater is all ‘It’s gonna get you! It’s gonna get you!’ and laughing?”

The Bean poked me playfully. “Yup! You’re Mater!”

With a heavy sigh, I gave up.

I guess it does fit me a bit.




Maternity Leave



I started my maternity leave yesterday.

Considering my due date is, well, today, I figured it might be time.

I’m having an absolute blast.

I’m sitting in front of the Internet, nibbling on an apple, sipping some fresh-squeezed orange juice (at least, that’s what it claims on the Minute Maid carton), and occasionally biting into a 2 lb chunk of cheddar cheese.

Yeah, that’s right. I have no shame. Admit it: you guys all wish you were as classy as me.

Right now the DragonMonkey is peaceably watching TV, taking a break before we head over to Frogg’s Bounce House. I don’t normally plug places on my blog, but WOW. This place is incredible. Bounce houses, slides, air hockey, train tables, baby toys, toddler toys, comfortable couches, air conditioning, Michael Buble singing in the background… Unlimited monthly pass for only $30 a month? Am I in dreamland?

Every once in awhile, even I have to admit there are perks to living in Orange County.

At any rate, since I am about to spend another full day letting the DM romp in toddler heaven, I don’t feel too guilty about plopping him down in front of the TV and ignoring him for a bit.

After all, the DragonMonkey isn’t usually much of a TV watcher.

Of course, that was before we bought Big Bertha.

Big Bertha is our new television.

After over two years of saving up, the Bean and I bought one of those large-screen, wall-mounted, high-definition, Internet-savvy TVs.

The Bean is in love.

He sits in front of it, turning it on and leaning back with all the excited, expectant air of a man at a strip club awaiting a lap dance.

“Look at the clarity!” he exclaims. “Look at the color!”

“Yeah,” I reply.

His voice drops lower, almost sensuously so. “It’s like we’re looking through a window into someone’s living room…”

Mmmhmm“, I say absently, nose buried in my book.

“With the LED it reduces the glare impaction….” his voice is turning husky.

I glance over at him, annoyed. Maybe I should leave the two of them alone?

“You can see every detail…”

And the truth is, you can.

The Bean and I butted heads over Big Bertha for quite awhile before we ended up making the purchase.

I wanted a TV large enough to be able to see from the couch and thin enough that we could hang it on the wall.

The Bean wanted a TV with advanced enough technology that it could double as a portable space station if NASA ever had the need.

Who do you think won?

Well, let me put it this way.

When we used to watch Avatar, Neytiri used to look like this:

Now that we have paid an exorbitant amount of money for our fancy new television, I can now watch Neytiri in all her blue-ray glory, which leaves her looking more like this:


GIFSoup

Oh, well. At least the Bean is happy.

In fact, he’s so happy he even created an entire Facebook album dedicated to the television.

No, I am not kidding.

He has close-up photos of mounting plates and Cat-6 Network cables, all of which he describes in passionate detail.

I’d be jealous, but I guess I can’t really complain, seeing as how my own Facebook page is covered with one album from our marriage and about 76 million photos of Bunnygal’s horses.

Anyways, I’m off to Frogg’s to go see if I can bounce the Squidgelet out.

How much do you want to bet that all I end up doing is bouncing out some pee and wetting my pants?

Again?


Sexy Dreams



Last night I had some crazy dreams.

No, no, it wasn’t my usual fare of burning orphans,rabid bears savaging my face off, or decaying skeleton husbands come to poke me with branch arms.

Uh-uh. Nope.

Last night I had some crazy GOOD dreams.

Yeah, that’s right.

I had me some Bow-Chicka-Wow-Wow dreams, and in the steamiest sense possible.

The Bean and I were obviously the main stars… and let me tell you, we were some sexy, sexy lead characters.

The Bean was about 6’3” and had tanned, chiseled abs.

I was about 5’11” and appeared to be composed entirely of toned, tanned legs and perky boobs. My stomach was completely flat, my waist impossibly narrow, my heiny was firm and shapely, and there wasn’t an inch of chub ANYWHERE on my body.

I’m telling you – Angelina Jolie would have looked at me and felt insecure. I was that hot.

To make matters even better – this was a dream. We didn’t get out of breath. We never had an awkward moment. It was just Hollywood-style, embarrassment-free , good steamy loving all night long. In fact, I’m pretty sure that some of the stuff The Bean and I did in this dream wasn’t even anatomically possible.

Who cares? They’re my dreams, and they were MMmm, Mmmm, GrrrrEAT!

The problem was is that I woke up.

To make matters worse, I woke up quite suddenly— suddenly enough that my body was awash in sensation, the heat of the dream spilling over into real life.

It was still dark outside, probably some time before five in the morning.

I lay there for a moment, waiting for things to cool down enough that I could drift back to sleep.

That’s when it occurred to me – why should I bother waiting? Why not just wake up The Bean and convince him to reenact some of my oh-so-luscious dream? There are worse ways to start off a Tuesday morning, after all.

I figured I could start off with one of the moves I’d just dreamed… I would crawl over to him, catlike, stalking across the bed. He’d be asleep, but even he wouldn’t be able to miss the way the moonlight caught my toned body…. The heat and promise evident in my sleek movements would cause him to wake…. I’d lower myself over his prone form, and my hands would slide slowly up his bare back, nails digging in slightly as I turned him over beneath me.

MMMMmmm.

He’d probably make some kind of deep, appreciative noise and pull me down to him. Our lips would meet, and his hands would slide down the curve of my waist, tightening slowly on my…..

MMMMmmm!

With a sleepy, secretive smile, I prepared to roll over.

I say I prepared to roll over, because that’s when it hit me.

Oh.

Yeah.

I’m not Angelina Jolie.

I’m Becky.

And I’m 497 months pregnant.

Frustrated at the sudden reminder of reality, I lay there for a moment, trying to get my bearings. Maybe I should just go to sleep?

Nah.

Still willing to give it a go, I scrabbled at the body pillow beside me, trying to find some kind of purchase to give me enough momentum to heave my vast stomach up over to the other side.

I failed.

I tried again.

I failed again, this time even going so far as to let out a totally unsexy moan in my attempt to change positions.

HRRRRNNNGGGH!” I grunted.

Mmmmmmmm.” The Bean made an irritated noise in his sleep.

HRRRRRNNNGHHH!” I grunted again, flailing on my back like a horse rolling in the dirt.

Mmmmmmmmmm,” The Bean sounded even more irritable at my noisy intrusion, and flopped over onto his back, mouth agape. He began to snore lightly.

I completed the flip onto my other side, propping myself up on an elbow as I stared moodily down at the slack face of my sleeping husband.

This was not how this was supposed to go.

I considered leaning down to kiss him, then smacked my lips a couple of times. Ew. Morning breath.

The Bean gave a deep, heavy snore.

I sniffed deeply, then wrinkled my nose. EWWW. Morning breath from both of us.

I stared down at him for another timeless moment, wondering if it was even worth it at this point.

The Bean farted.

“GROSS,” I whispered angrily, throwing back the covers to avoid being marinated by fart-scent.

MMMMMMM!” The Bean made an even angrier sound, reaching down with a sleepy hand to find the covers I’d just thrown off of him. He yanked them up over his shoulders, and flopped over onto his side.

Not to be outdone, I gave an impressively deep burp (thanks, Squidgelet, for the acid reflux) and then lowered myself down carefully onto my own pillows.

Oh well. Maybe, if I was lucky, I could go back to sleep and find my way back into the same dream.

I’m a Terrible Parent

I miss going out to eat.

Don’t get me wrong – the DragonMonkey isn’t necessarily ill-behaved in a restaurant. He doesn’t throw food or scream “NO!” in a whiny pitch at the top of his lungs. He’s just loud. And HYPER.

Sometimes I wonder if I’m doing something wrong. I see other toddlers his age sitting in their stained, sticky high-chairs, quietly coloring on the kid’s menu. “Blue?” They hold up their crayon and smile placidly at their parents for a moment, then resume their scribbling while quietly chewing on a bite of chicken.

I hate those kids. I hate those parents. They make it look so easy.

Usually, going out to eat with the DragonMonkey ends up looking like one of those calf-dressing competitions a the rodeo.

I walk in with him twisting at the end of my arm like a kite in the wind.

GLOBO!” He screams the instant we hit the doorway, pointing frantically at the half-deflated, sad-looking balloon tied to the wall.

GLOBO! ! GOBO! GOBO! BOBO! BOBO! BOBOBOBOBOBOBOBOBO! BOBOBOBOBO! BOBOBOBO!!!!!”

SSHHHHHHH!!!!” The Bean and I both hiss, faces reddening as the entire restaurant turns to stare at the commotion.

GLOBO!” He shrieks again.

“YES, I see it. Balloon. Globo. I see the globo. Right there.” I point at the balloon, acknowledging it.

The DragonMonkey quiets, slightly mollified. Crisis averted. His parents are now aware that there is a GLOBO!!!! in the room. After all, what if he hadn’t alerted them to its presence? They could have walked by a GLOBO!!!!! completely unaware of its existence. That could have been a catastrophe.

GOBO? MINE? GOBO?” He asks hopefully.

I pretend to not understand. “Yes, I see the globo. What a pretty ballon. Bye-bye, balloon! Adios, globo! Adios!” I wave at it enthusiastically as I bolt past.

The DragonMonkey waves listlessly. “Aye-dye, Bobo,” he says sadly as we leave it behind. Goodbye, my balloon lover. Goodbye, my sweet, sweet Bobo.

The Bean and I settle into a booth with the DragonMonkey on our laps, ignoring the high chair. The DragonMonkey only has about a 20 minute window of sitting in a high chair. If we waste it before the food comes, then we won’t get any chance to eat.

I hand him a crayon.

He takes it with a quiet “Ta-ta” (thank you) and colors for a brief moment before flinging it to the ground.

“Uh-OH,” he says, eyes huge and innocent. “UH-OH!” The crayon is on the GROUND. How did it get there? No worries, he’ll go get it!

He starts to twist off the seat, but I’m ready for him and grab him under his armpits. “No. Sit. Mama will get it.” I’m not going to be fooled by that game again.

I hand him the crayon, and he squats on his haunches, coloring again for a brief moment.

Suddenly, with no warning whatsoever, he flings the crayon with a shriek of laughter. The Bean and I watch it go sailing halfway across the restaurant with an air of resignation.

“Uh-OH!” The DragonMonkey looks up at me again with wide, innocent eyes. Mother, my crayon appears to have magically translocated itself across the restaurant without my permission! Whatever shall we do?

“We do NOT throw things in the restaurant. NO! You know better.” I shake my finger in front of his nose. “The next time you throw something, you will get one flick, do you understand?”

The DragonMonkey stares up at me, eyes huge. Wounded. He didn’t throw anything. The crayon magically FLEW across the restaurant. Why was he getting in trouble? “UH-OH!” he repeats again helpfully. Didn’t I hear him say that?

I shake my head. “No, it was NOT an ‘Uh-Oh’. You threw it on purpose. That was bad. No. If you throw it again, you get one flick. Do you understand?” I start to pantomime, making sure I’m getting the point across. “Throw”, and I mimic throwing, “and you get one flick.” I flick the back of my hand much harder than I would ever flick his and make an exaggerated show of wincing. “Throw equals flick. Do you understand?”

Dah,” he nods sadly.

“You understand?” I repeat one more time.

“Yeah. Dah.” He nods, hands still in his lap, completely crushed at my unfair accusation. He would never throw a crayon. Only bad boys throw crayons.

“Okay,” I say, giving him a kiss on the forehead.

Immediately, his hand whips forward, grabbing the crayon with astonishing speed and precision before launching it an impressive distance away. I turn to him and he bursts into horrified tears, hiding his hands behind his back. He didn’t mean to! He didn’t mean to!

Feeling like an ogre, I pry his hand out from behind his back and flick the back of it lightly. He howls like I’m dipping his hand in flesh-eating acid. “You threw the crayon, you earn one flick. This was your choice.” The second it’s over, the tears shut off like someone threw a switch and he eyeballs the direction the crayon disappeared.

“Uh-oh?” He asks hopefully. Would I believe that this crayon also accidentally flew halfway across the restaurant? And if I’m willing to believe that, since it was such an obvious accident, can we escape the prison that is our table and go get it?

The Bean and I smother a laugh. “Nope. Not buying it, kid. You’re out of crayons now, and it’s your fault. Deal with it.”

The waiter returns with our water.

AGUA!” screams the DragonMonkey in rabid excitement, completely forgetting about the crayons. “AGUA! AGUA! AGUA! AGUA! AGUA! AGUA!” At full volume, the sound of his joyous excitement echoes in the tiny restaurant. If there’s anything that makes his day more than balloons, it’s water. He lunges forward at the glass, and I catch him just in the nick of time.

And so on, and so forth. By the time the meal arrives I’m exhausted. The Bean and I bolt down our food like a couple of starving wolves, barely chewing in an attempt to finish before the DragonMonkey grows bored. We’re frustrated, our nerves are frayed, and the two of us resolve for the millionth time to leave the kid at home until he’s twenty.

Hopefully some of you out there will relate to this scenario.

Hopefully, some of you out there will relate to this scenario so well that you won’t judge me too harshly for what I’m about to share with you.

Last Saturday, The Bean and I sat down to a meal together…. AND ACTUALLY FINISHED IT! The Bean sipped a beer, I chewed my food in quiet relaxation… and the DragonMonkey NEVER MADE A SOUND!

This modern-day miracle was made possible by a wonderful little restaurant called The Rainforest Café. I love you, Rainforest Café.

For those of you who have never had the chance to go there, the Rainforest Café claims to be “Part Adventure, Part Restaurant, and wholly entertaining for the whole family!” Apparently, it “recreates a tropical rain forest with waterfalls, lush vegetation, and indigenous creatures.”

The reality is that the Rainforest Café is an obnoxiously loud themed restaurant with extremely high prices, mediocre food, and lousy service. Half of the restaurant is dedicated to selling overpriced paraphernalia and pushing“Save the Rainforest” propaganda through skewed facts, cheap slogans, and an animated talking tree that gives me the willies. Don’t get me wrong – I’m all about saving the rainforest. I just prefer to have information offered to me rather than crammed down my throat with fanatical passion. I kept expecting to see a sign that read “For every stuffed animal you don’t buy, an evil lumberjack stabs a baby squirrel in the eyeball.”

The other half of the restaurant is filled with creepy animatronic animals that scream, howl and growl in a continuous barrage of “rainforest noises”. There’s a fountain with a giant, plastic alligator that lunges forward and snaps at the air occasionally, an entire wall filled with gigantic, mangy-looking gorillas that beat their chests and show their teeth, stuffed leopards twitching their tails from their plastic tree-perches, and a gigantic snake that looms overhead and hisses menacingly.

The animals are disturbingly poor in their craftsmanship. I mean, it’s 2010. You’d think we would have made a few more advances in the moving stuffed-animal department.

Apparently we haven’t. The animals still move with that eerie, sickly jerking movement that used to terrify me at Chuck E. Cheese, and the jaws still click whenever they open and shut.

The DragonMonkey is TERRIFIED of the stuffed animals.

The Bean and I would never have thought of eating there on our own, but as we walked by the restaurant the DragonMonkey became very, very still in our arms. He turned and buried his face against my neck, peeping out over my shoulder as his arms tightened in a stranglehold.

“Hey, Bean. Check it out. He doesn’t like the gorillas.”

The Bean looked at our quiet, oddly subdued son and laughed. “Yeah, he’s pretty still. I bet if we went in there, he wouldn’t move the entire time.”

We both gave a quick laugh, which faded at exactly the same time.

We stared at each other, eyes widening.

We shouldn’t.

We couldn’t.

No, it wasn’t right.

The poor little guy was obviously terrified. His arms were so tight it was making it difficult to breathe, and anyone who knows our son knows that for him to be still for any length of time means that something is wrong. If we were nice parents we would walk by the restaurant quickly, patting his back and crooning to him in a soothing manner.

Nobody but a heartless, cruel, evil parent would consider tormenting their son by going into the restaurant….

And yet…

“You hungry?” I asked lightly, my voice nonchalant.

“I could stand a bite to eat,” The Bean answered back in a voice just as indifferent.

We approached the hostess standing behind the giant elephant podium casually. “Two, please.”

The DragonMonkey hunched lower in my arms, eyes huge as he stared at the twitching, fake animals lining the walls.

We followed the hostess and sat down at a table, the DragonMonkey completely motionless on our laps.

We ordered our food.

The DragonMonkey continued to be silent and still, occasionally leaning forward to glance around my shoulder to make certain that the flesh-eating gorillas weren’t coming any closer. He chewed his fingers in a nervous habit leftover from his infancy.

The Bean and I chatted casually, enjoying the luxury of being able to finish complete sentences.

The food arrived and we set the DragonMonkey in his highchair, giving him a plate of fries.

He sat quietly, chewing the fries, neck craning as he stared in horror at the menagerie of fake rainforest predators.

At one point he began to get fussy, twisting to get out of his high chair.

“Would you like to go see the gorillas?” I asked in a bright voice. “Do you want down so we can go visit the gorillas?”

He shook his head in silent horror. NO. NO GORILLAS. He liked his high-chair. See? He sat very still and continued to quietly eat his fries, back ramrod straight.

This threat worked for the entire dining experience. Any time he began to be fussy or misbehave, the Bean and I countered with a cheerful offer to go visit the assortment of creepy animals that lined the walls. To our credit, we didn’t torture him. We really did try to make it seem like fun. “Look at the fishies!” we exclaimed in happy voices, pointing at the gigantic saltwater aquarium. “The gorilla is saying hi! Look, it’s waving at you!”

The DragonMonkey stared at these things in apprehensive silence, not fooled in the least by our cheerful prattling. He behaved like a dream for well over an hour.

It was the best dinner of my life.

It’s obvious that Bean and I are going to Hell, but at least we got one good meal together before our trip.

Waking Dreams

Last Tuesday The Bean came home late, like he does every Tuesday night. I used to try and stay awake and say hi to him, but lately I’ve been too exhausted. I crawled into bed around nine and was asleep moments later.

Exhaustion or not, I’m a light sleeper. The Bean’s night class lasts until ten. Although he tried to be quiet, when he dragged himself through the door at 10:30 and stumbled wearily into our bedroom, I woke up.

Sort of.

The problem is that I have been having some horrifically bad dreams lately.

And, unfortunately, this time when I “woke up”, those evil, bad dreams melded with real life.

This is how I remember the next few moments:

I woke up and the Bean was standing by the edge of our bed, staring down with vacant, soulless eyes.

I tugged the blankets a little higher, waiting for him to say something.

He continued to stare at me, silently menacing, silhouetted by the dim light of the hallway. The Bean’s not really one to just stand there and stare, so I began to get concerned. Who was this person? What if it was some creepy psycho-rapist who just happened to look like The Bean?

I decided to be brave, so I sat up in bed, squared my shoulders, and in what I hoped was a strong, courageous voice I demanded to know, “WHO ARE YOU?”

The Bean continued staring eerily for a moment longer, then replied in normal, soothing tones. “It’s me.”

I felt my tension ease as I recognized his voice.

The Bean continued to stare at me, unblinking.

Sloooowly he raised his “arms”, reaching out to me with distorted, abnormally long appendages.

They looked kind of like this, but much, much worse:

They were misshapen and unnatural, the flesh peeled back in leathery, bark-like strips, the bones of the forearms brittle. Grey. Exposed.

My husband had evil branch hands, and he was trying to touch me with them.

So, naturally, I asked him, “WHAT ARE YOU DOING?!”

And he said, “Your cell phone. You forgot it in the kitchen.”

And then he leaned forward, slowly closing the gap between us, the barklike flesh flaking off onto the sheets as he continued to try to touch me with eerily long, skeletal, branch-like fingers.

So I scooted away and said, “QUIT IT. WHO ARE YOU? STOP THAT!”

After all, my mama didn’t raise no fool. Husband or not, “cell phone” (like I was going to fall for that old trick) or not, I was not going to touch those evil branch hands.

On the other hand, none of this made much sense. I was awake enough to realize that this was kind of stupid.

I mean, my husband doesn’t have evil, flaky, decaying, pointy, scary branch arms OR hands. I may not have the best memory, but this is one of those things that I was sure I remembered correctly. That’s something you might see in a stupid, B-rated horror flick. That kind of stuff didn’t really occur in real life.

On the other hand, I could see them.

But I knew he didn’t have them. It didn’t make any sense. People don’t have evil, scary branch arms, and if they did, they wouldn’t be standing there calmly at the end of my bed, talking about the cell phone I left on the kitchen counter.

It didn’t make sense at all.

But I could SEE them.

“Turn on the light,” I said.

The Bean paused, his six-foot long arms jutting jutting out motionless in front of him. He continued to stare, unblinking, eyelids peeled back from eyes that were no longer human. The warm brown of his normal gaze had darkened into something flat, black, and utterly alien, the vacant cesspools of color swallowing up the white of his eyes.

“Why?” He sounded sweet, reasonable, and calm.

But he had holes for eyeballs and branch hands.

This was so confusing.

“Look, Bean, just turn on the light, okay? I need to see something.”

“Sure, no problem,” he said amiably. He angled one of the arms awkwardly to the side, and I watched as the branch/bones of his forearm extended itself until he could reach the light from where he was standing.

CLICK.

The bedroom light filled the room, and there he was, looking down at me quizzically with his normal, blinking eyes and his nice, pink little arms and hands.

He handed me my cell phone.

“Here you go, Becky. I thought you might need this. Do you need me to set the alarm?”

“Uh, no. Thanks.” I took it from his wonderfully normal-looking hands and lay back down to sleep.

The Next Morning:


Me
: “Ummm, Bean? Do you remember coming in last night? Did you hand me my cell phone?”

(Did you suddenly grow creepy, evil long arms and holes for eyeballs that morphed away into normalcy when touched by the light?)


The Bean: “Yeah. When I came in the bedroom you sat upright, mumbled something incomprehensible, reached out and took your cell phone that I brought in for you, and then flopped back down and went back to sleep.”

All I can say is that it’s a good thing I don’t do drugs.