As fast as she can

Finding autonomy, she is moving and touching faster than light. I blink and she is across the room.

Burn, baby, burn

Reason 4,927,368 why I avoid the suburbs: Yesterday morning, the baby and I woke up early and decided to leave and pick-up my wife's favorite breakfast while she slept in. This entails venturing about ten minutes on the freeway away from our haven in the city - approximately nine minutes too far. We order breakfast, grab my wife's favorite coffee, and as the baby and I are walking through the parking lot back to our car, a woman yells out from a decent length behind, "maam! maam!" and is now slowly running across the pavement toward us while waving her arms wildly. One might think that I must have left something behind or that the little monkey lost a sock. I feel around trying to imagine what is missing when she catches up to us and says - and I quote - "Your baby is so cute. I wanted to give you this because I would HATE TO SEE YOUR BABY BURN IN HELL." Outstretched before me is a religious pamphlet. Who SAYS THAT to a stranger with a smile?

This is a true event and has not been altered in any manner for entertainment purposes. If the full name and address of said individual were known, it would also be given.

Happy anniversary, my love

"tables turned again, you, my friend
you and i face each other time in and time out
i know it's sometimes hard, but knowing just that
we will get along until we are old and gray
and hubbled up
and doubled up
we'll sit and laugh of times were hard
and laugh of times, when we thought all it would end, it all was over
then again
and believe you my whole life
my friend
it will be you until the end with me
always..."

wedding day photo by our friend Bruce O'Neal
words by David J. Matthews, Listener Supported

Her new trick

Dropping things and then looking down at them as if to say, "where did you go?"

Not a picture story

It has been 11,953 days since my last public confession. I have breast implants. They were a valentine’s gift a decade ago. Seriously. A valentine’s gift. Unsolicited. And the plastic surgeon actually performed the surgery knowing it was something I never requested. The confession part is what a spineless obedient sham I was to not just say no.

I worry about everything, and by everything I mean if there is merely a slight remote possibility that something could occur that would make my life one eighth of a degree worse, I focus on it until said remote possibility passes, assuming it could ever pass, and then I focus on what other possibilities could occur that might incur that very same horrible result. It is tiring. After my implant surgery, I read that there is this very rare occurrence where the skin between the breasts can un-attach from the chest causing a tent effect between the breasts. I focused on this for days and was positive I felt some pulling in that very spot. I unwrapped my ace bandage and gauze just to stick a sock between my swollen new boobs in hopes counter pressure would prevent me from developing a uni-boob. I think I might be the only person on Earth who has ever done this. It was especially fun explaining to the plastic surgeon why there was a sock between my boobs under the bandages I was supposed to never remove when I went in for my post-surgical follow-up visit. I think he actually said, “Seriously?” and then muttered the aforementioned comment about me being the only person on Earth... But you know what? I have TWO boobs now. He cannot be certain I would have otherwise.

Ever since I quit my job to stay home with our baby, losing extra family income and my health insurance, I have been convinced one of my implants is going to rupture for no other reason than I would not be able to afford to fix it and would die. I will have to stuff that same sock into one side of my bra since toilet paper would be wasteful, I will develop gangrene and a high fever and delusions, and my wife will want nothing to do with me as she is very clearly a breast woman and has been all of her life. I might add that during the surgery I suffered some significant nerve damage to my right nipple. A decade later, if anything slightly brushes up against that nipple, I still have this tuning fork effect of nerve pain that vibrates deeper and deeper until there is this odd feeling that something very cold is dripping inside of me. This dripping feeling is fun paired with my fear that something will rupture and then drip inside of me.

So, this morning, our baby wakes up at 4 a.m. I am exhausted as this week I have final exams so I have been staying up later than usual. She is teething and cranky and having difficulty sleeping. She pushed through a tooth this week – making it number five – with the sixth tooth trying hard to make it through her unhappy gums. Frozen bananas are her favorite teether, but she will bite on anything that will make her mouth feel better. I pick her up and bring her to bed with us, snuggling her in close to me, and just as we are both drifting back to sleep, she chomps down on my boob – MY BOOB – the boob of the mommy who has never breastfed her as that is momma’s job – my nerve-damaged boob with her JAWS OF STEEL and her FIVE VERY SHARP TEETH. I don’t think I can fully communicate the severity of this ferocious attack - it wasn't a rough attempt to suckle milk, it was to MAIM. The annoying all-caps does make me feel better. Before I can remind myself that I should in fact breathe as oxygen is necessary to sustain life, our sweet little monkey flips over wrapping her delicate little fingers around my arm and goes straight to sleep. I, however, cannot move or even swallow. Is my boob even still there? And then I feel the drip, drip, drip… I reach over and palpate its size. Is it smaller? Do I feel an internal gush when I push on it? Drip, drip, drip... I feel for the other boob in the dark to have something to compare it with. Drip, drip, drip... This was an all-night internal loop complete with no more sleep.

Just so you know, I am the same way about my teeth. They are all original, but I am always worried about one breaking or chipping now that I do not have dental insurance. I blame this book as I never worried about it before reading about a character named Giles. I found the book vile and unintelligent and I sold it to Half-Price Books as soon as I finished reading it - just to note this is not a book recommendation.

Sleep deprivation is the best

[out-of-the-house working bio-mom/wife runs into the room]

wife: "You won't believe it! She just crawled across the rug for the FIRST time! She finally put it all together and is actually CRAWLING!"

[now jumping up and down and smiling largely]

stay-at home mom/me: "Oh yeah... she has been doing that this week."

Recreating this situation is not recommended. It lacks things such as happiness and fun.

Because it feels good

I cannot imagine whose child this is. It cannot be mine. You see, I was forbidden to put my daughter’s hair into pigtails before she turns one year of age. Seriously forbidden – as in receiving a verbal warning from my wife that I better not even put them into pigtails when she isn’t home just for the sake of even one picture. Ever. I was even warned of this more than once. I will say that just this past weekend my wife was also telling me how much she misses my passion. My passion has been sucked dry with my nonexistent energy levels. On this blah lifeless passionless day, I may or may not have decided to visit the other side to steal some of that passion. In my defense, the two seemed to contradict.