The Greatest

The gift for which I am most grateful this year did not come wrapped in paper with adorable pastel footprints. It doesn't even have little feet. I suppose the obvious gift for which I should be grateful is the creature now nestled in between my ribcage and bladder. And I am grateful for this opportunity to foster a pack n' play in utero for the great hiccuping squirminator. But if you ask me what gift I am grateful for the most this year, that which has made all the difference in my life each day and each uncomfortable night, it is the love of my husband which reduces me often to tears.

Much has already been written about this remarkable person that I have known now for one third of my life. So I will let Josh Groban sing the ballads and I will just briefly give thanks for the gift of my husband's love here. People will tell you to find a partner with a good head on his/her shoulders, who can provide you with financial stability. They will tell you to find someone who treats his mother well and who knows how to fix a leaky faucet. I will not exhort you disregard this advice. But over the course of the last months, when I have sometimes slowly or even sometimes rapidly lost my ability to carry out normal daily activities, such as bending over and then fighting the force of gravity enough to get back up off the floor, it has been the love of my husband, who, though tempted to join me on the floor in a fit of laughter, has scraped me and my barrel body up time after time.

Yesterday, he conveyed the following to me via gchat:

john: i don't know why but i was all excited about doing baby clothes laundry

Once again, I am so grateful for the love of my amazing husband, and so grateful that I had the wits and the good fortune to marry someone who has a good head on his shoulders, who can fix a leaky faucet, and who gets geeked about doing a load of onesie wash. I love him very much, and if he would like to have seventeen more babies, I would be happy to carry them, for throughout this last year, he has been the one to carry me.

Pending fatherhood helps find country boy within

8 months ago

Lovey Loverpants: "I have to make sure my songs are filed under my own playlist on the mp3 player, or else I'm listening to your songs. And you can't sprint to Carrie Underwood."

1 month ago:

Lovey Loverpants: "Have you listened to this Carrie Underwood song? It's a really good song. Let me play it for you..."

Mr. Loverpants cues mp3 of "All American-Girl.":: First rendering of chorus produces intensely focused face, neck bobbing, mouth attempting to lip-sync:

'Now he's wrapped around her finger/she's the center of his whole world/and his heart belongs to that sweet little/beautiful/wonderful/perfect/All-American Girl'

Yesterday
Lovey Loverpants: "Carrie Underwood really is good."

Tacos and Crackheads

Before you read this, remember this quote:

"Wise would have been yesterday, Kendra. Wise would have been today until you got off the Mass Pike."

So, the theme of this week's posts is evidently Dining Out with the Human Hippo Hybrid. Yesterday, I must have been feeling the festiveness of Chanukkah, because I visited not one but two fast food establishments, which is not in keeping with the healthy preggo diet, and really has nothing to do with high Jewish holidays, but I am looking for some way to justify the gluttony that was. I suppose it all would be better explained by the fact that I am looking much like a gordita and a chalupa all wrapped up in an empanada these days, so why not eat all three for dinner.

I got home and Lovey was pretending to interview Randy Moss which you won't understand since you weren't there, but you will understand when I tell you that I had barely set my bag down before telling my husband the mock sportscaster that we were going to go to Toxic Hell for dinner.

The last time I had visited a Toxic Hell was possibly three years ago and I can assure you that no food product ending in a vowel was consumed. Needless to say, I did not know what we were getting into when we drove three miles into the next town to find ourselves the mecca of toxicity, slathered in hot sauce.

I know that we all have our fast food attendant horror stories, but I do not exaggerate when I say that there were three people in line, but you would have thought the cashier was under water. 10,000 leagues under Grade D meat. This may have been due to the fact that the crackhead (aka Presumed Substance Abuser) in front of us needed to order the whole menu, and to really think deeply by scratching his head and rubbing his eye sockets, about whether or not that was going to be enough, and could you make change for two twenties, and wait, "Slow your roll! I haven't ordered for myself yet!" Twelve minutes passed and Lovey and I were trying so hard to swallow our laughter, we were on the brink of combustion.

There were roughly four tables, three of which were covered in several years worth of grated cheese (aged tastes better) and the other was occupied by the Substance Abusers Anonymous.

I ordered a soft taco and the nachos del wimpy, and Lovey got exactly what he didn't order, but as the line was now a dozen deep and the cashier was still doggie paddling and trying to come up for air, there was no choice but to eat the mixed grille of toxins before us and keep right on laughing.

As I was rounding the corner towards nacho home, I contemplated the last few bites and announced, "I think it would be wise if I stopped here."

At which point the sage man that I copulated with eight months ago said, "Wise would have been yesterday, Kendra. Wise would have been today until you got off the Mass Pike."

I so did not buy that sage man a good enough Christmas present.