Papal Conclave.
Mood:  happy
Topic: Evil Things
As you can imagine, I await the results of the papal conclave with bated breath. (That's bated breath as in breath held in abeyance, not baited breath as in breath which smells like dead fish or perhaps breath designed to lure and entice.) It is important to be clear about these things, and if you're among the approximately 98% of Americans who tend to confuse the two, there went a complimentary spelling lesson! You're welcome.

One of the topics of my most intensely burning curiosity, vis-a-vis the papal election, is the name which the new Pope will choose for himself. This is the subject of much speculation, and I believe Vegas is even posting odds. My choice? I vote for Pope Vinnie I. You'd think, with all these Italians holding the office over the years, someone would have picked it by now. I have a strange affection for that name. I once had a turtle named Vinnie, and in fact, when I was in the hospital having my oldest, I tried very hard to persuade my roommate to name her newborn baby boy Vinnie, just to see if I could do it. God, I'm an asshole.

My Three Youngest Kids & Their Nana.
Mood:  happy
Topic: Miscellany
Belly Shot. (Not to be confused with one of those shots of hard booze you take out of someone's navel.) I forgot to make Ben take a belly shot over the weekend, so here is one taken in my home office mirror at 6:30 a.m. That explains the shitty lighting and the reason my head, which appeared only as a flash of white light with curly brown hair anyway, is cropped out. Typically huge for one of my pregnant bellies at 22 weeks, and I must say there is nothing like a gigantic belly to make one's enormous Polish ass look smaller. And one's boobs, now that I think about it. You win a few, you lose a few.

Despite my ongoing Fear of Fatness, the scale revealed this morning that I've gained only 14 total pounds so far this pregnancy, and clearly that's all belly. I'm relieved; I keep expecting to get on the scale and find I've gained eight hundred pounds, all of it composed of Italian food and all of it residing in my thighs.

This week I'll get Ben to photograph my belly uncovered, so as to display the lack of stretch marks about which I am so insufferably smug. That is, if I can persuade him that I'm not using such photos to entice Internet wankers. Did you know there is a whole subclass of online porn featuring pregnant women? It's unspeakably perverted -- I fail to see what could be sexually attractive about a naked pregnant woman, except possibly to the guy who impregnated her, but it's true. Ben, however, can put his mind at ease. He and only he will be forced to look at my pregnant nakedness.

Speaking of the guy who impregnated me, we were reflecting the other night that our two youngest children, Matt and Julia, owe their existences to booze. It's true: Matt is the result of bathtub-sized Margaritas in Old Town San Diego at a time when we were fixing to get ready to try to make a baby anyway; Julia is the product of a bottle of good Central Coast zinfandel and an ill-timed, spur-of-the-moment decision to skip the condom. Let this be a lesson to the young. Alcohol really does lead to teen pregnancy, or worse, middle-aged pregnancy.

Sam & Matt Shots. They were clowning around Friday night and I got some truly choice photos, having somehow persuaded Haz Matt to hold still once or twice. We did not, by the way, instruct him to pose with underwear on his head, although it's just the sort of thing we would go and do; it was solely his own idea. Shortly after these were taken, Sam procured another pair of miniature jockey shorts which he wore on his own head in a number of fetching styles: Ninja, with only the eyes and nose showing; Babushka, over the forehead and under the chin; and Monster, covering the entire face with the hands making rahhhhh! claws. Their father was so proud of them: Not even in preschool yet and already wearing underwear on their heads. Surely bright futures await both of them.




My mom is doing a whole lot better and is going home from the hospital this morning. Let's hear it for old girls with gumption! She had me really scared the night her lung collapsed, but she has bounced back admirably and we were giggling together when I went to visit her last night. I am so jazzed about this -- she's got a ton of fight in her, and that's going to be of enormous help. We still don't have a prognosis, but I'm more optimistic than I've been since the initial diagnosis.

Have a winsome and productive week, y'all. Remember, Arbeit macht frei!

Suspending The Smartassery And Cuss Words For A Moment.
Mood:  down
Topic: Miscellany
If there's one thing I don't like, it's people who spread doom and gloom about the 'Net. Hey, if I wanted to be depressed, I'd contemplate the sheer amount of big housework projects I should be doing on the weekends. So as a rule I'm all smartassery and sunshine. But let me get serious for just a minute.

My mom's in the hospital. She's recently been diagnosed with probable lung cancer, and yesterday after her needle biopsy her lung collapsed. This might not be so bad for most people, but Mom's been in poor health for as long as I can remember -- since she was my age, really. Always some health issue. She's 75 years old and to be brutally honest, if you'd asked me 25 years ago, I wouldn't have predicted she'd make it this long.

I visited her in the hospital last night. I don't like the way she looks. We lost my dad to lung cancer six years ago. It is not a gentle way to go into that good night. She is scared, and I don't blame her.

I promise I won't have on about this any more, but two things: (1) say a little prayer for her, if you pray; and (2) for God's sake, if you smoke, think that this could be you someday. You won't always be young and perky. One day you might be 75 years old, gasping and frightened in a hospital bed. I may sound like a prat, but honestly? I wouldn't wish this on my worst enemy.

That is all. We now return to our regularly scheduled programming. Want to hear a quick joke? This is from Garry Shandling: I think my dog is gay. His dick always tastes so bitter. There. That sounds more like me, doesn't it?

His Vocabulary's Better Than Mine, Too.
Mood:  amorous
Topic: The Tao of Ben
At this rate, I'm going to have to start a new category called Ben Crumpacker Is A Prick. He just sent me an e-mail containing the word miscegenation, and damn if I didn't have to look it up. Webster's defines it as a mixture of races; especially: marriage, cohabitation, or sexual intercourse between a white person and a member of another race. Lest anyone jump to the conclusion that Ben is a racist, I will hasten to add that he used the word in describing the plot of the movie Love Is A Many-Splendored Thing (1955). At that time, of course, miscegenation was considered a big deal. Today, one of my most beloved Internet friends partakes of it frequently, with great relish, and with a particularly gorgeous specimen of malehood. Take a bow, Vince Chao. Let's hear it for miscegenation!

Note to my husband: I'm the one who is meant to be tossing about words that send people scurrying to Webster's, you prick. The fact that you can do that to me is one of the myriad reasons you are a prick, and is also one of the even more myriad reasons I adore you.

Fertility Goddess.
Topic: Pregnancy
I'm only five months pregnant, but good Christ, I've got a masterpiece of a belly going on. This morning, kissing me goodbye, Ben said "Wow, you're really busting out all over" -- meaning the belly, the boobs, the whole package. (I'll have to have him take a photograph over the weekend. Exhibit B, you know.)

Times have changed, and pregnant women no longer dress in garments made from 20 yards of fabric which resemble oversized tents. I tend to wear maternity clothes that don't leave a whole lot to the imagination concerning the size and extent of my belly. I don't especially want to look like Lucy Ricardo did in 1953, and at my age, a pregnant belly is a bit of a miracle. I'm proud of it. But it seems that pregnancy and breastfeeding make a lot of people uncomfortable.

At the risk of being dooced, there is a high-level executive in the company where I work who seems unable to look at me when I'm pregnant. All that fecundity, I think, makes him uncomfortable -- he a guy who is into decorum, who still wears an impeccable suit to the office every day despite the fact that we switched to a "business casual" dress code years ago. He also didn't appreciate my practice, while pumping milk at work for my son, of simply hanging a photograph of a cow on my locked office door to signal that I was pumping. It seems a lot of people aren't at ease with such things.

There's been a lot of debate going on lately about breastfeeding in public. I do that -- I don't put a blanket over my baby's head or hide in the restroom, either. You would be amazed how few people have ever caught on that I was breastfeeding. If you wear nursing tops, with a bit of practice you can master enough sleight of boob that no one ever knows what you're up to. But some people get plenty shook up if they realize someone is nursing in public.

There are those who would immediately say that these attitudes are based in hostility toward women and objectification of their bodies, but I don't buy that. It's a knee-jerk oversimplification. Probably more like a manifestation of the basic Puritanity of our culture. Americans have a million neuroses about sexuality and reproduction, and I'm afraid this is just another one.

Me, I'm going to continue to flaunt my belly. I won't bare it in public, and I won't expect you to find it sexually attractive unless you are personally the cause of my pregnancy. But I'm not going to put on a burqa either.

Sam's Peepee Goes To Preschool.
Mood:  crushed out
Topic: Sam
This morning we did it; we went and toured Sam's new preschool. He starts in September, and the only trick is going to be getting his peepee (not to mention his behind) in order by that time as far as the peeing and the pooping and when and where to do those things.

I have faith in him, though. He was fascinated by the four-year-olds' room and kept asking the director "What's that for?" and "What do we do here?" So he's motivated. We stopped at Starbuck's beforehand for Mommy's venti nonfat cappuccino and he peed in the toilet like a champ, although I'm going to have to work with him on making sure his peepee is actually pointing into the toilet before he lets fly. "My peepee is getting really good at peeing in the toilet," he mused afterward.

Sam's peepee has quite the personality. Sometimes I will take him to the bathroom and he will try to pee but then explain, 'My peepee says No no no." His peepee says other things, too, and Sam will sometimes wag his peepee up and down and make it "talk" as it says these things. Ben and I find it endearing that his peepee says No no no in the first place. Most guys' peepees don't say anything except Yes yes yes, and that goes for their whole lifetimes.

So, you know, I think Sam and his peepee are going to do okay. Mommy, on the other hand, is a bit of a wreck. Preschool this fall means kindergarten next fall, and excuse me, didn't I just give birth to this kid ten minutes ago? Mr. Baby is all grown up. This is all a bit much for a hormonal pregnant mommy.

In other news, I finally got up off it and bought a domain name. The Mr. Baby Blog is now located at www.MrBabyShow.com. Our motto: Same shit, different URL!

Saint George.
Mood:  lyrical
Topic: Music
Lately I've been listening to a lot of George Harrison's solo work. It's true that he tended to be a bit too Hindu around the edges and sometimes took the whole spirituality thing a bit too far, but you know, there was something about him. He uplifted like a good support bra.

In fact, the two songs Ben has been instructed to play at my funeral are George Harrison solo efforts. You'll have to show up to the funeral to find out which ones. Be sure to bring lots of Bombay Sapphire and a cute girl for Ben, since with three kids he is going to have to remarry by nightfall.

The thing that got me started on George Harrison was unearthing a couple of his albums in a box of crap in my office. These were The Traveling Wilburys, Vol. 1 (1988), from the supergroup he formed with Bob Dylan, Jeff Lynne, Roy Orbison and Tom Petty, and the greatest hits collection Best of Dark Horse (1989). Brilliant stuff. By today's standards, it's fucking Mozart. People aren't making music like that anymore.

There is a George story that Ben likes to tell which may be apocryphal, but I like it anyway. The story goes that during the Beatle days, George was sitting in his hotel room playing the ukelele when a girl arrived at the door and announced to whoever answered that she wanted to give George, umm, oral pleasure. George agreed, but kept on playing his ukelele -- she did what she came to do and brought the act to fruition, and then she left, and George never said a word or stopped playing the ukelele. Talk about cool.

Of course, George died of lung cancer in November 2001. They're really dropping like flies these days, aren't they? One of the things about getting older that really freaks me out is the way the heavens start filling up with Famous Dead Guys, and it just gets worse as the years go by. Saint George, you had a good run and left some good music. I don't know where you are -- the normal Heaven or some Hindu place or maybe reincarnated as God only knows what -- but you were a good one.

But It's True.
Mood:  lazy
Topic: Pregnancy
Today, after a meeting with my boss, I heaved my increasingly pregnant self to my feet with an audible groan. "Are you okay?" she asked.

"My arse hurts," I replied. She looked a bit taken aback. Hey, don't ask, don't tell. She asked!

If the truth be known, my arse does hurt. I hope the energetic, sexually active part of pregnancy isn't over already. I hope I'm not into the slow, heavy, achy part. Even if this baby is early, as my babies tend to be, I am looking at 16 more weeks at the very least. That's four months of a sore butt. Kid, just for the record, when you get here, you'd better be nice to me. I don't suffer ass pain for just ANYONE, you know.

Poop Talk Du Jour.
Topic: Poop
It's time to talk about poop, since I haven't done it in a while. I know I've talked about farts within the past 48 hours, but farts aren't poop, and the rigors of bloggery demand frequent entries on the subject of defecation. So I will talk about Sam's diaper, and what's in it, and the fact that he shouldn't be wearing it anymore.

It's true -- Alert Readers may have noticed that when talking about smelling the kids' butts for poop, I used the plural. Sam, less than three months shy of his fourth birthday, is still in diapers. This is not just because I'm a terrible mother; Ben and I, as well as the day care lady, have tried and tried to get this kid out of diapers. We've attempted every tactic known, so please don't e-mail me with your helpful hints, because if you do, I will find out where you live and mail you one of Sam's dirty diapers.

Ben's mother, my sainted mother-in-law, is going absolutely insane with annoying helpfulness on the potty issue. She clips out articles and mails them to us, asks Ben about Sam's potty progress every time they talk on the phone (which is about five times a week, for God's sake), and is always suggesting some video or Dr. Phil quackery or what have you. Poor Ben is the one who has to undergo these torrents of wisdom, and he's also the one who has to undergo my responsive ravings: Tell her I am NOT taking potty training advice from someone who has never toilet trained a child [Ben's grandmother trained him], and even if she claims she DID train you, THAT WAS FORTY-SEVEN YEARS AGO. My poor husband. I wonder which is worse, a bossy mother or a wife who doesn't take kindly to her bullshit advice?

The latest wrinkle in Sam's failure to toilet train came today when I called his prospective new preschool and was informed that while they take kids from infancy on up, they are not prepared to take on an almost-four-year-old who is not toilet trained.

It's just the latest logistical difficulty in a series of many. Sam is showing signs of growing out of the largest size diaper (he is very tall for his age and looks at least 5 years old, which makes it all the more incongruous that he still poops in his pants), and I've told him that he will end up wearing Depends like a nursing home inmate, but he is not impressed.

Nor is he fazed by the announcement by Katrina, his "girlfriend" at day care, that she is having second thoughts about marrying a guy who still poops in his pants. (Hey, it would be a dealbreaker for me, too.) I've even tried explaining to him that changing his poopy diapers is just too disgusting and I really can't handle it anymore. No dice. I really think the kid is just being stubborn, and the day care lady is in agreement with the preschool people that he'll train when he's ready, that pushing him too hard will just backfire. So that, for now, is that.

People say Well, he won't go to college in diapers, but I have my doubts. Someday I will help him pack his bag for college, and its contents will include both Trojans and Depends. Mark my words.

Of Marriage And Fidelity.
Mood:  amorous
Mean girl that I am, I should probably apologize to Ben for blogging a fart story about him. Even though he says that the farting is all my fault for cooking lamb shanks for dinner: You feed me dead sheep, what do you expect? But it's disrespectful to tell such tales, and really, I do very much love and respect my husband. Yesterday, for a moment, I was reminded exactly how much.

I was jolted awake at 6:30 a.m. by a nightmare that sent me bolt upright in bed with pounding heart -- I dreamed that he was leaving me. No discussion, no debate -- in the dream, he calmly and coldly announced that he was moving to San Diego. Waking, I quickly realized that all was in fact well, that he and the boys were there sleeping beside me where they belonged. But I was so upset that further sleep was out of the question. It was only a dream, but it reminded me how much you can't take your marriage for granted.

Although I guess many people do. Are Ben and I the only people on earth with a truly joyful marriage? Even after five years we are giggling best friends, we are still mad with lust for each other. That's easy to maintain when you're dating, when you spend your time together on jet ski trips and pub crawls and all-afternoon boink sessions. A lot of our time, though, is spent wiping noses and asses, and sex is a thing dearly to be desired but difficult to actually achieve, what with two toddlers who never seem to fall asleep until Ben and I are too exhausted to do much more than grin apologetically at each other. So the degree to which we're happy together is truly a rare thing.

By contrast, most of our friends' marriages seem to fall somewhere along a continuum ranging from neutrality to misery. Worse, very few of the couples we know are actually faithful to each other. Of the men, even the ones who aren't openly cavorting with barely legal South American girls (whom they pay by the hour or by the day) are having clandestine adventures whenever the opportunity strikes. Are we the only married people on earth who aren't cheating on each other? I ask Ben. And he quickly points out the two married men of our acquaintance who don't cheat on their wives, or at least who haven't been caught at it or admitted to it -- but they aren't good examples, either. I know these guys, and for them, marital fidelity is like investing or flossing; it's the right thing to do, but there's no joy in it.

My husband and I, though, truly have the hots for each other. Some of that is due to deprivation and some to sincere effort; despite three pregnancies in my 40s, I make a concerted effort to stay cute, to wear a size 4 and wear my hair long and not skip jewelry and makeup. And God was kind enough to give me no stretch marks whatsoever. It's only fair to keep up my appearance; I could hardly expect Ben to stick close to home if I had gained 60 pounds, chopped off all my hair, and developed a sudden distaste for the male body in general and his in particular, the way so many wives do.

And in that regard, we're also different from every other couple I know. There seems to be something about having babies that makes women go cold on sex, and most of them won't even get on their knees and do their poor husbands a favor. No, they want to be romanced. You love the guy, don't you? I ask such women. He stays married to you, he supports your children, he comes home at night, right? So what's the problem? He wants sex; you don't; do him a favor. And they look at me like I've suggested they bury their noses in shit. Surely they are failing to grasp the secret to a happy marriage and to male fidelity: Give him a reason not to cheat on you. But they don't get it.

Not everyone has a marriage as happy as mine. But I think sometimes that's due more to lack of effort and imagination than to anything else. Ben and I don't have a perfect life by any means -- we wish there was more money and less baby shit; I wish he wouldn't fart into my sofa; he wishes I wouldn't blog embarrassing revelations about his bodily functions. But I love my husband. And my dream reminded me -- should remind us all -- that we should never take anything we love for granted, because maybe someday it's gone.

For Whom The Smell Tolls.
Mood:  smelly
Topic: The Tao of Ben
There is a standard Crumpacker method for checking if one of the boys has poop in his pants: Quite simply, we smell their butts through their pants. Ben was quite scandalized the first time I held up baby Sam and demanded, Smell his butt! But you know, it's a good method. I have heard of parents who check for poop by thrusting a hand inside the kid's diaper. Now that strikes me as foolhardy. Compared to the hand-in-the-diaper method, smelling their butts, while it probably looks a bit strange in public, is downright safe and sanitary.

This afternoon I thought I caught a telltale whiff, so I started polling my kids. Do you have a poop? I asked Sam. He shook his head. Matt, do you have a poop? Sam, who is my good little helper, immediately offered, I better smell his butt. And he duly did so, and announced after a moment that Matt in fact was poop-free.

Sam's sense of humor, these days, is firmly rooted in the absurd, so in the spirit of the moment, I suggested, I'd better smell Daddy's butt. Sam squealed with delight as I approached his father and said Sit up, I need to smell your butt. And I did exactly that -- I took a big whiff, thinking I was safe. I mean, you'd hardly expect the guy to have a poop in his pants, right?

I almost fell over -- it smelled pretty damned bad. You've been farting! I accused him. He grinned. Not lately, he replied. I was left sputtering with indignation and disgust.

Ben just laughed at me. See? he said. Don't go around smelling people's butts. And I have to agree. Next time you get the urge to smell the butts of the males in the room, I recommend limiting your inquiry to the toddlers.

Gimme Gimme Gimme.
Mood:  cheeky
Topic: Matt
As some of you may know, two-year-old Matt has finally weaned from the breast. Depending upon who you are -- whether you're a crunchy Mommy type or a college buddy or a smart-ass blogger or what have you -- that information may inspire any number of reactions from Kudos! to Ewwww to About bloody time, or possibly some or all of the above.

Matt is being a pretty good sport about the whole thing, really, but has replaced nursing with a habit which I fear most people would find socially unacceptable, namely that he feels free to plunge his hand inside my bra, any time the mood may strike him, and start rummaging about in there. I have tried reasoning with him, explaining that we just don't do that and that people aren't generally going to let him get away with that type of thing later in life, but he isn't really impressed by any of my arguments. Nor is his father any help whatsoever. He just cackles and gives him a thumbs-up and says Go for it, kid.

Well. Many women say that they wish their husbands would be more tolerant and supportive of extended breastfeeding. And to that I say Be careful what you wish for.

Badge Of Motherhood.
Mood:  lucky
Topic: Rants
It's an annoying bit of inevitability in my life that absolutely every sweater, jacket, blouse and shirt I own has vague stains about the right shoulder. I'm really kind of mystified as to why this is -- it's true that I tend to sling Matt onto my right hip, but it's not like he's a gurgling, spitting-up infant anymore; he oughtn't to be generating stains on my shoulders. Certainly, I never catch him at it. But the stains are always there, and I am always noticing them and being embarrassed and annoyed by them.

Ben doesn't understand my irritation. It's the proud badge of motherhood, he tells me, or You're a mom -- of course you're going to have barf and drool all over you. At this point I am always tempted to throw at him a Jedi knight or Crayola marker or whatever little missile might come to hand. Yes, buddy, all that is true, and furthermore, I do love to point out that I ruined my body having YOUR children, Ben Crumpacker. But I used to be cute, you know. In my heyday I was even thought to be a bit of a hottie. And how is a girl meant to feel properly sexy when she is pregnant with her fourth child and also surreptitiously removing dried baby boogers from her sleeve?

Honestly, it defies the imagination. What with all the nursing and the snot and the spit-up stains and the diaper leaks and the maternity bras and episiotomies and so on, it's quite honestly a miracle that anyone wants to get close enough to do anything to me that could even remotely result in getting me pregnant this often. You would almost think that I was running immaculate conceptions over here, except that there is nothing immaculate about me. Even when I am nominally well-put-together, if you look closely you will see Infant Motrin stains on my fingers. Motherhood may be many things, but sexy is not one of them.

Well . . . Yes.
Mood:  happy
Topic: Sam
Yesterday we had lunch at BJ's Pizza. It's one of Sam and Matt's favorite places; they love the minestrone and the root beer floats, and Ben loves the beer, so we go there a fair amount. On this particular visit, Sam was especially energetic. Which is to say he drove us absolutely nuts. He was happy enough, but was completely bouncing off the walls, so that the whole meal was a litany of Sam this and Sam that and Sam, will you please pull your head out from under the table and eat already?

By the time we loaded the kids back into the van to go home, I was exhausted. As we started out of the parking lot, Sam suddenly piped up, "I don't want to go there anymore. I don't want to go back to BJ's Pizza ever again."

I turned around to look at him, surprised -- he loved BJ's. "Why, honey?" I asked.

"That place makes me crazy," he said.

Pope Circles Drain.
Topic: Miscellany
I just wanted to see what it would look like actually posted as a headline. CNN is no better and has even posted POPE IN GRAVE CONDITION on the TV news crawl. Hey, I may be a smartass, but at least I'm not stooping to macabre puns. Note to anyone taking, or preparing to take, offense: I was born Polish Catholic.

I've always loved the guy to pieces. I remember when he became Pope. So proud! He's been a fighter from beginning to end. Stubborn Polish son of a bitch, and charmed the pants off absolutely everyone in the process. In recent years, people have spent so much time speculating how much time he has or hasn't got left, no one talks very much about the splash he made in his heyday. He was big. He was rockin'. He was Live At Budokan!

Karol Jozef Wojtyla, I wish you peace. You've always had a special place in my heart. You kicked some major ass, and you're going out fine and feisty. You rest now. Done us proud.

Well, Okay, If I Have To.
Mood:  lyrical
Topic: Rants
I have mentioned before that I don't like spring, and summer gets on my nerves, mostly because I live in the land of endless summer and let me tell you, that shit gets old,old, old. You ask any East Coastie: There is nothing like scraping ice off your windshield and stepping in hidden slush puddles all winter to make summer seem magical and welcome. But here in So Cal, where summer curls up in your lap and arches its back and thrusts its tail in your face and won't move for endless weeks and months on end? After a while, you just want to push it away.

Well. This week, spring is here. Actually spring has been here for a little bit now; I've lived around the Back Bay for going on 15 years, and there is a subtle smell in the air, some plant that opens or flower that comes into bloom, that says spring has arrived, and that's been around for a while now. So I saw it coming. And then I had occasion to be out and about in the afternoon, and it was perfectly sunny and seventy-four degrees, and the air smelled like that, and suddenly there were butterflies all over the place.

I don't mean a butterfly or two or three, but a whole lot of them, just zigzagging around through the air. I must have seen a hundred of them, driving over to pick up the kids. Got out of my car and here are a few butterflies, walked into the house and over there are a few more, and when I came back out with the boys: butterflies. Okay, who ordered the butterflies? And the sun is so golden, and the air smells like that.

Only a truly miserable asshole could uphold an I don't like spring policy on such a day. Me, I gave it up right then and there.

Very Tiny, Very Significant Piece Of Paper.
Mood:  crushed out
Matt has a number of dastardly gambits which he employs, while I'm on the computer, in order to get my attention back where it belongs, i.e., squarely on him. One of these is to cry MY dotcom! while trying to wrestle the mouse out of my hand. Another is to hang all of his weight on my right forearm -- my mouse arm. He's nearly 30 pounds now, and that really hurts. And another is to start rummaging through the desk drawers, bringing forth items -- checkbook refills, birth certificates, passports -- which he absolutely is not meant to have. It makes me nuts, but for Matt, it gets the job done -- it makes me pay attention to him.

A couple of nights ago, he seized my attention by seizing Ben's old black address book. I haven't seen much of what's in it; it dates back from our early days of dating and beyond, and its contents are certain to raise more issues than they resolve, so I leave it alone. But when Matt grabbed it, a business card fluttered out, and I couldn't resist picking it up.

It was familiar. More to the point, it was mine. Much more to the point, it was the business card on which I'd given Ben my phone number for the very first time. The business card that set this whole thing in motion.

I looked at it more closely. It contained my handwriting -- my home phone number, and also my name, or what was my name at the time, back before I became a Crumpacker and the mother of his kids. His handwriting was there, too -- my work extension jotted on the front, and on the back, rudimentary driving directions to the apartment where I'd been living those seven years ago.

It completely blew my mind. I held that little card in my hand and looked around me -- at Matt, at our cool little house across from the bay, at Sam (who was busy waging a battle between Jedi knights on the arm of the sofa), at Ben himself. At my pregnant belly and the restless stirrings inside. So much life and noise and words and laughter and tears and goings-on we've made, this house, these kids, and all that lies ahead of us. And in my hand, the little piece of paper that started it all. What if I'd never given it to him? What if I had and he'd lost it, or tossed it away? None of this would ever have happened.

I tried to think for a minute of what life might have been like for each of us, had we just moved on and none of this had ever come to pass, but Matt interrupted me: Mommy, I TELL you something! So I turned back to him, but I know this. There are moments when your life holds still, and little pieces of paper which will change absolutely everything, and it's probably a good thing that we can only recognize them in hindsight. Otherwise we might run for our lives. Imagine someone telling you: This piece of paper will bring you ultimate love and wonder, but also ultimate worry and care and sleepless nights, and nothing will ever be the same. You see? That's enough to freak the living shit out of you. If I'd seen it coming, I might have chickened out and missed everything.

And I'm so glad I didn't.

Reamed At The Pumps.
Topic: Rants
This morning I spent $2.35 per gallon to gas up the minivan. (Yes, I drive a minivan. You're issued one when you have your second baby, didn't you know?) This was the best price available after scouting the area over the weekend. Most places, you have to pay in the $2.40s and even the $2.50s. I understand it's higher in Malibu and possibly in Honolulu, but that's about it; gas prices in Orange County are amongst the highest in the country. It cost me nearly $40 to fill my tank. Damn, my butt hurts.

I should have gone inside beforehand and asked the guy for a kiss. You know, if I'm going to get screwed, I should at least get a kiss first, right?

A Fun Disease.
Topic: The Tao of Ben
Everyone at our house is sick. It's my fault; I caught it at work, from our accounting department. That sounds a touch scandalous, until you consider that my firm's "accounting department" is this chick whose desk is ten paces outside my office.

Ben was complaining of his symptoms this morning, and I felt guilty for infecting the household. I told him "I'm sorry. This is not a fun disease to have. . . . Then again, I guess there are no fun diseases to have."

"Well, there's St. Vitus Dance," Ben suggested.

Yikes.
Mood:  incredulous
Topic: Evil Things
See? I told you he's a skeleton. No wonder Sam is scared of him.

I yelped out loud when this photo popped up on my News front page. Do NOT do that to me, Netscape! It was much like the yelp emitted by Ben one day when he turned on our big TV only to have a close-up of Barbra Streisand's face fill the screen. I will never forget the startled, horrified sound he made. It was as though the ancient Frank Zappa curse had been fulfilled upon him, and his shit had come to life and kissed him.

I saw some rather close-up footage of Skeleton Girl on CNN, I think it was last night. Guilty or not, the guy is falling apart before our eyes. It's just ugly all the way around, and I can't take my eyes off it (or, apparently, shut up about it). It's a freak show from start to finish, and I'm just waiting for the geeks to show up and start biting the heads off chickens. One of US! One of US!