Estrogen-Fueled Rant o' the Day

No funny story today. Just a mini-rant about married sex.

I love it when married men roll their eyes and complain about their exhausted wives, too tired from chasing after kids and doing laundry (and blah, blah, blah) to have a decent roll in the hay any mid-week night. Because I have a little secret for all of you single girls, and for all of you no-longer-marrieds who bore the guilt and stain of this baulderdash.

Simply put: it's horeshit. And I could prove it, any night of the week, except for one thing: my husband can't stay awake.

So now you know. The big, ugly truth about over-tired housefraus and uninterested soccer moms is that it's DADDY who's too tired for sex.

Enough said. I'm headed out for some D batteries, a little K-Y jelly, and those anti-snore strips (guess who THOSE are for).

March Madness

It’s that time of year again: time for men everywhere to become glued to their television sets as their alma maters (and should-have-been-my-alma-mater-damnit!) vie for a shot at the NCAA Championship in college basketball. Over the course of several weeks, 64 teams will be slowly whittled down to two. They’ll go through lots of cool-sounding tourney rounds: “The Sweet Sixteen”; “The Elite Eight”; and then “The Final Four.”

And then, finally, the NCAA Championship. I know all about it, you see, because my sweet love’s should-have-been-his-alma-mater-damnit! is the University of Connecticut: “UCONN.” And in 1999, on a cold night in March, the UCONN Huskies won their first-ever NCAA Title. It was the most frightening night of my life.

Everything started out okay, of course. The game began, and my darling was pacing the floor and biting his nails, alternately cheering and screaming at the television. [Did you know that, if you yell extra special loud, they can actually hear you, right through the TV? Well, I’m married to an electrical engineer, and he seems pretty darn convinced.]

I mean, things were going pretty well, and then it happened: the game ended, the players and spectators stormed the court, the Huskies climbed ladders and began cutting down the basketball nets (this is some sort of basketball tradition that, like out-of-control body art and corn row hairdos, is simply beyond my limited powers of comprehension), and everyone was cheering. My husband, who thought he’d never see this day, was dancing around the living room, positively gleeful.

And then it happened. My big, strong, strapping husband jumped onto the couch, threw his arms around my neck, and started crying. More like weeping, really. Big, wet, girly tears.

I froze. I mean, I could hear voices in my head saying: “Crying proves he’s sensitive,” and “Real men cry, too.” One of the voices was mine. Because, until it actually happened to me, I believed all of that piffle. I thought men crying was just fine and dandy too!

But suddenly it was right there in front of me. Living color. Wet and salty. And I was completely and utterly horrified. All of those theoretical male tears – the ones I was so “okay” with – had in no way prepared me for the reality of a bawling thirty year-old six-footer with cheek stubble and hair growing out of his ears.

I mean, how could I possibly have children with a man who cried after a basketball game? Who would protect us from the things that go bump in the night? Who would hold my hand and reassure me when the little ones got sick? Who would hold me up when things got really, really scary?

As it happens, it’s the same fella who cried when the Huskies won. It’s taken me six-odd years to figure that out, but there it is. And this year, as we head into yet another championship season, I’m looking a little forward to the Final Four, and to what comes after. And if I’m very lucky, maybe I’ll get to see a tear or two from my big bear …

A Fish Tale

My husband’s niece is a nanny in another state, and the stories she tells about her little charges make me want to kiss my own spawn until they scream to be let go. Here’s a true one for the ages:

A mother of three decides one day to take her children to the local aquarium. She has a 10 year-old with Down’s Syndrome (which is irrelevant except to suggest that he’s a rather strong boy, with a much younger child’s impulse control), and two younger children.

While in the aquarium, the mother suddenly notices that her 10 year-old has wandered off, and a panic ensues. She enlists the help of several aquarium personnel, and they begin to search for him. A few moments later, he appears, except that he’s absolutely soaked, from his sneakers right on up to the backpack he always wears.

By this time, the mother’s nerves are shot, and so she leaves the aquarium and loads her kids in the van for the trip home. It’s a this point she notices that her son is not only wet, but he smells awful, too. She vows to give him a bath – and to get the story about the dunking he’s obviously taken – as soon as they return home.

As they reach home, the woman is nearly sick from the smell coming off of her son. She opens the front door to the house and – whoosh! – the child speeds past her and up to the bathroom, backpack in hand. He closes the door behind himself and locks it.

The poor woman has now completely lost it. She bangs on the bathroom door, demanding to be let in. She can hear water running inside, but her son refuses to answer. Frightened, she finds a way to get the door open. She swings it wide, preparing to chastise the child in that way mothers do when they’re quite angry, but equally happy to see that a child is alive and healthy.

Her son stands before her, his backpack open on the floor. Just then, she detects a bit of movement out of the corner of her eye. To her left, in the family bathtub, is a penguin. And on the floor, in her son’s backpack, is a pile of penguin poop.

Post-script: As my niece tells the story, the good folks at the aquarium came to collect the little bird, and everyone survived the incident. The workers reportedly told the lady that, but for her child’s special needs, they would have had no choice but to call the police.

I took my kids to the local aquarium here on Long Island yesterday, as I do every couple of weeks or so (the benefits of “membership,” don’t you know). My 5 year-old daughter’s favorite thing to do is to feed and pet the stingrays at the touch tank. No backpacks allowed!!

A (True) Poopy Tale

I was in our basement office one recent afternoon, busily checking my e-mail, planning for ballet class with my daughter, and dealing with various other issues, when my three year-old son announced from the floor above: "Mommy, I've got poopy."

Now, I know exactly what that means: "Mother, would you please change my diaper, as the excrement inside is burning my tender flesh?" So, I called back to him: "I'll be right there, Baby." Because that's our routine. He tells me he's pooped, and I go on up and change him.

Except that someone has apparently changed the routine, and forgotten to tell Mommy. Instead of waiting the 30-40 seconds it would have taken me to get upstairs, my son decided to remove the offending receptacle, and slide his poop-encrusted backside down 13 steps to the basement. Thirteen CARPETED steps. "Here, Mommy," he said, offering the filthy thing to me. He was smiling. He was also, as you might imagine, covered in poop from his waist to his ankles. Before I could think about it, I’d swept him up in my arms and headed out the office door … ensuring that I, too, was now covered with poop.

As I exited the office and headed for the stairs to the main floor, I stopped dead. There before me, on thirteen carpeted steps, was a giant skid mark. Right down the center. I looked at my grinning, disgusting little offspring, and regretted for the first time that fateful evening when I advised my husband: “No, I’m sure I’m not ovulating this week.”

Then I headed upstairs, dodging the smelly stuff along the way, and tossed the giggling little poop-machine into the tub. I peeled off my filthy sweater, and went to work on the stairs. My son was laughing at – nay, “mocking” – me, as the phone rang: “Mom! You’ll never guess … poop everywhere … HELP ME!!” She was calm, and agreed to immediately head on over. I hung up the phone, just in time to see my little one draining the water from his tub. He was laughing harder, if that’s possible, and began dancing naked on the bathmat. I wrapped him up, dried him and dressed him. New nappy, new clothes. But still no clean sweater for Mommy.

I SWEAR I didn’t realize that I was, well, basically topless. I was sweating from the cleaning and the warm tub and the fear that if I didn’t work fast, I’d NEVER eradicate the smell and the stain and the …

Suddenly, the doorbell rang. MOM!! I raced for the door. Help had arrived! Except … it wasn't my Mom.

It was the FedEx guy. As soon as the door opened -- I mean as SOON as that cold gust of wind hit my bare chest, I knew I was done for. My mind raced. “Act natural,” I thought. Natural? And then he spoke: "Will you sign for this? Your neighbors aren't home to receive it."

What could I do? I signed. He left. My humiliation was complete.

My Trophy Guy

Okay. My husband is totally gonna kill me for this one, so don’t let it slip.

The other evening I was rushing around doing all of my usual Mommy chores, including the whole “laundry collection” thing. So I headed upstairs to the Master bath to get the dirties out of the hamper. I was in such a rush, I failed to notice that – beyond the obviously-closed door – the bathroom light was on. So I just threw open the door and headed inside.

And then I stopped dead in my tracks. My jaw hit the floor, and I nearly fainted. You see, I’d caught my poor, dear, sweet husband in the act.

No, sillies, not THAT act. Though I must confess that he probably wishes he HAD been up to "that." I mean, having your wife catch you with the Victoria’s Secret catalog in one hand, a dollop of hand cream in the other, and your pants around your ankles is one thing ... but THIS?

You see, he’d gotten into my makeup case, and was quietly applying some moisturizer to the just-visible creases at the corners of his baby blues. My husband, it seems, was trying out my wrinkle cream.

Now, you hear stories all the time about how men are a hundred times more vain than women. About their convertibles and their trophy wives. Even about their plastic surgeries.

But my six-foot sweetie? I bit my lip ‘till it bled to keep from laughing. And then, in a show of love and solidarity unmatched since I sponge-bathed him after a surgery 6 years ago, I stepped into the bathroom, quietly closed the door behind us, and opened one of the vanity drawers.

“Here, sweetie,” I said softly. “This is the stuff you use for nighttime.”