Xmas Haul

From Monsieur, I got stuff that I didn’t know I said I wanted but must have muttered it under my breath, because I did want it:

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Jewels!

• a purple – no, royal crimson – bathrobe
• pajamas
• a pearl necklace (oh grow UP!! I mean jewelry) and another of emerald – my birthstone

From the boys:

• Parachutes CD, Coldplay – oh, quit laughing at me. I like Coldplay.
• Yellow Submarine, the movie – I mentioned once that I had never seen it, and of course the Two Bigglest Boys were shocked, dumbfounded, and wondered how I could call myself a civilized human being with such an obvious gap in my education.

From my mom & dad:

• The Joy of Cooking
• The Sedgwick County Ag Extension Cookbook
  (I think they’re just trying to help)
• T-shirts, skirts, gift certificate for shoes

Still no yum-yum yet. I got a phone number with my tip the other day at work, from a cutie guy, kinda looked like John Corbett from Sex and the City / My Big Fat Greek Wedding. Only cuter. The phone number sits in a pile of scrap paper on a dresser upstairs. Yearn, yearn, yearn.

John Corbett, not the guy who gave me his number.

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In other news … Monsieur apologized for being a pooh-pooh head (see earlier post), although he didn’t actually say it that way.

“[Yearning Heart], I am sorry I was so abrupt with you the other night.”

I acted as if I didn’t remember. “The other night?”

“You remember, of course you do. The children were not ready for bed, and were becoming rowdy and misbehaved.”

“Oh yes, well. As to that, I understand your anger, Monsieur.”

“I am glad that you so understand. My temper has been short of late, and I am truly contrite.”

“I accept, Monsieur, and I will try to be more firm with the children, and I hope that you will tell me when something is not to your liking. But please, in the future, do not do it in front of the boys?”

“Yes, I promise.”

“I love you, Monsieur, and I hope that if you ever have the need to punish me you shall do it in private, in the proper way.”

“‘In the proper way’?”

“Yes, Monsieur.” I unbuckled his belt, sliding it off of his pants and removing it. I handed it to him, then turned around, bent over with my hands on my knees and pointed my bottom at him.[1] “The proper way,” I repeated.

He made a noise in his throat. “I have no wish to hurt you,” he whispered softly.

“I know, Monsieur. One or two won’t hurt; they may clear the air between us and possibly make our lives much easier.”

“I don’t spank my children; why would you think I would spank you?”

“Just one, Monsieur, and not on my bare bottom. Please. You’ll feel better, and so will I.”

He did, and not as hard as he could have.

(Ouch.)

He put his belt back on, and asked me if I felt better.

“Yes, Monsieur.”

[1] Thanks to Amber, for the suggestion.

In Trouble Again

Hope your holidays were fun. Ours were, too. I guess I got spoiled by mine. I’ll enumerate all my loot later. But first….

Sometimes I wish he would just spank me and be done with it.

Tuesday night I was trying to get all three boys cleaned, dried, brushed, and pajamaed by bedtime, and they were goofy and gabbly. Then Littlest Boy unceremoniously filled his diaper, so in order to keep the peace I had the two bigger boys separate and stay in their rooms on their beds while I took Littlest Boy and changed him. While I was doing that, Monsieur went upstairs and found the two bigger boys in various degrees of readiness for bed, five minutes before bedtime. They got scolded, and when I came upstairs, so did I.

I could have defended myself better, I could have said that I was trying to keep the mayhem down to a minimum while Littlest Boy was being changed, but I just lowered my eyes and apologized.

“You can not let them take advantage of you like that,” Monsieur said.

“I’m sorry, Monsieur,” I said softly.

“Bedtime is at 8:00 for a reason,” he continued.

“Yes, Monsieur.”

“Get their teeth cleaned and then lights are to be out.”

“Yes, Monsieur.”

I did, and Monsieur helped. The boys were cooperative from then on; I suspect that there was a certain amount of guilt on their part that I was in trouble. I tucked everyone in, turned out lights, and went into my old room to undress to shower. I wasn’t going to go downstairs again for the rest of the night – I was mortified and resentful.

Grumble. Maybe the semen had backed up into his brain and it makes him grumpy, I thought.

Whatever. I slept upstairs.

TagOla

I have been TAGGED by that hottie, Venting Housewife.

The first player of this game starts with the topic. Five weird habits of yourself, – and people who get tagged need to write an entry about their five weird habits as well as state this rule clearly. In the end, you need to choose the next five people to be tagged and link to their web journals. Don’t forget to leave a comment in their blog or journal that says “You are tagged” (assuming they take comments) and tell them to read yours.

This is difficult, mostly because I don't even know 5 people who haven't been tagged with this already. I just checked – and EVERYone I know who takes comments has already been tagged.

But here goes.

1. I can’t walk in front of a mirror without looking at it and checking myself out. If no one is around, I’ll stick my tongue out at myself.
2. When I brush my teeth, I have to recite Shakespeare in my head to time myself to make sure that I brush for a full 5 minutes. Usually I do Macbeth:
   She should have died hereafter
   There would have been a time for such a word
   Tomorrow and tomorrow and tomorrow
   Creeps in this petty pace from day to day….
   Oh, you know the rest, and if you don’t, well, you probably went to public school in the US.[1]
3. I can only eat – at one sitting – about as much food as I can hold between my thumb and forefinger. That means about a half cup. I can’t eat more, and now I know better, so I don’t even try. I am not malnourished, and my mom took me to a doctor, who said if more people would do like I do, she’d go out of business.
4. I absolutely, positively, have to have an orgasm every 48 hours.[2] If I don’t, then there will be hell to pay.
5. Whenever I blush, I sneeze. That’s weird, I know – sometimes I suppress that by biting my lower lip to kill the sneeze reflex, but I still get the physical need to sneeze when my face gets red from embarrassment. If anyone has any idea why that happens, please comment.

There, that wasn’t so difficult. But, I can’t tag anyone else, for reasons mentioned above. Sorry, VH.

[1] OK, so did I. But I paid attention in English class, especially if it was Shakespeare.

[2] Since I was about 16 years of age, this is true. This is a bigger burden on me than you might think.

Rabbit Test

Someone very dear to me made the comment recently that she hoped I wasn’t pregnant.

I thought, well, now that’s impossible. I’ve only been with Monsieur in the last 10 months and he’s been fixed. So it can’t be.

A month later: nausea (again) and other weird flu-like symptoms. What’s more, I’m late by a week. So, I do what any good, sensible girl does: I panic and freak out. Quietly. Then, I go to the drug store and pick up a home rabbit test.

The rabbit lived. Whew!

I so don’t want to be pregnant. Ever. I think I’m afraid of what it would do to me, my body, my peace of mind and my life. I used to tell people (boyfriends, my mom) that I didn’t think I was capable of taking care of children. Well, now that I’ve dived face-first into this life, I now know that I could, if I had to, take care of children, Because, well, I do, and I have to. I probably couldn’t take care of them all by myself, but with a husband working, I could do it. After all, that’s what I’m doing now.

So why am I afraid of birthing children? Apart from my slim tiny boyish hips, and all? I’m scared of pain. That’s all it is – I’m a wimp.

Now I know that all of you are chuckling to yourselves thinking, “Well, now someday Ms. Yearning Heart is gonna find herself knocked up and she’ll know for herself whether or not she could go through with it.” And I suppose that is a possibility. It’s also equally possible that I am a lesbian[1]. Or perhaps I am Larry King[2]. This is all possible.

I told Monsieur that I was worried about the pregnancy thing and he comforted me. It felt good, but what I wanted to hear was what would happen if I were to get pregnant. So, like a communicative person, who I hope that I am, I just asked him.

“If I were to get pregnant, what would we do?”

“You would make whatever decision you need to make, and I would support those decisions,” Monsieur replied.

“Suppose I decide to have the baby?” I asked.

“Then you would have the baby and I would support both of you.”

“Suppose I would want the baby to have a daddy?” I asked.

“The baby would have a daddy, if you would be so gracious as to consent for me to acknowledge the paternity,” he replied.

“Suppose … I would want to be married to the daddy?” I asked in a whisper.

“I can only hope for that,” he replied.

“You mean, you’d marry me if I got pregnant?” I didn’t expect that – I don’t know why not.

“You are a very eligible young woman, and I don’t think I would find anyone better for me or for my children,[3]” he answered.

I looked up at him, trying to be calm, but I started to tremble and he held me tighter.[4] It would have been perfect had he nailed me right then and there, but he didn’t – even when I tried to get him to, he asked me to wait a bit.

OK, blogmates … what does that mean exactly? Am I somehow leading up to Connubia with this guy? Is that what I want?[5]

[1] I’m not. OK… I had a crush on Maggie. But she was the first one, and while I wouldn’t have kicked her or Cate Blanchett out of bed, I’m all about the cock.

[2] I’m not. OK… I liking asking people impertinent questions. But I do not own a single pair of suspenders.

[3] Are you taking notes, guys? That is the correct answer!

[4] Yearn, yearn, yearn.

[5] My heart yearns, even as my brain screams “Now hold on just a New York minute here!”

The Heart Surfaces

Yes, I’ve been missing. Yes there’s a good reason.

There is a teacher who teaches the boys – along with ten other kids – in a cooperative school. The way it works is that one of each set of kids’ parent either helps pay a teacher or arranges to teach for a certain period out of a year, usually six months.

Up until last May it was Maggie teaching here in her house, right here in this room where I’m typing. Then Maggie passed away.

J-with-two-N’s and M were trading it off, but M got hired in a new job and J is not likely to be around after next summer. So they asked me to “help out.”

Oh, my god, thought me. You have got to be kidding.

I wanted to shriek and throw up my hands, “I don’t know nuthin’ ‘bout learnin’ no babies!” in my best Butterfly McQueen voice (where’s my theatre classmate Gay Trey when I need him most?) but I just said, “Well, sure! But I gotta be able to bring Littlest Boy too.” Since day care is not an option for us due to Monsieur’s strict prohibition.

So, I have been playing the most challenging role of my acting career – knowledgeable elementary school teacher-in-training.

The kids like seeing Littlest Boy again, especially since he can talk now. And man, these questions the kids ask.

As an example:

• Do your eyes grow?
  Answer: yes but only a little bit.
• Why don’t spiders stick to their own webs?
  Answer: they walk very carefully on them. Some spiderweb is not sticky, and when the spiders have to walk on sticky threads, they have special hairs on their feet that push the sticky threads away when they let go of them.
• What happens if you drill a hole into a light bulb while the light bulb is turned on?
  Answer: I don’t know! Let’s ask a scientist, and we’ll find out!

These are all tough questions.

Meanwhile, I’ve been wobbling along as best as I can.

My waiting job is exhausting me. I don’t think I can hold out much longer at it, but I haven’t found anything that I could do that won’t conflict with my child care / teaching duties. As it is I have to cut school short, and get to work at 5 pm on Thursdays and Fridays.

Monsieur is trying to get the co-op to agree to pay me when I am handling the entire class all by myself. I feel as though I am not qualified to be paid as a teacher of any kind but Monsieur thinks I should be. I don’t yet know how it all works or even if it will all work out. I’m hoping for the best.

Monsieur is also warming up to me, a bit. I can see that he is trying to cope. I don’t get my lovin’ as frequently as I want but it averages to about once a week. I’ve made a few inquiries in the blogosphere and apparently that’s not too bad. I guess I should live with it, but I’ll still try to melt him down as often as I can.

The best I can do is to keep him happy.

“Dude - we got a substitute!”

So much to say and I know I’ll never get it all in.

So I had this interesting part to play this last couple of weeks – elementary school teacher. I have been busy with this, filling in at Monsieur’s boys’ cooperative school as a substitute while the regular teachers go on vacation.

Dear Mom and All of My Schoolteachers:

I’m sorry. I’m sorry I was such a disrespectful, ill-tempered brat. I’ll try to do better.

— the Yearning Heart

Whew.

I’m glad to get that off my chest. These kids are wonderful, intelligent and very challenging. I’ll be glad when the other teachers get back next Monday.

It turns out that the camp cramps I had were a real virus, too so I was out for a few days there. Uggh.

Oh, two things I wanted to really note:

1. Monsieur was really kind about introducing me to everyone at the campout. I really am starting to feel like I belong.
2. I lost Monsieur’s Pentax digital camera. It was in my camping bag that I might have ransacked looking for Immodium™ at some point during that awful night. I must have left it out on the ground. Anyone could have seen it and taken it. I feel really stupid. What should I do? Should I offer to replace it? It’s not a cheap camera.