At Least I Know He Could Survive in the Wilderness

If I were a believer in previous lives I would think that my son must have been a goat at some point past. The kid (no pun intended) puts literally everything into his mouth. Everything. Excepting, of course, things that we would like him to put into his mouth, like apples and oranges, and maybe a little red meat or lettuce now and again. Dredging up some past posts will reveal that he has eaten cat litter, dirt, and more recently an ant or two.

People at the grocery store or the laboratory will ask before giving stickers to my two-year-old daughter, but little do they know that it’s not her I have to worry about when it comes to tasting/eating non-food items.

For whatever reason my son has settled on paper as his snack of choice. He has digested large sections of paper bookmarks; gnawed through the plastic cover on DVD cases to get to the paper jacket; even chomped through the binding on nice shiny new board books. Gym shorts with elastic pull type waistbands are another satisfying nibble. Keep chewing on the end of one of those things and a person can produce a string about a foot long.

But as I do not believe in past lives or reincarnation I don’t know that I should be afraid of walking in on him puncturing soup cans with his vicious canines. Thankfully he has not attempted to eat shards of glass or metal shavings. In lieu of those things, I suppose I can handle the nail biting and the finger chomping and the booger eating. I guess I shall sew my own silver lining onto that cloud if there isn’t one there already. I’ll just make sure to hide the needle and thread when I’m done.

Haven't I Done This Before?

This is not the first time I have found myself about to give birth. Nor is it the second. Still, I find myself wondering if I’ll know when I’m truly in labor. You know, before the baby starts working its way down the birth canal and onto the kitchen floor.

I realize that this sounds stupid and irrational, but it happens. I’ve heard stories. With my first born, my water broke and that always equals going to the hospital. No brainer. My second was a scheduled induction due to the horrendousness that was my first delivery. So needless to say I’ve never had to time contractions or anything like that.

This pregnancy has been pretty uncomfortable all the way around. I’ve had problems with sciatica since about the three-month mark and the last couple of months have been punctuated by sudden and intense pain in the area of my groin muscle. And those wonderful Braxton Hicks contractions have been around since the beginning and are getting more intense all of the time.

With just two weeks left until the date plotted for baby’s arrival I find myself wondering “will today be the day?” every time the baby even has a hiccup. It’s all very intense and exciting.

Yes, I’ve done this twice and I found that I still needed to prepare a list of things that had to be washed. I couldn’t remember what few items ought to be packed for the stay in the hospital. At least I remember how to burp a baby. And how to kiss and nuzzle that sweet little face. I suppose those are the things that really matter anyway.

We Have a Cricket in Our Cave

The other night my husband returned from spelunking in the basement and informed me that there was a hideous cricket of monstrous size hanging around down there. Given his proclivity toward telling tales that aren’t so much lies as they are pretty darn tall and his intense exaggerations, I smiled and nodded with raised and knowing eyebrows during most of his description.

“…and it has leopard spots, and it can jump really far, it’s huge!…”

“Its back legs have knees!”

“It attacked me!”

Sure. Right. A Cave Cricket with leopard spots that’s as big as a small dog; and right in our basement too. Uh-huh.

Nonetheless, I felt a little cautious as I did the laundry downstairs in its lair. Bugs of Unusual Size seem to be frequenting the underground bottom level of our home. The previous week I had slain a rather large black spider with a gallon bucket of bleach as my only weapon: turns out that a gallon of bleach is a heavy and effective tool for squashing the life out of unwelcome arachnids.

It certainly did not help me feel any better about the cricket of much largeness when a few days later my Dad started telling me about a fellow he works with whose shed is suffering from an infestation of Cave Crickets.

“They’re big and move really fast. They prefer to hide, but when they feel threatened one of their defense mechanisms is to jump at you. And supposedly they have teal blood.”

Nice. So not only did I have some freaky monster hiding out in my basement, I also felt badly about basically telling my husband that he needed to get a grip on his fantastical imagination. I’m afraid that my disbelief may come back to haunt me in the form of a Cave Cricket attacking me and sucking my face off.

*For more fun tales involving my super-silly husband click on "the husband" label below.
*To see a real live picture of the scary monster described in this story click here.