Week 5 Day 5: Sugar monkey to the Maxx

It's 10:30 at night and one of my neighbors is pumping the booming bass music from the car speakers. My friend Rosemary's mother says that listening to booming bass like that will make you sterile. Not that she believes that's what does happen, but what she believes should happen. My wife and son are asleep, so the noise is particularly unwelcome by me right now. If Stacy and Gavin were awake I'd just go out and turn up the volume in my own booty bass mobile. But I have a thing called common decency. And a futile wish that common decency will prevail.

Futile, also: teeth. As in mine. Laura (my twin sister) just found out she has to have a root canal tomorrow. I already know that I have several (maybe even six?) cavities unfilled and festering in my own mouth and I have no dental insurance. Not while I'm laid off. So I'm worried about my teeth. I almost just wrote that I hope Gavin got Stacy's very good teeth instead of my very bad teeth. Obviously he has no chance of inheriting my teeth. Instead he has my eyes and skin tone. And two teeth thus far. Oh, and for all of my worry about my teeth, I am eating Frosted Flakes right out of the box right now. Because I make sense.

Gavin has Stacy's cold. Or at least he did yesterday, last night, and most of today. His mood today was predominantly cranky and needy. Not wanting to sleep, not even happy when I fed him. It was very frustrating for both of us. I was more frustrated with him today than I think I've ever been. The question of the day was, "What? What do you want? What the fuck do you want?" I feed bad that I got so exasperated with him, but I still love him and he still loves me. After his last nap of the day and after I got a bottle of booby milk in him he was like a new man. By the time Stacy came home it was like, "Crabby? What crabby? Cold? What cold? I love life and life is good." Thank God. He cranked his adorability up to 11. I guess he'd been saving it up all day.

Still, by the time Stacy came home I had to get the hell out of the house. I took back library books and checked out a DVD they had on hold for me called Toddler University, or something like that. It's a documentary about parents who try to get their kids into really prestigious pre-schools and stuff. This is obviously something Stacy and I are going to do, so we hope this video is instructional. Okay, that's not true. But I think it will be interesting. And if it sucks, hey, it was free, from the library. Or free as long as I remember to return it on time.

I went to TJ Maxxx, a store I used to hate shopping at (there was a time in my life where I had a policy about not shopping at places where part of the shopping experience was sifting through piles of merchandise on the floor). But having a baby changes you and not always for the better. Still, I love deals and I love to shop for kids stuff. Plus, Stacy and I have two showers coming up in March and my friend Danielle registered for a lot of organic stuff for her daughter a-comin' and that shit is expensive. You have to pay premium if you want baby clothes that aren't made of polyester soaked in gasoline these days. Anyway, they have a really nice organic line of stuff that turns up there now and then if you're willing to look. And I am. I also go to TJ Maxx when I'm feeling depressed and as I said, today just wasn't a very good day.

I also went to Border's hoping to be able to get a new book of poetry with my exciting Buy One Get One %50 off books coupon. But their selection sucked. So I ended up getting That's Not My Bear for Gavin for Valentine's Day. Because he's our bear. I always thought he'd be our monkey, but no, he's our bear. And that's okay.

So. Yeah. Booming bass has ceased. My ability to type is quickly heading the same way. I'm a tired monkey. Or bear. But I guess I can be a monkey and Stacy and Gavin can be bears because of the whole I'm-not-blood-related thing.