I know that I use this blog to bust Jessie’s balls a lot.  I know that my friends and I mercilessly tease him about his uncanny ability to attract gay men while at the same time repelling nearly every straight woman.  What can I say?  I’m the girl who picks on the boy on whom she crushes.

I’ve spent my entire adult life with Jessie (I was 18 when we started dating) and we’ve both come such a long way, both as individuals, but also as a couple.  I honestly don’t know exactly how I’ve changed in these almost 9 years.  My perspective on myself is sometimes a little warped.  But I know how Jessie has changed.  What I started dating was a 19 year old guy who still played with action figures and slept with stuffed animals.  This guy was immature even for a 19 year old guy.  This guy was insensitive to other’s feelings.  This guy was self-centered and unkind quite often.  This guy did dumbass things quite regularly for no other reason than to be the center of attention.  This guy accidentally called me the names of his exes and vehemently denied it afterwards.  This guy had no idea how many times I sat looking at him trying to find the words to break up with him.

But, as time went on, we had quite a lot of “sit down” talks.  He hurt my feelings one too many times and got the point that you don’t act that way to someone you care for.  He pushed me aside one too many times and saw how I felt that I wasn’t a part of his life.  He embarrassed me in public one too many times and saw that maybe that’s not the kind of person he wanted to be.  Little by little, the bad stuff gave way to what I have now.  A (still quite annoying) guy who understands that he must think of how his actions affect those close to him.  A guy who understands that love means giving up a little bit of himself in order to make it work.  I’ve got a good one.  Maybe one of the few real good ones out there.

I can spend days on end just completely irritated with him.  But when I get in bed at night and snuggle with his back, I know that I’m stuck in this.  I can’t help it.  I love him.

But you came here to read a story that will make you laugh hysterically, didn’t you?  Ok.  Today’s Ridiculous Jessie Story took place in 2001.  We hadn’t been together for very long.  One night we were in his room messing around (still fully clothed).  He was on top of me and I was noticing that he was moving around an awful lot.  I tried adjusting myself so he’d stop moving so much, but he just kept moving.  Then I realized what was going on.  I realized what he was doing.

He was humping my leg.

Not as a joke.

For real.

I stopped and said to him, “What are you doing?!?!”

He got a little mad at me and said, “What?  It FEELS good!”

“Oh my God,” I thought.  “He was just caught humping my leg like a lowly junkyard dog and his only excuse is that it feels good?”

I told him that I was suddenly not feeling very well and excused myself to the bathroom where I sat in horror for a few minutes before a terrible fit of laughter overcame me.  My boyfriend was humping my leg and didn’t have sense enough to be embarassed when I called him on it.  What the hell kind of person was I dating?

I ended up spending the night with him anyway.  He was there, what the hell.

I was talking with Jessie about this incident this morning and having a good laugh at his expense when he said to me,

“I think I need to impose a statute of limitations on all of the stupid thing’s I’ve done.”

If only you could, honey.  If only you could.

I try not to go to him every time he cries at night.  Sometimes the crying only lasts for a minute or two before he falls back to sleep.  Sometimes it lasts longer and I find myself standing by his door fighting with myself on whether or not to go in.  I’m a big believer in self-soothing, and since it’s worked for over 2 years I have no reason to deviate.

Then there are those nights when he quietly gets out of bed, goes to his door, and says through the door, “Momma.”

I’m awake in a flash and going to him.  When I open the door, I am greeted by a tiny creature dressed in fleece footy pajamas with a blue blanket hanging from his mouth.  Tiny arms are reaching up for me.  I bend down and the tiny arms wrap around my neck.  I pick him up and hold him for a minute, just standing in the doorway with his tiny form in my arms.  His warm soft cheek presses against the side of my face.  Little hands have found my hair and are lightly playing with it.

I walk him back over to his bed and lay him down.

“Sit, Momma.”  He cries.  I get in bed with him and pull the covers around us.  I stretch my right arm out and he snuggles into the nook between my chest and arm.  Tiny hands reach up and start playing with the button on my shirt.  We both doze.  He wakes up, not realizing I’m still there and cries out.

“Shh.  Momma’s here.”  I say to him.

“Momma,”  he says as he grinds his face into my chest.  He’s asleep in a matter of minutes.  I slowly make my way out of his bed.  I pull the covers in around him.  I kiss the soft hair and warm skin at his temple.  I pick up a tiny hand and kiss it before tucking it under the blankets.  He sleeps the rest of the night.

The next morning, I am awakened by the sound of one of his noise-making books honking loudly by his door.  He is awake and is patiently keeping himself occupied until I let him out.  I get out of bed, open his door, and a tiny creature in fleece footy pajamas flies past me, stops, turns to me and says “Hi, Momma!” before darting into his toy room where he plays with his train set until breakfast.

He eats his yogurt and fruit quickly and quietly knowing that finishing this dish will get him a bowl of Cheerios and milk.  When I set the cereal before him, he looks up at me and says, “Ank oo!”  I sit across from him eating my breakfast and checking my email.  He lifts his small plastic spoon for me to see and proclaims that it is a green spoon.  I tell him that, yes, that is a green spoon and that he is a very good and smart boy.

Now it’s time for Sesame Street. The time of day that I dread and he loves.  With the hour-long show comes 10,000 questions about minute details on the screen.  Yes, Elmo is red.  Yes, that is Mr. Noodle.  Yes, I see Big Bird too.  No, that is not a cat, that’s a dog.  Yes it is.  YES IT IS.

He has not been napping lately.  Usually around this time, it is nap time but now I pull some special toys out for him.  We cut wooden fruit, play with cars, or fry bananas in his play kitchen.  When I go upstairs to shower, he stands in the bathroom with me standing on his stool and compulsively washing his hands and getting water everywhere.  I brush his teeth and he begs for a sip of water from his ducky cup.

Now it’s time for his lunch.  I put him in his chair and serve him a plate of bologna, cheese, and a crackers or chips.  He asks for a sippy.  I bring it to him.  He tells me to sit.  I sit and we chat while he eats.  We talk about the house that he can see out of the window.  We talk about the kitty misbehaving.  We talk about what kind of cheese he is eating.  We sing the ABC song.  He claps and wants to sing it again.  We sing it again.  He claps and wants to sing it again.  We sing it again.  He claps and wants to sing it again.  We sing it again.  I get up from my chair and remove his empty plate before he can ask for another encore.  I let him down from his chair.  He grabs my hand and says “DOO DOO!”  And drags me upstairs where we play with his train set (choo choo).  We come downstairs and chase each other around for a bit.

I ask him if he wants chicken for dinner.  He says no.  I ask him if he wants fish for dinner.  He says no.  I ask him if he wants rice for dinner.  He says no.  I ask him if he wants noodles for dinner.  He says no.  I ask him if he wants a weiner for dinner.  He says no.  I ask him if he wants French fries for dinner.  He says no.  I ask him if he wants M&M’s for dinner.  He says yes.  I opt for chicken.

His father comes home.  He goes crazy.  They say their hello’s and hug and kiss.

We sit down to dinner.  When he sees that he did not get M&M’s for dinner, he gets angry.  He repeatedly pushes his plate away from himself and I keep pushing it back telling to eat a little bit.  He puts a piece in his mouth and takes it out before chewing.  I tell him to eat or go to bed.  He doesn’t want to go to bed so he eats one piece.  Only one piece.  We give up after about 45 minutes of screaming and tantrums all around.  We go downstairs and watch a DVD.  Then we go upstairs and play with the train set some more.  Then it’s bath time.

He plays with all of his toys, splashes us, points out his winky 200 times, and turns on the cold water and squeals when it hits him.

We take him out, brush his teeth, lotion his body and put him in fleece footy pajamas.  We read him a book.  We snuggle him under his blankets and kiss his cheeks.  He says night-night to us.  We turn off the light and tell him that we love him.  We close the door.

I’ve only utilized an online wish list once.  That was when I was pregnant with Lukas and all the family 3,000 miles away wanted to buy things for the new baby.  I went on to Target.com and made a baby registry.  It worked out great.  After that, however, it just never occurred to me to use an online wishlist.

I’m one of those people who is a huge pain in the ass when it comes to buying gifts for me.  When people ask me around Christmas and my birthday what I want, my reply is always “I dunno,” or “You don’t need to get me anything.”  I get yelled at all the time about it.  When it comes to Jessie buying me gifts, he usually just takes me to a store and says “Spend X amount of money.  Merry Christmas.”  I’m usually ok with that since I don’t feel that I need wrapped gifts under the tree.  That morning is for Lukas and for Jessie to get his one surprise present.  That’s where my fun happens.

Last week I was on Amazon looking at books that I wanted to get.  Since I am terrible at remembering things like that, I started adding these books into an Amazon Wish List.  As the night wore on, I started searching for other things on Amazon and adding them to my wish list.  Things like imported salted and canned fish that I’ve always wanted to try.  Weird things.

I mentioned through Twitter that I was making a wishlist on Amazon when a friend told me to try Kaboodle instead.  I took a peek that night before going to bed, and wasn’t super impressed.  Then the next day I took a longer look and was like “Holy shit, I should have been alerted to this a LONG time ago!”

The great thing about Kaboodle is that you aren’t restricted to only what’s on the site.  You can go to other sites that offer online shopping and add those items to your Kaboodle wish list.  But that’s only half of why it’s so awesome.  This site has a huge community of list-makers of every category.  I can spend hours and hours looking through these lists and adding items to my own lists.  Seriously.  HOURS.

I was just doing this for fun and as a reminder to come back and buy these things later when I realized, “HEY!  Those people who are always bugging me around Christmas and birthday times would really benefit from this list!”  Yes.  I had a revelation.  Instead of sulking in front of a computer two weeks before Christmas, angrily trying to find some stupid little gift someone can get me, I can just tell them to go look at my list!  There’s a wish list and a list for stuff to get Lukas.  Oh this will simplify my life greatly!  And it’s fun to sit on there and daydream.  And look at kitchen gadget lists.

Go.  Look.  Make a list.  Friend me.  Maybe I’ll buy you stuff.