A Better Woman Than Me . . .

Today I got a media mail from Jeni. Yea, that's no biggie there. The first one was of Sunny Bunny sitting on the couch pouting, I think. I have to admit that even in a pouty mood the little bitty one is still damned cute. Then, not more than an hour later I got another media mail. This one came with the title "This has been my day." Um . . . with a title like that you gotta know something is up.

I opened the mail and instead of an adorable photo of Sunny Bunny or Sugar Plum playing, making a mess of a cake, or pretending to wear a nose ring I heard screaming. It was both of the girls (two and almost one). I was on my way into the market, and I groaned and mumbled "birth control . . . birth control." The grimace on my face certainly showed. I replied back with "yuk." Now, normally I would have responded back that I was saving the mail for a birth control method the next time I wanted to get laid, but I know Jeni well enough to see that my normally funny line would have not been amusing.

Roaming through the produce section of Wild By Nature, Jen started sending messages. She told me about Sunny Bunny's lying on the bathroom floor and screaming for twenty minutes because she wouldn't put her on the potty. She told me about having to put her in her room, where Sunny Bunny proceeded to hit and scream like a possessed woman. Sugar Plum is teething. See the picture?

About this point I sent:

Dear God,

Please send Jeni coffee and baby Valium.

Her response:

PLEASE!!!!!

After telling Jeni that this ranked as a "selling motherhood moment" and that she would survive, I also quipped that husbands can be worse and childhood memories could be surfaced. About this time Sunny Bunny fell asleep, probably exhausted from her antics, and Sugar Plum began playing with the laundry Jeni was folding. In the midst of the calm life came back to normal.

Here is where I can't help but see a strange circle of sorts. When Jeni and I left New Mexico in 2000, I told her she was going to miss her boyfriend (now husband). They were moving to separate states. She adamantly told me no, and that I was wrong. I will never forget when I told her that she was going to wake up and realize the bed was empty, not be able to think, open the freezer and realize she had bought things he likes to eat that she hates. Sure enough, a few months later she called me one morning and without saying hello she said, "You were right, and you are a better woman than me. You can be alone." When they got married in January of 2001, she told her whole family about that phone call. Funny thing, I've never really been with someone for an extended period of time. Yet . . .

Days like today, when Jeni is at her breaking point, I get an immense kind of childish glee to tell her that she is now the better woman. I may live alone, and all that jazz, but the whole tricycle motor department trumps that I think.