She Deserved My Undeterred Love (Extreme Sexual Content)

The day was sweltering hot in the two room studio apartment. The air conditioning, rusting in it's metal encasement, rattled and whined, trying to keep up with the radiant heat of the asphalt coming in the back window. The room smelled slightly, as it always did, of a small gas leak from the old, olive green, stove on the east wall. Dishes from supper were haphazardly left on the counter with a path of clothing, torn off, to the mattress on the floor of the living room.

There I was, wrapped up in the arms of the woman I loved. We had been there for hours, kissing. Her face smelled of saliva and sweat as I traced it with my fingers for the hundredth time. She shivered as I traced the finger down her neck, over her shoulder, flattening my other hand against her back and pulling her toward me, revealing her entire back. I ran my fingers around the moles there, then down to the back of her knees.

She smelled of sex. 

I was in love with this woman. No, "love" is a paltry word...meaningless, really. What I felt for this woman, in this moment, was a passion beyond any words I could muster. My awestruck gazing at her body in front of me looked like lustful desire, but encompassed all the reasons why I carefully and lovingly undressed her in my living room that night. 

She held on to me and squeezed tighter. My heart picked up speed. I rolled her onto her back, my lips meeting hers, our eyes closed, and entered her slowly. She was tight and warm. A gasp escaped from her throat and I shivered with desire. No thoughts were going through my head. I was in the moment as I began slowly thrusting, building to a crescendo and exploding inside of her while she cried out in climactic orgasm. 

And at that very moment, my mind was shattered with guilt. I had just made love to this beautiful woman. My face, no, my whole body smelled like her. Her scent was the closest description I imagined heaven smelled like. A mixture of Aspen brand perfume, the smell of her kisses, the crisp smell of her skin, her juices, the woman that she was - and we weren't married.

Weeks later, we discovered she was pregnant. Two days before we were to be married, actually. We told no one. Instead, we suffered in our guilt - alone...together. The day we found out, she was sitting on the toilet in the studio apartment, having just peed on a stick. Standing up, she turned to me.

"I'm pregnant."

That wave of guilt washed over me again. "We aren't married," I thought. This meant everything. We were now going to have a baby sooner than nine months after we were married, making it obvious that we had been having sex before saying our vows. This was bad. My mind raced, trying to think of excuses, ways to pull the wool over the eyes of our pastors, our friends, and all the people that we knew would judge us for our carnal sins.

Once married, the guilt continued. Our happiness was clouded with the "problem" of being pregnant. The baby growing inside of her had no name, no personality, no personhood...it was merely a manifestation of a grotesque sin - the sin of making love to a woman that I cared for deeply. Enjoying her body, her enjoying mine, showing each other, sexually, what we thought of each other. A natural and awesome act of anamalistic carnality.

The suffering became so great, we began to call pastors and friends. We met an associate pastor in a restaurant and admitted our guilt. He cried. We went in front of the church we attended. Some judged, some cried, some didn't care. The sin continued to grow in her body as her belly began to expand.

I was nominated to an officership in the church. In the entire history of the church, every vote had been unanimous - until this one. I won by two votes. I was a sinful man. I had created a group of vile and evil cells inside my wife, barring me, in the minds of many, from any service to their god.

The sin continued to grow. We heard its heartbeat, watched its length expand, viewed the ultrasound of it, watched it jump around inside her uterus. I made love to my wife, trying desperately to alleviate my soul from the guilt of the sin I had created inside of her. Sex was still wonderful, but it was a constant reminder of the filth we had made.

The filth was born. There she was, a beautiful baby girl. My girl. My daughter. Our daughter. We had made her in the throes of our love. For nine months, we had looked at her as a black blot on our souls, but now, right here before us, was a living breathing, wailing...girl. We fell in love with her, deeply.

Our guilt remained for ten more years until finally, we tossed off the last shred of it.

Renaya, you deserved my undeterred love. Forgive me, my beautiful girl.

The Walking Dead: Season One, Episode One - With the Kids

Renaya (11), Laura (10), and Frederic (8) curled up on the couch beside me, and we began.

It didn't take long for Frederic to be watching, peeking out between his fingers, Renaya to be begging for spoilers so she could feel better about the current scenes, and Laura, weeping into her lap, curled into the fetal position at the end of the couch.

Then came the scene where Rick himself curled up in the fetal position in his empty house and wept over the assumed loss of his wife and son. I looked over at Frederic and his face was falling. He began to cry. Tears flowed down his face as he gurgled out a request to crawl up onto Mommy's lap. 

Fred has one hell of a heart.

When Rick finally made it into the tank and the kids heard Glen's voice come over the radio, they all gave each other relieved looks and started to giggle. Renaya then wailed at the television, seeing the horse mutilated on the street.

If I ever come upon a group of zombies eating a horse, I'm shooting them all dead! They're mean!

Smugly, I retorted:

They's already dead. 

Yep. She loves horses. But she wouldn't buy the argument that it was the horse or Rick. I mean, this isn't Horse Land, 'Naya.

They are now all three curled up in Renaya's bed, having mutual nightmares together. I gave them a dull axe for safety. 

Read about Episode Two and Three...

Felicity Failed Her Spelling Test Miserably

Last night, I was at Costco with the family, eating their $9.95 pizza, cinnamon and sugar churros, frozen yogurt, and Mountain Dew, when Felicity (6) announced that she didn't do so well on her spelling test.

Felicity: "Daddy, I got 6 on my spelling test."

Me (33): "Oh?  Out of how many?"

"I got 6."

"Okay.  So which three words did you get wrong?"

"I. Don't. Know."

"What?!  'I' is easy!  And so are the other two words!"

[Blank stare...]

"Renaya (11), can you tell Felic how to spell 'I'?"

Renaya laughed and spelled it quickly.

[Realization flashes across Felicity's face and she rolls her eyes, lets out an audible grunt, coupled with a jokingly frustrated sigh]

"DaddeeeeEE!"

Hi, my name is IC, and I throw tantrums

Libby Anne is working through a critique of the Pearl's "To Train Up a Child".  She's off to an excellent start with her second installment, where she writes the following words:

Being a parent involves a lot of inconvenience. You have to be willing to have your reading interrupted and your coffee spilled. If you treat your children right and set good patterns—things like communication, listening, cooperation, and constructive compromise—your life with your children will be a bit harried at times, but it will also be rich and fruitful and not out of control. 

This point was a big deal to me, a father of six rambunctious coffee spillers.   I throw a lot of tantrums.

If you have been following this blog for the past month, you may be aware that we recently got a dog.  I hate dogs.  I hate all pets.  I hate fish, gerbils, snakes, alligators, unicorns, and ant farms.  Any pet that gets in the way of my clean house and immaculate children ticks me off, disgusts me, and makes me want to ship myself off to the Humane Society to compensate.

Nonetheless, we got a dog.  And she is perfect.  She's a pit bull/fox terrier/black lab mix, gentle as a flea, and is very responsive to verbal training.  She never does something naughty more than a few times before she learns to do that which is required of her.  I'm falling in love with a pet for the first time in my life. This is a new feeling for me.

And then there's Analisse.  She's our three year old.  Every step forward that Luna (the dog) takes, Analisse, aka "The Freak" takes one backwards.  She is fascinated with Luna's water bowl.  She fills it to the brim, allows it to overflow, pours it all over the floor, dumps the dog food into it and then sits there, watching it expand (that's actually REALLY COOL to watch, so I don't blame her!), fills the bowl with tennis balls, and on and on.  More than once, I have walked into the office with socks on and stepped in a puddle of water.

I hate wet socks.

If you were a fly on the wall, this is what you would hear:

"RENAYA!  LAURA!  FREDERIC!  EVERYONE!!!!!  What in the h*ll is wrong with you kids!?  Aren't you watching your sister!!  Hey Freak!!!  How many times have I told you NOT TO TOUCH THE DOGS WATER BOWL!!!!!!!  Kids!  Clean this sh*t up!  Get towels, rags....er...whatever!  Just get it done now!!!!"

Yeah.  So, is it true that I expect all the kids to monitor Analisse in everything that she does?  Do I expect Analisse to dump her innate fascination with all things water bowl?  After all, this is new to her and she's a wonderful little kid, experiencing new things in life.  Is it right for me to get mad at the kids and make them run around, frantically trying to make me happy?

The answer to all the questions above is pretty obvious.  I'm not being fair to my children and I know it.  The dog even knows it, as she cowers in her kennel until I am done waving my arms and jumping up and down. For all she knows, it's her fault.

Anyway....that's why that quote hit home for me.  Much to improve.  Many steps to take forward.  I cannot afford, at this point in my parenting career, to be complacent in my attitude and parenting, nor can I afford to take any steps backwards.

This ends today.

I Am Not the World's Greatest Dad

I arrived home to the smell of steamy poop.  The dining room smelled like it.  The living reeked.  Kristine had just left for work and I needed to make supper.  I decided to breathe through my mouth and close my nose with my epiglottis.  You become a master at that exercise as a dad of six kids.  I'm as good at that as a woman doing kegels (in preparation for childbirth, of course).

We began training Analisse (2) to go to the bathroom on the potty a week or so ago.  She forced our hand by ripping off her diaper and marching to the toilet, opening it, peeing, wiping herself, and then notified us of her victory by slamming the cover down so hard, it shook the house.  I heard the noise and rushed into the bathroom, only to be greeted by a giggly little girl, so proud of her accomplishment, she was spewing out the words in perfect sentences:

"I went peeeee!!!!"

She got candy.

But that was pee.  She loved doing it.  She hated diapers - unless she had to poop.  Kristine sat with her a few days ago for a few hours, finally coaxing her to go one little turd.  She kept hopping off and coming back, hopping off, and coming back.  Finally, she succumbed and let out a little sheep ball of blackness.  That was the last time.

I found the pork chops in the freezer and walked up the basement stairs.  I could smell the fecal matter as I neared the top stair and went into denial mode, covering my nose again from the inside.  I defrosted the meat and sliced potatoes, hoping beyond hope, grasping at the elusive possibility that Kristine had left a diaper on her from nap time.  I convinced myself of this, even though Kristine had informed me on the second day of Analisse's potty training that she slept through nap time with underwear on.

I finished defrosting the chops, poured olive oil into the bottom of two glassware cake pans, covered them with salt and freshly ground pepper, shoved the pans in the oven at 350 degrees, and began to fry the potatoes.

Analisse ran past me giggling.

I laughed as she ran past me, momentarily forgetting that I was purposefully plugging my nose.  I breathed in deeply - and choked on the rancid air.  This was most definitely not a diaper issue.  She had gone in her underwear.  I knew it.  But, I had one last glimmer of hope and, grasping at it, I yelled out to the living room:

"Renaya!  Laura!  Frederic!  Change The Freak's diaper....NOW!!!"

Every good parent knows that you yell the names of all capable hands.  Only one will really end up doing the task, but she'll pummel the other two and force them to help her.  This way, if things go bad, they might, together, be able to get something done successfully, decreasing the chances that you'll need to pitch in and help where you would rather not.

I just wanted to cook supper!

The kids sprang to action, sitting up slightly in their resting positions in the living room.

"Now!! Dammit!!!" 

Now they knew I meant business and slowly dragged themselves out to the kitchen, chased The Freak down and I listened carefully as they laid her down in the living room, preparing to change the diaper.

I busied myself with the frying, counting down the six seconds that it would take to discover underwear vs. a diaper.  Sure enough:

"Ewww, Daddy!  YUCK!  Gross, Daddy!  This is disgusting.  Blecht!  Oh, nasty!!!!!"

My heart hit the floor.  

I rushed into the living room, scooped Ani up in my arms, walked quickly to the bathroom with a bucket of wipes and laid her down on the bathroom rug.  Her shirt and pants were fine as I peeled them off but I could see her underwear was a thick and slimy mass of soft squishy wonder.  I took them off slowly, yelled for a garbage bag (threatening no supper if I didn't get it in seconds), got it delivered to me in record time, cleaned up her butt, kicked her out of the bathroom, happy and giggling, and then focused my attention on the underwear.

The poop was halfway between a hard ball and diarrhea.  It covered the entire area of the back of her underwear.  I rolled up a wad of toilet paper and tried valiantly to scrape the contents into the toilet.

The poop wouldn't budge.

I began to turn on the hot sink water, thinking I would wash it off, hoping the majority would melt away or evaporate into hot steam, hoping I wouldn't plug up the p-trap.  The p-trap!  

Turning around, I tossed the underwear in the garbage bag, tied it closed, washed my hands, and texted Kristine that we needed to buy more underwear.  I returned to the kitchen and finished supper - arguably more flavorable at this point.