Wednesday, August 22, 2007

What are you at, getting terribly fat?

Jess rode to work today, which is a big deal when you have an exhausting 12 hour nursing shift and a 6 mile uphill ride home against inevitable headwinds. I'm always impressed when she does it. I had a meeting in NW this afternoon after which I met her at work so we could ride home together.

She's been 'waiting for the baby' for a few days (AKA PMS) which usually means eating more than usual. Her last snack was at 6pm and by the time we got home just after 8:30, she was starving. I sent her off to shower and headed straight for the kitchen to whip up garden burgers with all the fixings and corn on the cob.

When she came down, she proceeded to inhale everything in sight, along with a few things that weren't, like chips and salsa. Shortly after that, she got out the carton of Ben & Jerry's Phish Food (light) ice cream and a spoon. I tried to gently discourage her from having cake too, but she said, “I'm PMSing and I can do anything I want.” So I wisely cut her a piece. The nice thing about not being a man, is that I get to have my turn to be bossy every month too, but in the meantime, it's just a survival game.

Before you could say “oompa loompa,” she was starting to have regrets. As I sat at the table organizing pictures on my computer, I could see over my monitor, her looking down at her belly with an expression of remorse. Then she started talking to it. “Belly, I ate too much and now you're fat and bloated and...” I didn't hear everything she said. After a few sentences she suddenly looked up at me.

“You're not even listening!”

I remained calm. “You're not talking to me, you're lecturing your belly about how fat it is. It's an A/B conversation. I'm not required to listen or respond...and besides I did to hear you.” I was quite pleased with myself for my mental agility.

“Well, it was funny!” she said.

“Yes, it was,” I agreed. Survival game.

She stood up to demonstrate her over=stuffed state. Her belly did indeed stick out pretty far. “Wow, you really over did it,” I said.

“Well, I'm waiting for the baby, so I'm really hungry and then there's the water retention, plus I had a lot of salt...” Her stomach seemed to be actually expanding with each explanation and I forgot survival mode and blurted out the first thing that came to mind.

“Are you going to be able to lay on that belly for your back rub or will you be too wobbly?” I rocked my torso back and forth as I said it, as if lying on a beach ball.

My life could've ended right there, but fortunately, she literally fell down laughing and so couldn't give chase. Her laughing set me laughing and we giggled and snorted and wiped tears from our eyes for the next 10 minutes. At one point she tried to punish me by biting my leg, but I pushed her away, saying, “No, you've eaten too much already!” which just set us off again.

Though I have permission to post this on the blog, Jess declined to have her belly photographed for posterity.

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