Last night I did something really, really lame. I dropped a full pint of ice cream on my baby’s head, at close range. I was trying to open it while I was nursing her lying down and reading Terry Pratchett. She recovered pretty quickly (no goose egg) and promptly fell asleep, but I always wonder if I am knocking potential IQ points out of her when she klonks her head somehow.

On a related note, I have discovered that when you have small children, chocolate becomes a substitute for sex. It’s something you can do in front of them, while paying attention to them, and almost without guilt (the guilt part happens when you try to brain your child with the chocolate). Of course, you have to hide it from the older, smarter ones to prevent the whining that keeps you from enjoying your chocolate, because if I share I know there’ll be grabbing and hoarding, and the inevitable sugar crash, and that’s just me.

But I digress. Witness last night:

Companion (to frantically nursing baby at nine pm): Go to sleep, The Baby.

Me: She won’t be asleep until ten.

C.: Uuuugggh.

Me: It’s horrible, isn’t it? You find someone you love, and who you actually want to have sex with, and you have a child with them….

C.: …And you can’t have sex anymore. It’s God’s little joke.

Me: Ha ha ha.

C.: Ha ha ha. (Puts pants back on and finds keys.)

Me: I’ll have ice cream this time.

In April, when Strudel was about three weeks old, I was sleep-deprived, making me jones around for sugar like crazy. My companion had stepped out to get some groceries and I found a half-eaten bag of chocolate chips in the cupboard. GOOD chocolate chips–I think they were Guitard or Ghiridelli. We don’t keep that Hershey’s crap around here, which means that many bags of chocolate chips never fulfill their destiny and become actual cookies. I finished off the chips before he came home. It would have been the perfect crime, except that I gave myself away shortly after he came back.

Me: The baby smells so good! Mmm! Smell her.

C: She does…hey, what’s that stuff on her neck? Ugh.

Me: Oh god, it’s a melted chocolate chip that fell down her collar.

C: Busted!

From earlier this summer, there is also a big smudge of chocolate ice cream on Strudel’s bonnet from when I was out collecting job applications with my sister. Strudel was still small enough to carry in the sling and I had her big sun-blocking bonnet on her. She was whipping her head around as I was trying to eat my Hagen-Daz, and I still haven’t remembered to wash it, so it bears the telltale streak of chocolate peanut butter flavor. Every time I get the bonnet out to go for a walk I say, “Gee, I should really wash this thing.” And then it falls out of my head the minute I walk out the door, because such is the beauty of a mom’s memory. Je regrette rien!

So at any given moment, I am smearing or beating my children with chocolate. At least they smell good.

In Other News

Today my companion has yet another interview with Giant County Library System, but on the cataloguing side of things. I was going to cut his hair last night, since he is a little shaggy, but he just said, “whatever.” First not shaving against the grain, and now refusing haircuts. After a year and 15-plus interviews I would be disheartened too, but I am afraid that next time he gets called in for an interview he’s going to take a poop on the conference table or something.

NOT that I am trying to give anyone any ideas for today. Sweetie. Health benefits, sweetie.