Last week, Dave and I had a friend visit.  This friend proved their utmost friend worthiness by bringing over cake.  Not just any cake – a Cheesecake Shop cake.  And not just a Cheesecake Shop cake – a large Cheesecake Shop cake.  Not knowing what our favourite cake might be, she thoughtfully opted for the half/half option of chocolate mud cake, and classic cheesecake (what else?).  Like I said – very, very cool friend!  We all chowed down over coffee and chat, and when it came time to go home, our incredibly awesome friend refused to take ANY of the cake home with her, despite my insistence.  I looked forward to enjoying delicious cake with my daily cuppa for the next few days.  I was feeling so good-willed, I told our housemates that they were also welcome to some cake, and they would find it in our fridge – or so I thought.

The next day saw me held up in appointments, busy-ness and away from home until after dinner.  It was during what began as an innocent chat with Dave later that he mentioned that he’d taken the cheesecake to work with him.  Now Dave has a somewhat irritating habit of not just taking the portion he will eat that day to work for lunch, he will take the entire lot – head of lettuce, loaf of bread, 500g tin of tuna – you get the picture.  This didn’t ring any alarm bells (it should have) as mud cake is my favourite, and I assumed he’d just taken the easy to remove cheesecake half in it’s foil tray.  However, my blood ran ice cold when a few seconds later Dave continued with “…while {work mate’s name} was eating his mud cake…”  I hastily interrupted with “You took the mud cake too?!!”  Dave, nonchalantly says “Yeah.  I thought you didn’t want it.”

WHAT?!  I can’t even begin to comprehend what he was thinking!  His reasoning:  That I tried to make our friend take some cake home with her means I didn’t want it.  I was being POLITE!  My actual desires were to snatch the entire cake and run off cackling maniacally to some hidey-hole and not come out for three days.  I was furious.  Beyond furious.  I was almost speechless with rage (but not quite).  Dave sat confused while I gesticulated wildy, ranting and raving about how I was so angry with him I felt sick.  How dare he take the ENTIRE CAKE to work to share with his work mates…And his boss…And his boss’ kids…And his boss’ wife…And his boss’ wife’s mother… and not me!? He didn’t even ask if I wanted any!  Not only that, now I’m a liar to our housemates who probably wondered if I was some sort of sick prankster luring them into our dismally empty refrigerator with the promise of non-existent cake!  How could he???  I continued on and on about not even knowing the man I married, the inconsideration of his actions, the sheer lack of thought, etc, etc, etc.  I then demanded he go and buy me a new cake.  Right then.  At 9:30 at night.  He said no.  Eventually, through calming down – outwardly – and sharing my side rationally, I got an apology.  But still no cake!

Now I know this blog is full of amusing, hormone induced over-reactions, but do any other women out there see where I’m coming from?  I am a little bit normal aren’t I?

One of our housemates has a budgie.  A very cute, very fat, very blue and rather long in the tooth -er, beak- budgie name Marvin.  Marvin is also slightly psychotic and will stay up very late into the night chattering and chirping away to himself long after he’s been “tucked in” and his cage covered.  He further completes his delusions of being an owl – rather than a budgie – by frequently napping during the day.  One of his other adorable quirks is his outright terror of ever getting out of his cage.  If a door is held open, or when we occasionally try to encourage his liberty by removing the roof segment of his cage he will react by shaking violently and scuttling to the furthest corner, away from the “evil” freedom.

One particular morning, it was a gorgeous, warm, sunny day outside despite it being the middle of Winter.  I was watching as Marvin sat in his favourite hanging ring, nibbling away at it and chattering inanely.  Noticing my mindless rapture in watching the little fellow, Dave also stood alongside watching, his silly smile mirroring my own at the antics of the endearing little creature.  Our alexandrine parrot was enjoying the fine weather in her outside cage, and by-and-by Dave wondered aloud if Marvin might also like to be outside.

“Mind you,” he said, “Last time I put him outside, the wind blew his cage over.”

My face quickly changed to one of worried concern and I gasped, “Oh no! Did he get away!?”

Baby Brains have struck again!

I’m lying in bed.  I’ve been lying in bed for two days.  For the past 48 hours I’ve brought up everything I’ve attempted to eat, and a lot of liquids too.  Usually a neat person, I’m aware of the constant tension I feel resulting from the discarded plates and glasses, half read magazines, food wrappers, and piles of dirty laundry growing with alarming speed around my sick bed.

My mind is racing full steam ahead, desperately seeking interest, or stimulation.  An inability to focus properly means attempting to read is futile and I am dangerously stir crazy.  Our housemates, through no fault of their own are adding to my increasing frustrations by making continuous noise as they go about their daily lives.  I say nothing.  I do nothing.  Everybody has a right to live their life normally, and it would be unreasonable to ask them to stop doing anything.

I’ve reached breaking point.  The tense strings of my nerves pull taut and begin to slowly fray as a housemate comes upstairs and plays the same music they’ve played twice already that day.  I lie silently willing the world to stop as hot tears trickle down my cheeks.  Suddenly, it’s all too much.  With shocking speed, I lash out with my arm as I feel a rush in my brain.  My eyes fall upon the helpless tissue box we keep on the bed head and before it can even utter a whimper, I’m upon it.  With horrifying severity I crush, pummel, and murder the tissue box.  Just as suddenly it’s all over.  I’m sickened by my actions and burst into uncontrollable sobs.

My body shakes and contorts as I bawl thick, burning tears into my pillow.  Eventually exhaustion dictates that the sobs turn into gulps, the tears slow, and shaking eases.  Slowly I open my eyes.  There lies the hapless and innocent tissue box.  Its body is mutilated and mangled.  3-ply eucalyptus scented entrails leak out its torn corners, and it’s once box-like structure now resembles a crushed aluminium can.  The ridiculousness of the situation hits me, and the poor tissue box looks so comical I begin to giggle.  I gently lift the tissue box from it’s bedlinen grave and lovingly replace it on the bed head.  Maybe Dave won’t notice.

We have a pet Alexandrine parrot named Princess.  I’m a bit embarassed about her name actually.  I usually have pets with well thought-out,  amusing, or at least interesting names (some examples:  Merlin, Damsel, Excalibur (can you tell I went through a Camelot phase?), Spectrum (the tortoishell cat), Trojan (the lone surviving puppy from a litter), Red (the blue siamese fighter fish), Goldie (the black goggly eyed fish), Glub Glub (another fish), and the list goes on).  But, Princess.  What was I thinking?  Determined to name her something original (I mean, these birds live for 40+ years, that’s a long time to be calling it something stupid), I picked up this sweet, angelic looking baby Alexandrine parrot from the breeder.  She was gentle and shy, snuggling right into my neck all the way home.  She just seemed like a little princess and the name stuck.

Common sense should have warned me to wait until she settled in and showed her real personality.  If I had done this, she may have been more accurately named “Demon”.  Beautiful as she is, any removal from a perch or cage against her wishes results in our regal looking parrot suddenly resembling a venom spitting cobra.  Her pupils dilate into teensy weensy pin pricks in her silver coloured eyes, making her look like a possessed zombie.  Her enormous red beak is open wide while she hisses and repeatedly strikes at your nearest extremity.  It’s actually all a bluff, but no-one but Dave and I will trust in that – these birds have BIG beaks.  They can break fingers and cut the skin with ease.

So current visitors usually go through this exchange with us:

Visitor/s:  Oh my!  What a beautiful bird!  What’s his name?

Us:  Princess.

Visitor/s:  How lovely.  Does he talk?

Us:   No.  Both her parents do, and the breed is supposed to, but she doesn’t.  (Actually, very, very recently, she’s begun to say “Hello”.  Very clearly and articulately, but only when you pretend you’re not listening.  If you do respond and say hello back, she clams up and looks a you like you’ve lost your marbles.  It’s easier to just tell people she doesn’t than endure 10-15minutes of a one-sided guest/parrot conversation consisting only of the word “Hello” in baby talk, ending only when the guest has finally convinced themselves that they are NOT “the bird whisperer” and will not get the parrot to talk to complete strangers when it won’t even interact with it’s regular company.)

Visitor/s:  Oh, that’s funny.  Will he bite me if I pat him?

Us:  Probably.

So I’m thinking this could all be avoided if only I had named her Demon.  You see, conversations would then go like this:

Visitor/s:  Oh my!  What a beautiful bird!  What’s his name?

Us:  Demon.

Visitor/s:  Hey, I bumped into Sharon the other day…etc…etc…etc…

Anyway, the whole point of this post, is actually to point out how much I love my  husband.  Confused?  Well, you see, only my husband could still think I’m nice after what I said about Princess this morning.  He knows I’ve spent more (way more) on gourmet bird seed, expensive toys, play equipment, and vet bills than her $400 purchase price 9 months ago.  He knows I’ll ring the bird vet in a panic if I think she’s wheezing, or losing weight, or just not normal.  And he knows I really don’t mean the awful things I say – bless him.  So what happened?

Dave put Princess in her outside cage early this morning (8am on a Sunday morning).  Princess quite loudly and persistently proclaimed to the world that she was a happy little birdie, in the ghastly, offensive and piercing shriek that only Alexandrines can make (rivalled, and definitely beaten only by cockatoos).  I grumpily pointed out to my husband that unless he wanted angry neighbours on our doorstep, this might not have been such a good idea.  Shortly after, I went downstairs for breakfast (hooray!  I didn’t vomit it up again!).  When I came back upstairs, we both observed how quiet Princess was.  Dave asks, “Did you strangle Princess?  Or did someone else?”  I reply, “No.  Hopefully she choked on something and died.”

My darling husband laughed.  What a gem!

P.S.  Princess, Mummy does love you very much.  (Most of the time.)

Let’s set the scene:

Imagine a beautiful, big house in the leafy suburbs of Southern Brisbane, Australia.  Two married couples and a high school student reside within, living in blissful harmony.  Shiny, happy, good white Christian folk with straight teeth and clean shoes.  Rent in this beautiful area is pretty high, but it’s ok.  That’s why they share – everybody saves money, everybody wins!

So, here we are in this fantasy like wonderland, when I start to feel sick.  Really sick.  And tired.  And you can guess the rest.

One minute I’m a self-employed wedding florist, celebrating her husband’s first day at his new full-time IT job only two suburbs away, the next, I’m staring at the incriminating stripe on a positive pregnancy test strip.

I’m bewildered.  I’m not unhappy – just shocked.  Rather unintelligent really considering my husband and I hadn’t used contraception in over 16 months, but still stupidly shocked.

Ok, so we had been trying to fall pregnant, but we kinda figured one of us might be “broken”.  We weren’t really that concerned, we still had another two years before we would have become worried.  Also, we’d recently figured it wasn’t going to happen yet, and I refocused my energies on more work.  We’d also just signed another 12 month lease on the house, what would our housemates think?  Also, while my husband was very keen to become a Dad, I didn’t really know if I wanted to be a Mum – I just trusted I’d be happy if it happened.

But enough of that – there’s the really important concern:  What if it’s ugly?  I mean, really ugly?  Everyone says “Oh don’t worry, every mother thinks her baby is beautiful”.  That’s exactly what scares me!  What if I had the most hideous child known to man, and was proudly crowing over it’s adorableness while polite strangers choked out half-hearted responses?  What sort of life would my child have?

I’ve experienced High School – baby if you’re not good looking, you got no chance!  Even employers (sub-consciously or otherwise) judge employees upon appearance.  And whilst I personally think Dave is the most attractive man I’ve ever laid eyes on, I’m not really sure what he sees in me.  I mean, sure, I had something for a few years.  Most of my childhood and teenage years were spent in front of a mirror, finding every flaw I could from my “nose that spread halfway across my face” (my personal belief) to my jaw that made me “look like a man” (as observed by two different friends).  After leaving school, and discovering by the rows of drooling boys falling at my feet, that I was quite gorgeous, I proceeded to settle down, and become fat and frumpy, so heaven help the child who takes after me.

As for Dave, despite being quite lean, he has the long, sinewy physique that really pushes my buttons.  His full, luscious lips beg to be kissed, and his rich, chocolatey eyes are fringed with the darkest, lushest eyelashes I’ve ever seen.  He’s the absolute epitomy of the phrase “tall, dark, and handsome” but there’s one teensy, tiny problem – Dave is covered in hair.  Lots of it.  Thick, dark, long, wiry hair.  Shaving needs to be done daily, and a full beard can be achieved in a week.  We’re both awaiting the moment when the baby is born, and the doctor cries “Congratulations!  You have a beautiful, baby wombat!”