Bedroom Bummer

I thought I'd start the new year off with a bang here on the ol' blog.

And I do mean ... a bang. *bow chicka wah waaahhhh*

I have four children so it's pretty much obvious I'm not exactly inexperienced in the bedroom. However - if you have a squeaky-clean, G-rated image of me you'd like to uphold, how about clicking over to a few posts about some of the epic messes I've dealt with? You can start here ... or here ... or here if you're feeling particularly adventurous.*

*Just don't read it while you're, like, eating. Don't say I didn't warn you.

Anyway. Proceeding with the R-rated talk now, so here's your one last chance to bail. It's totally TMI, but y'all should be used to that by now if you've hung around this blog for very long.

... Still here? Okay then. As you know, Curtis and I are done having kids. Four boys is enough to fill my lifetime with, um, adventure (see the post links above for reference). Curtis has had a primary consultation for a vasectomy, but until he goes in for the actual snip-snip (which I will totally perform myself with a pair of dull scissors if he doesn't), we need a birth control method. So like two months ago when we were shopping, we swooped through the condom aisle and picked up a twelve-pack. "Look, honey - a year's supply!" I joked.

Only it turns out I wasn't really too far-off because here it is two months later and we've only used, like, four out of the entire box.

I know.

But see, the lack of - what is the term the Jersey Shore kids use? Smushing? - around this joint isn't exactly our fault; I blame the children that incidents of said "smushing" produced. Because it is darn near impossible to get down and dirty (or, okay, even "down" for that matter) with kids here, there, and everywhere. Even when we think we've got a clear window of time, it never turns out to be that easy.

Example #1: the baby was safely and happily occupied in his bouncy seat, the other three were glued to the TV, and Curtis deduced that it was the perfect opportunity for a couple of minutes of, um, grownup time. And it would have been - except that a closed, locked door, no matter how silently it was closed and locked, is like a beacon. We may as well have installed a flashing neon sign that screamed, "FREE ICE CREAM AND PUPPIES!" because as soon as we got down to business, here came Coby, our three-year-old. And when he turned the knob and the door didn't open, it was meltdown city. "Mommy? Daddy?" he wailed. "Why are you in theeeerrrre?" Thump, thump. "What are you dooooooooiiiiiiiiiing?" Thump, thump. "Why is the dooooooor looooooocked?" Thump thump thump. Which of course attracted the attention of the older two, who also demanded answers as to why the door was locked. "Are you planning a surprise for us?" they wanted to know.

Sometimes the kids have accomplices in their mission to thwart any possible intimacy: namely our two dogs and three cats. Because y'all? Even if there are no kids present, having five pairs of animal eyes on you is just as unnerving.

The other night the kids had just gone to bed, and I had made myself a bowl of cereal (you know how I like my bedtime cereal) when Curtis came up from behind and was all, "Hey ... what's say we head into the bedroom for a little bit?" He waggled his eyebrows at me and I swear I heard porno music playing in the distance.

I looked longingly at my freshly-poured cereal, but if I know one thing, it's that when we get an opportunity we'd better seize it quickly (see previous example). So off to the bedroom we went. No sooner had we tossed aside a few items of clothing than we heard loud, prolonged, annoying rustling.

It was one of the cats, trying to crawl into a plastic bag.

Cat was shooed out. We resumed activity.

But within a minute or so, we heard all this disgusting - distracting - licking and gnawing. It was our lab, Josie, who had picked the most inopportune moment to loudly groom her toenails.

"Josie!" I snapped, and all was silent. But then ....

snort. snuffle. pant. snort. snuffle. pant.

Ever heard an obese pug trying to jump onto a bed? Because that's what it sounds like. And that's exactly what was happening. Curtis got up with an exasperated snort of his own and ousted the dogs from the room once and for all.

"Now ..." he said. "Where were we?"

And just as I was about to remind him ...

Waaaahhhhh!

The baby. Had been woken. By the dogs.

Of course, once a baby wakes up, it's never a quick fix to get him back to sleep. Especially when you need it to happen like rightnow. It's like some perverse unwritten rule of parenthood: being in a hurry makes your child go to sleep much more slowly. But I was patient. And after ten or fifteen minutes, Corbin was slumbering peacefully once again.

Attempt number ... whatever (I was losing count). Practically back at square one, Curtis and I were getting more than a little weary of interruptions. But now that the animals were out of the room and the kids were all asleep, we thought we'd be good to go.

Until I felt a very unwelcome rumbling. A rumbling that threatened to desiccate any remaining shreds of passion and intimacy.

That's right, y'all: a fart was brewing.

I thought I could hold it back, and spent a very uncomfortable couple of minutes trying. After fifteen years together I'm (probably too) comfortable farting in front of my husband - but farting in those hot-and-heavy moments is something that, no matter how long you've been together, is just wrong.

Unfortunately, this particular fart wasn't one of those that goes away after a little restraint; it was persistent. And the more I thought about it and tried to control it, the more persistent it became. And it wasn't going anywhere but out.

So for lack of anything better to do, I started laughing.

"What?" asked Curtis. And so ... I told him what. Hey, he asked!

He stood and threw his hands up in exasperation. "Thanks," he snapped. "Way to ruin the moment."

I couldn't stop laughing, which made the situation worse. "Would you rather I had just done it?"

"Well you didn't have to announce it!" he groused. "Maybe I wouldn't have noticed."

"Oh, you would have noticed," I assured him, still laughing. "Trust me."

By then the mood was cooler than the other side of the pillow, so we abandoned our efforts. Between the hurried start and the animals and the kids and the threat of flatulence, there were just too many obstacles to our enjoyment. But once Curtis quit being irritated with my over-sharing, we had a good chuckle - which, to me, can be just as enjoyable as "smushing."

Pity about that soggy cereal, though. Especially since our weak-stomached cat got into it while we were ... busy.

But that's another story.