Alone

It's 12:03PM. It's dark in my bedroom. It's quiet except for the occasional fart let out by the dog which smells like a mixture of rotten eggs and mud. I'm wide awake and it's not because of the dogs dirty butthole. He licks his junk enough, you would think he would find a way to clean out the other end.

On my right is Little Hoss. Her face is crammed up and her lips are pursed like she is about to give someone a kiss. She looks very much like Hossmom when she does this. On occasion Little Hoss will moan and smack me in the face with an elbow. This too is very much like Hossmom. I have gotten bloody noses from both of them.

On the other side is Bubba Hoss. I don't need to look at him to know where he is at, I can feel him. He has no concept of personal space when it comes to bed. He likes to dig in like a tick right in your side so for most of the night I'm worried that I will smush him. I go about 250. He goes about 30 pounds. It's a losing situation for him but he doesn't care. All he wants to do is dig into dad's armpit and he's in sandman land heaven.

I can't sleep and yet I can't get up. I'm trying to force myself to sleep but it doesn't work. All that happens is that I can hear everything better than I did could before. I hear the dog pass gas, Little Hoss's elbow swooshing through the air and Bubba Hoss's contented breathing.

Hossmom is out of town. We are back to doing that again, a side effect of a high powered executive career and a stay at home dad. She has meetings with important people who are going to try and sale you important things. She'll be back in 3 days, 3 very long days. And for some reason, I can't sleep when she isn't in the house. I don't get it, not at all. It appears that the Hoss may be a bit needy.

This is supposed to be good times for us, the boss is gone. There are no fancy complicated dinners to make. I can shelve the Tomato/Basil/spinach stuffed chicken and instead serve peanut butter and jelly with a side of BBQ chips. I can stay up as late as I want without getting nagged about coming to bed. I can play video games and look up porn. This is supposed to be a freetime, the closest that I will get unencumbered alien destruction without a voice coming from upstairs saying "Turn that thing off and come to bed!"

But it never works out that way. I go to bed earlier when she's not here because I find that I am bored. There is no one to talk to about the events of the day, no one to share my victories with. It's a empty success when you teach your son to flex in the mirror but there is no one to show it to at the end of the day.

And I can't sleep, I can never sleep. When she's here I go to bed like a champ. It never takes me longer than 10 minutes to conk out when she's here. Now I sit in bed and listen to the kids breathing and the dog farting. The mind wanders when you are this alone and it's not a good thing.

Are the kids breathing too shallow? They must have lung cancer from watching to much Phineas and Ferb. Bubba Hoss hasn't kicked me in the spleen in a while, is he ok? Is he still breathing at all? I better poke him. I do and he wakes up. Oddly, the kids never get much sleep either when Hossmom is gone. I have no idea why.

This is where your mind goes when you are by yourself for long periods. You imagine the most horrible things and assume that they are true.

The dog lets go with another class 5 gas bomb. It's nothing but a silent whish of air. But it smells different, sweeter than the first 30 or so he has let go. Obviously he his feline lupus. This is going to be really hard to explain to the kids in the morning.