Yesterday afternoon, my husband and I decided that it had been far too long since we'd had any physical contact other than accidentally bonking into each other when trying to get dinner ready, so we should make time for it in the evening. Not hugely romantic or spontaneous, but there's some old phrase about beggars and choosers. Plus I've never exactly had a high-octane sex drive (that is, *I* am not the beggar in this scenario). Once things quiet down around here at night, my first and only thought is, "Hmmm... oooh, yeah... sleep..."

So, moral of the story is, we made plans a few hours in advance. And apparently my son, who barely recognizes his name and finds ceiling fans to be the height of humor and entertainment, heard us whispering in the kitchen and decided that there would be none of THAT happening in our household, not if he had anything to do with it. Jacob usually goes to sleep around 10, and last night he fell asleep at 9:45... and 10:00... and 10:10... and 10:20... and 10:22... and 10:45... and 11:00... and 11:15... And interspersed with this, we had the lovely barking and hacking of our daughter, who has had a croup-y cough for the past 2 days. So, baby whining and child barking - you've got the mood music right there.

But finally, both kids slept (see, ain't pediatric valium GREAT?) and we wandered into the bedroom. I observed that the green glow off his face from the light on the baby monitor was quite flattering. Who needs candles? We had our mood lighting.

We proceeded to get a ridiculous case of the giggles. Both of us. It was very mature and sexy, to be sure. While trying to calm down and get things in a more adult-themed mood, the comforter and sheet fell off the bed. We decided that we had embarrassed our bed in our pathetic attempts to have sex, and it was not going to stick around for any more of this disgraceful performance.

Happily, that little interlude had a happy ending - for both of us, no less... first time in several months for me, yee haw. I had forgotten why people do that when not trying to procreate.

So now we hunker down in preparation for the onslaught of a family Christmas. My father and sisters will be here, which is fine, they're low-maintenance houseguests. But my in-laws will also be in town (though they'll be sleeping in a hotel, which gives me 8 hours a day to recover!), and they are just about as high-maintenance as you can get. They both like to start a conversation by saying, "Not to be offensive..." or, "Now, I don't know much about it, but..." and then say the most outrageous, small-minded things about whichever minority group they've decided to hate for the day. Could be racial minorities, could be gays, could be women - my in-laws are pretty much equal-opportunity in their willingness to disrespect and abuse everyone who's not just like them. LOVE exposing my kids to that. But until I can find a way to strike my children deaf at will, we'll just focus on damage control after they leave.

There is a light at the end of this particular tunnel; after they leave here, my in-laws are headed to Florida for three months. So, my advance apologies to anyone in Florida, but they're on their way.