My daughter thinks she's cooler than me.

And she probably will be, someday. But for now she needs proper training.

We were sitting on the couch watching Ratatouille, she on my lap leaning against my large belly while her baby brother shifted and kicked at her. I figured I was going to wait another half an hour or so before I put her down for a nap. She usually sleeps longer if I can push the nap to about 1:30pm. But she spontaneously slid off my lap, grabbed her favorite blanket and started to walk down the hall to her room without a word. But then she stopped about mid way and said, over her shoulder, 'See ya, bye'. And walked the rest of the way to her room and stood next to her crib.
So I laughed and put her in her bed and left it at that.

Kids these days.

I have it on good authority...

That we're all going down in flames. I'm one step away from draping a double sided sign-board over my shoulders and marching downtown to impose my vision on passersby.

Seriously though... Husband and I had a very strange experience yesterday morning, and I'm not referring to the fact that Gremlin slept in long enough for us to... ahem. Never mind. No, I'm referring to the moment when husband got out of bed to piss and paused in the doorway.

He turned around and looked at me as if he suddenly remembered something and said 'I had a really weird dream last night'.

I gave him a weird look from the side and said 'Me too.. really intense shit. What was yours?'

'I dreamt that we were attacked by nuclear bombs and the world was coming to an end and we were staying in a cabin in the woods at the time. We had to survive and fend for ourselves against crowds of savage, lone survivors.' My mouth was hanging wide open with shock and I thought he was playing a trick on me. 'What?'

'I had a post-Apocalypse dream last night, too.' And then we shared a moment where we both thought the other was bullshitting. Then we realized that it wasn't the case and proceeded to get the full on Heebyjeeby's.

We compared dreams for a little while and the coincidences were just freaky: We both saw ourselves living in a compound type establishment that we had to defend from other crazed survivors. In my dream we were in the desert (not the woods, which I think would have been much nicer). We had jeeps and we did patrols around our compound looking for anyone that would be a possible threat to our food and water rations. We had guns and lookouts were posted at all times. At one point in my dream I was walking through a major city and there were piles of dead bodies everywhere. The bodies were piled as high as some of the buildings and there was a sad, older man going around staking six-foot-tall crosses that he'd obviously made from debris in the surrounding area. It was his silent, morbid vigil. I stood and watched him stake a sharpened point of a guard rail into one pile of bodies leaving a towering metal cross against a smoky red sky.

It was one of those dreams that feels so real that when you wake up reality doesn't have quite the same affect as it once did. I had looked out the window from my bed and was confused by the clear sky and the sound of birds chirping in the trees. I could hear neighbors slamming car doors and starting their engines to go do normal things in a world untouched by the disaster that I had so recently experienced. I was relieved, yet it took moments before it all made sense again. The way Husband spoke of his haunting dream I suspect he had a similar experience. I had always thought all that stuff about 'anima' and 'animus' was probably bullshit, but maybe Jung was on to something.

Husband and I are not fanatical people by nature. We haven't watched any Apocalypse themed movies lately. And neither of us had even been thinking about end-times, that we know of. I'm sure there is a reasonable explanation for our coincidental dreams, but it still left both of us wanting to go out and pick up a couple assault rifles and case-loads of ammo. Husband is all for surviving some sort of earth destroying catastrophe: he thinks it would be cool to live in a 'you keep what you kill' world. He's a trained killer so he's pretty sure we could live like royalty. I personally like having electricity, but hey, I'm always up for a challenge. As long as any imminent doom holds off until I have this baby in the safety of a hospital I can take it from there.

Kudos to this guy:

Maybe I'll try flying with Southwest next time. We flew with Delta, and so has everyone else I've been talking with lately. Lots of bad reviews for Delta: missing connections, overbooking flights, stressed out and overworked flight attendants that have the crazy kind of smile that says 'I wish this plane would crash so that we could all go down in flames together'. They seem to be the cheapest option that shows up when you book online but the word is: you get what you pay for.

Home.

We've been home for over a week now. I've been laying low and eating. That's all I ever do these days: eat. Oh, and Guitar Hero: Metallica just came out, so I throw some of that in there, too. My favorite video game and my favorite band came together and made a beautiful love-child.

Thank you to everyone who sent good vibes my way for the Georgia trip, I definitely felt it. Gremlin was a great travel companion; which was a good thing because I'd already made up my mind previous to our departure that if she was going to be a little tyrant I would offer her up as a sacrifice to all the angry, sleepy masses on our late night flights. But to the contrary I had people coming up to me telling me what a great mom I was and how they'd never flown with such a well behaved gremlin before. They just didn't see me slippin' Jack in her sippy cup the whole time... Whatever. Worship me, bitches, for I am superior!

Husbands best friend lives in Savannah so we had all agreed to meet there. On my little flight from Atlanta to Savannah I sat next to a very kind woman. It was about 11pm local time and she was on her way to help her Marine son pack up his shit in his truck so she could drive it all the way home to Minnesota for him while he deployed to Afghanistan for a year. But she terrified me. The more I talked with her the more I learned that she had lived the life that I so dearly do not want to. She had two children that were the same age difference as mine will be. Her son had the same name that I intend to name my own son. Her husband had died from an illness shortly after her second son was born. I asked her if she ever remarried and she told me that she is now happily married to another man. She was so lovely yet she hid a sadness that could only vex a woman who had lost her love and the father of her children. I couldn't help but wonder if this was God's way of showing me that even if my worst fears come true that there would be hope and life would go on. I was very vulnerable and very candid with my fellow traveler. I told her that I feared losing my husband and for the first time I received the most honest and plain response to that fear. She simply told me that she hopes I never have to experience that. She didn't bother with any words of advice or encouragement. I quickly changed the subject and we finished our flight having both felt a strange connection. We exchanged e-mails and I will be following up with her to see how her son is doing on his deployment.

When I arrived at my gate I called Husband right away to let him know we were there and ready. It was midnight and he didn't answer my call. I went down to baggage and called him again. No answer. I had a good size suitcase, a car seat, pak-n-play, and Gremlin was falling asleep in her stroller as I tried to awkwardly gather our belongings. Everyone was leaving. I called Husband again. No answer. I was getting furious. There was no way I would have been able to get all my shit down to the car rental by myself. The airport was empty, everyone had gone home. My phone rang. It was Husband. He had set his alarm wrong on his phone, and he'd been partying most of the day with his buddies, thinking he could sleep it off before coming to get me in the middle of the night. I sat in that damn baggage claim after a full day of travel and feeling like I made all this effort and Husband didn't even receive me exuberantly upon my arrival. In that moment, while a few self-pitying tears rolled down my cheek I thought about how I'd like to take fate into my own hands and destroy Husband upon first sighting with an extreme prejudice.

To my surprise, though, I was able to put my fury aside when he finally did come to gather us up. My very first instinct was to lay into him and make him feel like the shit-bag that I thought he was in that moment. But somehow I just told him how much I loved him and how happy I was to see him. I think I knew that I was deciding the tone for the rest of our trip together. I must be pretty fuckin' mature for my age.

Savannah was beautiful, sunny and warm. Our best friend's girl works at Starbucks down there. She got held up by gunpoint and robbed one night in the middle of our trip. It's too bad there are so many shit bags and criminals in that area, or I might like it enough to consider relocation someday. Actually, no. You couldn't pay me enough to live in The South. Nice place to visit, I'll leave it at that.

Husband gets home tonight around midnight. I'm letting staff-duty pick him up and bring him home. Nothing wrong with that, I say. There will be beer and food in the fridge and if he wakes me up before morning I'll stab him. Just a little warning clip and then I'll roll over and go back to sleep. Honey, if you're reading this now on your iPhone in the airport, consider it a fair warning.