WalMart and SpongeBob

No deep introspection today, folks. Just me, my Chantix, my bubble gum, my Diet Coke (they will have to pry it out of my cold, dead fingers), and life in general.

This morning we made a run to WalMart. Now usually it takes an act of Congress (or my lunch with my parents) to pry me out of the house before noon on a Sunday. But for various reasons, most of which are totally under my control, my younger son's bedroom was never officially "decorated," and we finally remedied that today.

Back when we bought this house we were at one kid, and one kid only. Then one day (I think Bloody Marys were involved) we both agreed that if we were going to have another child, we should really get started on it sometime soon as Himself didn't want to be seventy years old watching his own kid graduating from high school.

Well, the birthday of the younger child puts him firmly at sixty-three when that child will finally graduate, so he's safe there unless I get knocked up at forty.*

But on the day of our closing, neither of us knew I was about eleven days pregnant. Neither of us knew that God had been actively listening when we said "We really should get started on it soon," and took us at our word (or failing that, He was pretty sure we'd change our minds if swift action wasn't taken).

When we were driving home from signing our lives away for the next thirty years (I think by now we own the pantry outright), I realized that I was technically "due" that day and nothing had happened.

It wasn't only that, though, as I'm notoriously all over the map as far as my periods are concerned. It was also the fact that I'd been napping and had developed an aversion to both coffee and Cool Ranch Doritos, which for me are pretty sure signs of gestation. Also, there was the weird development that while most of my body measurements were going down (I was in week three or four of the Body-for-LIFE program), my waist measurement was increasing slightly.

Eeewwww.

So I put the then-only child to bed, and hurried off to buy a home pregnancy test.

I came home and did the whole pee-on-a-stick thing, then sat and watched the results window.

Two lines.

Huh.

I walked out of the bathroom, found my husband, and handed him the test. His brilliant response?

"There are two lines. And?"

"Yes, there are two lines."

"Ohhhh... two lines. Uhm, are we happy about this?"

"I'm not sure. I'll let you know in the morning. In the meantime, I think we'd better scratch that idea about having a guest bedroom."

They're not kidding when they say "Man plans, God laughs."

Anyway, the next morning I'd had time to absorb what this new pregnancy meant and was more fully with the program.

"Honey?"

"What?"

"We're happy about this."

"Okay."

So we moved from our apartment into the house in a few weeks when morning sickness was finally in full swing, which made me so much less helpful than I would have liked to have been. We got the extra-utero child's room fixed up for him with a big boy bed and matching sheets and comforter.

He didn't care what was on his bed, so I picked out something semi-normal looking.

The crib went into the "guest" room, along with various boxes that contained nothing vital enough to unpack (but of course vital enough to move) and a full size bed my husband had in storage. I made that one up with some other sheets and comforter that I chose. So for about eight months we had a guest room/ nursery/ storage room.

Time passed, the second son was born, the boxes were eventually unpacked, and for a couple of years he couldn't have cared less about what was in his bedroom. However, eventually he wanted a "big boy" bed. So we moved the full bed and the crib out and got him a little twin bed like his big brother's.

I had good intentions about getting him a comforter and some such stuff, but my grandmother had just died and we had tons of sheets and other things from her house. He fell in love with a set of butterfly print sheets (very old, very soft, very orange -- the child has an interesting sense of style), and things just kind of remained that way for the next couple of years.

But last weekend as we were doing the weekly dredging of his room to be sure he still had a carpet, he mentioned he might like a bedspread other than his SpongeBob throw blanket. So that's how I ended up at WalMart this morning, relieved that we were finally not going to see SpongeBob plastered over the top of his bed anymore.

We walked down the bedding aisle and he saw it. The Holy Grail of bedspreads.

(Y'all know where this is going, of course.)

Yes, it's got SpongeBob on it. So does his new set of sheets and both pillowcases.

And then there's the little fold-out SpongeBob table and chair set we got to complete the look, because, well, we must have somewhere to do all our artwork, I guess.

Oh, and to write the sign he's affixed to the door of his bedroom which says "No cats. Only kids allowed." He wanted to add "No big brothers," but I told him that would be a bit tacky.

Emily can't read, though, and scoots through his door anytime she can manage it, much to his eternal consernation.

His SpongeBob throw blanket is now carefully arranged on his floor as a rug.

He has also informed me that we need to paint one of his walls to look like a sponge. I told my husband, who just clutched his head between his hands.

It's SpongeBob-ariffic. I kind of wince when I walk by, but he's such a happy prideful little guy about it that I end up smiling even though an interior design desecration induced migraine is trying to beat my eyes out with a ballpeen hammer.

So anyway, that was my day. Happy four-year-old, pained-but-amused husband, and an eight-year-old who still doesn't care what sheets or bedspread are on his bed, but who is now the proud owner of a purple beanbag chair.

It's all minor, but sometimes life is just good. Even with WalMart and SpongeBob.

*God, please don't take this as a challenge. I will swear off sex before I have another child, and if you're that determined I should lose what little is left of my mind and become the mother of three, I'm gonna make a killing in the tabloids.