Terms of endearment — take ‘em or leave ‘em?
I’m not the type to use terms of endearment. I’m betting part of that is because I didn’t grow up around it and part of it is just who I am, baby. As I said before certain activities require a certain type of personality. I’m not a leather coat-wearin’-long-painted-fingernails kinda chick and I am not a sweetiepie-spewin’ kinda gal, either.
I asked Mr. C about that last night, does he feel we have pet names for each other? He quickly answered “No.” I was a little bit surprised because I would say perhaps 10% of the time he will call me “Honey.” But not often. And of that 10% I would guess 3% of the time he uses it sarcastically when we are arguing. (Just between you and me, I hate it when he does that.)
So I don’t really consider it a term of endearment from him. He also uses it with other women, kind of like one would use the term “girlfriend.”
I’ve heard him say, at work, “Oh honey, you should talk to my wife.” This would be in response to the fact that he has a reputation at work of being extremely positive and upbeat. If you knew him like I know him, you would be smiling ear to ear right now. He has a hell of a social mask, that Mr. C.
Anyway, we don’t really have names for each other, but in thinking about this I realized that I do refer to him, in front of the children, as “Daddy” because that’s what the kids call him. Just like he refers to me as “Mommy” for the same reason. The older two know what our first names are and they use them occasionally for shock value. Truth be told, it shocks them more than us, but you gotta shake it up every so often.
So as we were talking about this, I suddenly remembered a time long ago, before we had children. When we were first married I came down with a case of kitty fever. I didn’t want a human baby (at the time I thought my maternal clock was digital) I wanted a cat. I pined for a cat.
So strong was my desire for a feline, that Mr. C actually said multiple times, “I hope you feel this way eventually about a real baby.” Because as you may recall, during our pre-marital negotiations on children I told him I didn’t really see myself with children at all, whereas he knew he wanted three. I recall agreeing to one child and then re-negotiating at a later date. So much for my plans, eh?
Back to the cat. I had to have one. So we finally found a place that adopted cats that had no homes, sort of a pet shop that sold food and toys and had a white slavery adoption ring going on in back. That is how we met Chloe. She was a good cat and I loved her, but she clearly had issues. She had to have been abused because anytime Mr. C or I wore black pants and black shoes she ran away from us and flipped out under the bed.
Anyway, we got her six months into the marriage and eventually she seemed to be super needy by the time I got home from work each day. More than I could handle. The vet suggested she needed a buddy, a playmate to occupy her time while we were gone. So we got her a friend. She hated him. That would be Clive and as soon as he walked out of the cage, the sibling rivalry was born.
Out of that union, came the names Mommy and Daddy. God I cringe writing this, but I’m here for the people. That’s how Mr. C and I started to use those monikers for each other. And of course, since the cats could only meow, Mr. C came up with “a voice” for the the cat. I continue to love that voice to this day. It’s a high-pitch kid’s voice and he uses it sparingly.
Sometimes I would ask Mr. C to say the Lord’s Prayer in “the voice” because it cracked me up. He has tried but he usually laughs a couple lines into it.
Most of the time, he voiced Clive because Chloe was pretty dignified and homegirl didn’t play those kind of games. But Clive was an attention whore and he gave it up so easily. We did get him as a kitten and I did mold that boy into the cat I wanted. Clive was
always
at my
side, followed me
around the
house and tried
to act like he
didn’t need me, but he was my bitch.Clive was always at my side, followed me around the house and tried to act like he didn’t need me, but he was my bitch. And I loved it.
Now he’s Val’s bitch because Katie is allergic to cats and has asthma, but I’ll tell you I frantically tried to figure out a way to keep both of them (Katie and Clive). As you know, I was not successful.
So it was out of pet ownership that Mr. C and I tried on the terms, Mommy and Daddy. That is so messed up, even I know that. And we knew it at the time and occasionally we slipped in front of Mr. C’s family and they all wanted to vomit in a collective bucket. But they tried to be polite, so they held back on the eye rolling.
I do recall vividly proclaiming, “The whole family’s in the bedroom!” when we were sitting on the bed and the two cats had joined us. Or if we were in the living room on the couches and the two of them hopped onto the back of the couch to look out the window. “Our family unit is intact,” I would say.
But I knew cats weren’t kids. Mr. C called them our “faux-children” and that is exactly what they were. They required minimal maintenance, after one training session they crapped inside a box and cleaned their own butts, they didn’t constantly proclaim, “I’m bored” on a Saturday afternoon and I didn’t have to give them choices for dinner, “I have hot dogs or chicken nuggets.”
And in return they vomited up hair balls in unlikely places, left cat fur woven into the fabric of the couch and Chloe scratched the shit out of my hand every time I tried to hold her like a real baby. I told you she had issues — she didn’t like having her stomach exposed. Neurotic prude.
I do miss the cats; in fact I am seriously considering buying a fur pelt so I have something to pet. But if I do buy one I know I’ll have to share it with my real children.
And I don’t want to become the weird lady who hoarded the fur pelt and called it Sweet-ums, you know?
