What's the deal?

Okay, whatever is going on with you, I wish you would cut it out.

First, you're making your mom puke, which kind of gets in the way of doing stuff. We went to dinner at this Italian place because she was craving their eggplant parmesean, and before she could finish, you had her gagging.

She left the restaurant to throw up outside and I didn't even get to eat the rest of her meal, which I usually get to do.

As soon as we got home, she started craving a toasted tomato sandwich. Fine. She didn't exactly get a good meal in her. Only problem is that I used up the last tomato making an omlette for breakfast.

By the way, when you're big enough, I hope you can figure out how to keep eggs from sticking to the pan. I never can get that part to work.

I had to go to the store anyway because Rover--the princess dog--is out of milk. She only drinks milk now. And she only eats liverwurst. I let her get away with it because she's so old and scrawny that she looks like the dog in the Haunted Mansion at Disneyland, which by the way, you're not going to go to until you're old enough to spend all day there and enjoy it. Meaning, like, nine. I don't care how much you love Mickey or Jasmine or whoever the character is, today--before you're even born--it costs $67 to get in and if I'm going to drop $67 on a day in an amusement park, you better be amused.

Don't get me wrong. You'll go. Everybody needs to experience Disneyland, especially as a child. It's a form of taxation, really, like having a Happy Meal, spending two weeks at summer camp, and going to the emergency room for a cut foot. These are things that every American child has to experience, that every American parent has to pay for. I'm fine with that. But you're only going once on me. After that, you want to go again you're going to have to save up and take yourself.

I'm serious.

Where was I?

Oh yeah. Tomatoes.

So I talk your mom into going to the store with me. The line to check out is about 15 people long and not moving fast and your mom has ripped into a package of sea salt and vinegar potato chips to keep from vomiting again. So she's a little impatient. I get that.

I also know how she needs her sea salt and vinegar potato chips, so I toss an extra bag into the basket, along with a bag of regular potato chips because those cravings change like the wind and tomorrow she might hate the sea salt and vinegar.

When we finally get to pay, she notices the extra bags of potato chips and she turns on me with this accusative tone, "What did you get THOSE for?"

"Um, for you?" is pretty much all I can muster. I mean, at the rate she's scarfing down potato chips, I wouldn't be surprised if she finished them off in the car on the way home. And for crying out loud, they're potato chips. They're not going to go bad before you graduate high school. Even if your mom never craves another potato chip in her life, sooner or later you're going to need snacks for your lunch box.

It gets worse.

The people behind us in line are stacking, I don't know, maybe four or five large packages of adult diapers on the conveyor belt. It's a couple and they're probably late 20's, which from your perspective probably seems pretty old, but from our perspective seems young. Way too young to need adult diapers.

Your mom, thanks to you, gets all mushy seeing the diapers on the belt and starts going, "Awwwww," like, isn't that sweet? I managed to miss the horrified looks on their faces.

Your mom didn't.

Your mom's not stupid. Or mean. But you're making her act stupid and mean.

So would you please cut it out? Thanks.

I'll get you a Happy Meal.

Peppermint ice cream

Funny what women crave when they're pregnant.

Before we even knew your mom was pregnant with you, she couldn't get enough orange juice.

I should have figured something was up. Your mom doesn't drink a lot of orange juice. I think it's because I'm from Florida and well, she's been there and seen where the oranges come from.

And she became obsessed with the tuna hand rolls at a sushi place near here. We went there one day and she put away four of them. She talked about them almost every day, and if they weren't so expensive, we'd probably have eaten them for breakfast, lunch, and dinner.

She also wasn't enjoying wine, and you know how much your mom enjoys her wine. She actually dumped out half a glass of wine after dinner one night. That's so unlike her that I thought she was sick.

Turns out it was you.

She's not into the orange juice as desperately as she was before, and she's not allowed to have tuna because her mercury was a little high. But then she discovered beef.

Your mom is a vegetarian, but you wouldn't know it the way she dives into a steak. It started innocently enough. Janet came over for dinner and I made your mom a vegetarian burger. It wasn't really satisfying her--nothing she ate really satisfied her--so she took a taste of the steak I'd made myself.

Next thing you know, she's telling me she wants steak with the same bloodlust I see in the eyes of our esteeemed president when he tells us he wants to spread democracy. Like him, she refuses to have any blood on her hands. She makes me buy the steak and cook the steak, claiming that the smell of the meat might make her vomit.

Unlike him, she's willing to admit what it is she's craving.

As satisfying as meat is--and she's had beef at least once a day since she became a carnivore again--she still suffers from the occasional bout of nausea. It seems to have a lot to do with standing up and comes on at night, not so much in the morning. Crackers help. And she's got a stash of York Peppermint Patties that she nibbles on, too.

But what she really wants is peppermint ice cream.

Tonight Angie invited us for dinner and since she has connections at Dandy Don's Ice Cream, I mentioned your mom's craving. I told her that the best birthday present she could get your mom would be some peppermint ice cream.

She got a gallon and a half.

We had some for dessert and took the rest home. In the car, your mom got squamish. She had the ice cream, but no spoon.

Thank goodness for the stash of Peppermint Patties.