Can you hear me now?

By request, this post is to give more insight into my "spanky family".  :0)

Alex's family tree:

Alex (41 yrs old) - Married to me (17.5 years), 2 kids and we have always practiced DD

Chase (39 yrs old) - He lost his first wife to cancer (they had twin boys (14 yrs old) and a girl (12 years old)), but has remarried (2 years ago) and I don't know yet on the DD (they have a 6 month old boy)

Jay (37 yrs old) - Married to Lori (18.5 years), 6 kids they have practiced DD for the past 2.5 years 

Mark (32 yrs old) - Married to Stacey (4.5 years), 2 kids and they practice DD

Laci (30 yrs old) - Not married, but loves to be the fun Aunt

Steven (28 yrs old) - Married to Amy (2 years), they have a two month old little girl and they practice DD

Kenzie (25 yrs old) - Engaged and due to get married March of 2014

Tony (21 yrs old) - In college and a heart breaker... Sigh.

The usual family tree, just not large enough!!

So what is most helpful is that Lori and I are the same age and have known each other for a very long time.  Plus she married my best friend, so I know him some times better than she does or can give her dirt on him from our childhood.  (Yeah, cause that has never gotten me into trouble...Lie detector says: WRONG!) Stacey and Amy are only a year a part in age and clicked the second they met, so they have built a really good support system between them.  All four of us get along very well and we usually have a good grape vine communication between us.  So if one of us lands into some trouble the other three will be there for moral support, advice or all out venting.  It's when the four of us get together and have a glass or two (maybe three) of wine that we usually ALL end up in trouble.  (You gotta have some fun right?)

I am the only one that drinks red, but I will convert one of them!!

Jay and Lori are moving only a few blocks from us in early January, so that is going to be AMAZING!  Right now they live about 2 hours from us, so we still see each other at least once or twice a month. Mark/Stacey and Steven/Amy all live within an hour of us, so we see them just as often, in fact we all take turns hosting a monthly BBQ between our homes. It's an open invitation to his entire family and mine, but the majority of the time it is just our four families.  The rest of his family is scattered between our state and where we grew up in the mid-west. My parents do the six month split between here and the mid-west so they avoid snow in the winter and super hot temperatures in the summer.  My brother is married with two children, but he moved two years ago to the east coast. (I really miss them..)

It was our last BBQ get together that I am going to share with you.

So prior to the BBQ weekend Lori had said she got a call from Stacey informing her that Amy had landed herself over Steven's lap yet again. She has been spending a good deal of time over his knee since the baby was born and she is getting really done with the whole DD concept.  Lori and I suspect it is the lack of spanking during her later pregnancy that has caused them to get out of rhythm. So we were going to find a creative way of letting her know that Steven was probably just trying to get them back into a study rhythm again. (With her you can't go straight in, you have to dance around the issue a bit.)  We left the conversation with both of us thinking of how to broach this particular subject with her and regroup to see who was going to do the honors.  Well, we didn't get a chance to regroup and with my move and kid's school activities I didn't have a chance to come up with anything.  Lori must have similar excuses too, as we found ourselves looking at each other doing the eyes/eyebrow who is doing what communication.

The men were in Steven's "man cave", this is another tradition as all of them have one.  I don't mind, in fact I love that Alex has a place to shut himself away and relax. (He makes a mess, he cleans it up.. I don't even look into his man cave.) We women were in the kitchen enjoying a glass of wine and getting dinner ready. The kids were in the backyard and the baby was sleeping upstairs, so we had time to chat and catch up.  This is where Lori and I started have eye wars about what was to be said and by whom.  After our first glass of wine we decided why not one more, we still were going to eat so no harm in it really... So we were about mid point into our second glasses when I noticed a Verizon bill on the counter by their phone and I had a light bulb moment.  I looked at Lori in triumph and she rolled her eyes and humphed at me like it took you long enough.  (We do non verbal communication REALLY well, no one will let us be partners in Charades.)

Just as inspiration struct the baby monitor went off and we could hear little Beth was now awake, so we topped off our glasses (not a full glass refill, so it doesn't count!) and all went up to see her.  As Amy started to change Beth, I made my start... "Do you all remember those silly commercials with that guy that wonders all over the world and does the "Can you hear me now?" thing for Verizon."  I got two yeahs and a "what the heck" look from Lori, which I shot back a "give me a minute" look in return. (I told you we are scary good at the non-verbal.)  So I ventured on... "I was just thinking DD is sorta like that..."  Now I had everyone's attention, even little Beth was blowing baby bubbles in my direction at this point.  "I mean really if the provider doesn't offer good enough service, the reception is crappy and the customer is unhappy and frustrated."

"Just as if our husbands didn't provide strong enough direction/correction we would be frustrated and unhappy. You see we are the customers and our bottoms are the receivers if you will... If their direction/service is not strong enough and we don't get the message we need, well we are frustrated by it." You see this all started out in a very innocent way, I was being helpful and creative!!!  (You can stop laughing now, cause I know you are!!!) Amy was the first to recover from my little analogy, she said "great, now every time I get spanked I will feel like the Verizon guy is watching." It all went down hill from there.... Stacey gladly chimed in and said "well maybe we all should just stick to land lines, and forget the cell phones all together."  (Yeah, next time we need to bring her in on the plan ahead of time.)  But then Lori of all people came in with... "Well maybe the shape or size of the receiver could impact reception.. Or better yet the service providers strength would be a factor too.  Not all services are built the same right?"  Which then led Amy to "Let's just admit is lady's our husbands are just spank happy and no matter the type of build or shape of our butts...They just spank!"  Now you would think that Lori or I would have steered this back around at this point, being the older and more experienced wives...

Oh how I wish one of us would have been smart enough (sober enough) to sense the danger this was heading.  "Oh they don't spank, they "discuss" things with us." (Yes, that was me... Sigh) We then all went on a tirade of male bashing and spank happy spouses, at one point Stacey even threw out they all need a spanking themselves.  It was all giggles and they need to see our point of view once in a while or give us get out of jail free cards to negotiate with.  We had quite a few brilliant ideas of how to improve our husbands and how they ran things. This went on for at least 20 minutes before Beth got fussy and pulled us back to changing her.

Guess what else gets great reception in Stacey's house?

The baby monitor, that was still on and broadcasting our conversation to all the men who had come looking for us to see about dinner.  Yup, they stood there and listened to ALL of it.  So when we finally collected ourselves and headed back downstairs, it was the sight of four very angry men we saw standing at the bottom of the stairs waiting on us. Dinner was pretty late that night and we are all going to do are best not to EVER male bash again... When the baby monitor is close by!  HA!

Come on, it will happen again, we are only human after all.  But it will be quite some time, as the service providers were very strong and the receivers all got the message very well!! In fact during our "discussion" at home later that night, Alex asked me... "Do you hear me now, or do we need to discuss this more?" with a few swats to ensure the message was getting through... Grrrrrrr.

I really don't like that Verizon guy at all.....