jelly bean
the first time it happened, the kids had taken hank over to their father’s house. i got an excited phone call AND photos. i had really hoped that we would never have to deal with this because hank is so mellow, but there it was, a glossy, hot pink protrusion coming out of hank’s nether regions. i have to say, if you didn’t think about what it was, it was really quite pretty… so shiny and my favorite hue of pink. it is rumored that someone touched it (before really understanding what it was) but that has not been confirmed.
i know most people refer to it as a “lipstick,” but in hank’s case, it is barely the size of a jelly bean… more of a little jelly belly. this sighting was just a few weeks prior to when hank was meant to have some of his other stuff removed so i thought perhaps that would be the end of it. alas, the surgery did not seem to effect hank’s jelly bean and periodically lucy will say, “it’s happening again!” and theo will say, “c’mon man… put that away!” and then we all gather around and look at it in fascination until it recedes. it’s hard to imagine that he can do much with such a little jelly bean and i guess technically, he can’t. frenchies reproduce through IVF (just like me!) so it’s really more of a decoration.
but that doesn’t mean hank doesn’t have strong feelings. a few weeks after we got him, a little frenchie named ellie moved in across the street. ellie is a month older than hank, but less than half his size. her body is mostly white with big brown spots and she has a ridiculously cute underbite so her bottom teeth are always showing. for hank, it was love at first sight. he follows her around like they are connected and then lays on his back so she can nibble on his neck and tummy. ellie completely bosses him around and he just takes it… he is definitely the beta. he cannot get enough of her.
when hank and i go for walks, he always makes a beeline for the sofa on ellie’s porch so he can look in the window and see if she is home. he emits the most heart wrenching whimper when she is not available. i really try to facilitate their time together because i am all about loving big… but a few weeks AFTER hank’s surgery, he completely threw me for a loop. i was in ellie’s backyard having a glass of wine with her mama when i looked over and hank was HUMPING ellie! i couldn’t believe it… he didn’t even have his cojones any more so i don’t know where the hormones were coming from. i was so mortified… it was like he was some sort of animal and i immediately tried to break it up. i was thinking of their love story as something out of the little rascals, not fifty shades of grey. ellie’s mama said we should be “sex positive” and try not to shame our frenchies. she also acknowledged that ellie is “super foxy”… i just really wasn’t prepared for that. even in dog years hank is less than six years old… it seems a little soon. i was thirteen for my first kiss and didn’t even think about other stuff until several years later and certainly not right out in the open. hank didn’t even try to take it into the bushes for more privacy.
we left as soon as i finished my wine, as i was so shaken. i nearly made him sleep in his crate that night so he could think about what he’d done, but when he looked up at me with those big, brown eyes and i saw that his jelly bean was nowhere in sight, i let him back into my bed…he WAS exhausted. i must say, i did insist that we walk the other direction for a few weeks (sorry ellie!) i just didn’t think i could handle that visual again.
then the day before we left for california - which can only be described as a SH*T F*CK sort of day - because just about everything went wrong… most notably, i backed my rental car into my garage (yes - my regular car was back in the shop - this time for a new ignition lock) and now my garage door looks pregnant. she is pretty, but not so bright - i think one of my kids pushed the up/down button too many times and confused her, (but this has not been confirmed) so that she came down after i started backing and didn’t have the grace or intelligence to go back up when she saw me coming. we have never been friends - every winter she gets off track during the season’s coldest blizzard and the garage man has to come and sort her out. the only silver lining in all of this is that the garage man is HOT… he looks a bit like the "hot felon" who just had a baby with the topshop heiress. he has carmelly skin and pale blue eyes and he even has a neck tattoo that looks a little dangerous. so anyway, by the time the garage man left, it was nearly seven and i hadn’t even begun to pack or prepare the house for our departure. i walked into the back yard to check on hank and he was GONE! i then went into a full blown panic the way i have always done when i lose sight of one of my kids in a crowded place - i start imagining the press conference where i am crying on TV saying, “please just bring my baby back, we won’t ask any questions” and i spend the rest of my life posting flyers and organizing candle lit vigils. i grabbed my keys and my phone to start canvassing the neighborhood, when i saw that i had a text from ellie’s mama, “hank is here in the backyard with ellie.” i think the garage man left the side gate open and hank literally just ran with it. i was a little hurt that he would abandon me after the day i’d had, but he really hadn’t seen ellie in a while and he is a pretty dedicated romeo. when i got across the street and saw hank alive, happily playing (NOT humping - praise jesus!) with ellie, i just burst into tears. ellie’s mama handed me a glass of wine and i was so grateful for my lovely neighbor and a soft place to land.