“Don’t hurt my pookie-bear!” Jenny yells through the phone.

I walk around the table and stand by Drew’s head, looking down at him as he groans.

“Wow, did I sleep on your floor all night?” Drew asks as he opens his eyes and glances up at me from the floor.  “You really should consider putting in carpet instead of hardwood.  This stuff is really uncomfortable.”

Drew rolls over onto all fours with another groan and slowly stands up, twisting and turning as he moves to try and crack his back.

“Get.  Out.  Of.  My.  House,” I tell him as calmly as I can without screaming and waking up Carter and Gavin.

“Tell him I love him and that my vagina misses him!” Jenny yells excitedly.

“Jenny says to tell you that you need to GET YOUR SORRY ASS OUT OF MY HOUSE!”

“Heeeeey, that’s not what I said,” Jenny mutters.

“Jenny, I’ll call you back.”

I hang up the phone and open my mouth to tell Drew to get out of my house again, just in case he hadn't hear me the first two times, when Gavin comes running into the kitchen in his pajamas.

“Hi, Uncle Drew!” he says excitedly as he runs up to Drew.  Just as Drew starts to bend over to greet him, Gavin pulls his elbow back and catapults his fist right between Drew’s legs.

Drew falls down on his knees with a yelp and I laugh.  I know you’re not supposed to laugh when your child does something he shouldn’t, but I feel this was deserved.  I had just found Drew passed out in the middle of the table we eat on.  He’s lucky I didn’t stop Gavin and give him a baseball bat first.

“Gavin, dude, we had a rule!”

At the sound of his voice, I turn to find Carter walking into the room rubbing sleep from one eye.  He kisses my cheek as he steps around me and kneels down to Gavin’s level.

“Gavin, what was our rule?” Carter asks while Drew clutches his junk, alternating between coughing and making some strange whining noise that reminds me of the sound a balloon makes when you pinch and stretch the opening of it and slowly let the air out.

“No nut shots before lunch,” Gavin replies solemnly.

“Right, no nut shots before lunch.  And do you know what time it is?” Carter asks.

“I can’t tell time,” Gavin states.

“Have you had lunch yet?” Carter asks.

“No.”

“Then it’s before lunch.  Tell Uncle Drew you’re sorry.”

Gavin sighs and turns to face Drew who has finally stopped moaning and is in the process of getting back to his feet.

“I’m sorry I shot you in the nuts before lunch,” Gavin mumbles.  “Can I have some cereal now?” he asks as he looks at me and away from Drew.

“Sure, baby,” I tell him with a smile as I take his hand and walk him toward one of the kitchen chairs.  I take one look at the table and veer us in the direction of a bar stool at the island instead.  I need to bleach Drew’s ass from that table before we ever eat there again.

“My testicles are sitting in my stomach right now.  How can you even think about cereal?” Drew asks as he limps over to the counter and grabs his keys.

“Your tentacles are dumb and I’m hungry,” Gavin replies around a mouthful of Lucky Charms as I finish pouring the milk in his bowl.

“Whatever, kid.  Thanks for letting me crash, guys.  I’m gonna make like a fetus and head out.”

I let out a big sigh when the door closes behind Drew.

“The next time I find him asleep on any piece of furniture in this house, I’m taking it out on you,” I tell Carter.

He comes up behind me and wraps his arms around my waist and places a kiss to the curve of my neck.

“Deal,” he replies as he rests his chin on my shoulder.

“You realize you made a rule with your son that states he has permission to punch people in the nuts after lunch, correct?”

“Yeah.  It sounded good at the time when I made the rule.  He had just shown me for the second time the power of his punch, and I was crippled on the ground at the park at the time, so I might not have had full brain function.”

I stand there for a few minutes, enjoying the feel of Carter’s arms around me as we watch our son scarf down his breakfast.

“I want to have your parents over for dinner,” I told him as I turn in his arms and rest my hands against his chest.  “I want to cook something really delicious, ply them with alcohol and chocolate, and make them like me.  Or at least drunk enough to forget why they don’t.”

Carter chuckles and tightens his arms around me.

“Babe, they like you.  I swear.  My grandma even said you had spunk.”

“That’s old person speak for ‘she’s bat shit crazy and I’m afraid I’ll bust a hip just being in the same room with her when I beat her ass.'  I need a chance to make a better first impression,” I explain.

“Your FIRST, first impression was just fine.  You’re forgetting who my best friend is.  The first time they met Drew he crashed at our house one night in high school.  My mom found him sleepwalking in the middle of the night.  She walked into the living room and he was peeing on the couch.  Believe me, they’ve seen it all,” Carter reassures me.

“Drew is a moron.  He shouldn’t be allowed in public without a leash and a handler.  I am the mother of their grandson.  I shouldn’t be talking about a whale’s vagina on their Facebook pages.  I should be posting pictures of their grandson at a museum studying the works of Michelangelo and posting status messages about my philanthropic work like holding babies in orphanages and hugging homeless people.”

Carter stares at me quizzically for a few minutes.

“Will you say something?” I demand.

“Sorry, I’m just trying to figure out if you’re serious or not.”

“Why the hell wouldn’t I be serious?  I could totally be that person.  I could be that person and you wouldn’t even know it,” I tell him indignantly as I cross my arms in front of me.

“Oh, I’m pretty sure I would notice if you suddenly turned into a completely different person,” he tells me with a laugh.

“Are you saying I’m not a nice person?  That I wouldn’t cuddle a strange baby or make a homeless guy feel special?  Because I would totally do all of that.  Maybe I’ve already been doing it behind your back.  Maybe instead of going to the dentist the other day I went to a PETA meeting and threw fake blood on rich people wearing fur.  Maybe Gavin has been learning French at night while you’re at work.”

I crane my neck behind me to look at Gavin.

“Hey, say something in French,” I tell him.

“I like french fries,” he tells me as he looks up from his cereal bowl with milk dripping down his chin.

“See?” I say as I turn back to face Carter.  “He can already use a word in a sentence.”

“Okay, stop.  Take a deep breath.  Of course I think you’re a nice person.  I think you’re an amazing person.  But I think we all know that you are not a Stepford Wife and Gavin isn’t conjugating French verbs while listening to Mozart.”

“MY WIENER EXPLODED!”

Carter drops his arms from my waist, and I jump around in horror at Gavin’s scream.

“Never mind.  I just spillded milk on it.  I have a milk wiener now.”

I shake my head and turn back to face Carter.

“I rest my case,” he says with a laugh.

I frown and try to act indignant but Carter can see the wheels turning in my head and cuts me off.

“I love both of you exactly the way you are.  I love that you have no filter, and I adore that Gavin can make grown men cry.  There is not one thing I would change about either one of you, and if anyone doesn’t like it, they can kiss my ass.  You guys are my life and my family now.  Nothing else matters.”

Carter bends down and presses a soft kiss to my lips and pulls me tighter against him.  His words push aside some of my fears about his family, but it doesn’t change the fact that I still want to try again with them.  I plan on spending a very long time with this man.  I'm still not sold on the whole marriage thing, but I still want him in my life forever, which means I needed to find a way to get on his parents' good side one way or another.  If I have to get them drunk, so be it.