I suck you

The Porter Three went shopping yesterday for the lil' man. We traveled to baby consignment shops to find clothing that Amos will wear for approximately two days until he grows out of the britches. It's shocking how fast little kids grow. One day, Amos is wearing pants that fit him and reach past his ankles. The next day, the pants have become capris. Or, as my friend Judy called them, manpris. Amos is so smashing in his manpris.

The most surprising thing to come out of our shopping experience: Phil went nuts over finding clothes for Amos. It is like Amos is Phil's little doll so that he can play dress-up. Someone should have given Phil a doll to play with when he was a boy of yay-high. I giggled and giggled as Phil would find a little outfit for Amos and then coo over "how cute" it is. Egad, people. I married a teenage girl.

I admit that I find dressing Amos to be equally endearing. Quite often, both of us will hover over his crib and declare him to be the most adorable baby ever, only to change him into something else so that he can be even more adorable than the most adorable baby ever. Sometimes we even struggle over which of us will dress Amos.

"Ugh! No, I'll do it."

"Get out of the way, woman! Don't you see that the boy needs these pumpkin socks to compliment that onesie?"

I suppose we are just expressing our undying love for our offspring. It's like the male bird who sits on the egg while the momma bird goes out to forage. Like the gray wolf or the lowly prairie vole, we have mated for life. This made me wonder... what animals do mate for life?

In my never-ending quest for more freaky biology facts, I stumbled upon this little factoid at WonderQuest:



"One species is absolutely monogamous. In the black darkness of the deep sea, the tiny male anglerfish (perhaps one tenth the female’s size) detects and follows the scent trail of a female of his own species. Once found, he bites his chosen one and hangs on. His skin fuses to hers, their bodies grow together (he gets his food through a common blood supply and becomes essentially a sperm producing organ). They mate for life — a short life for the male."



Hmm. This answers many questions for me. We had a fish tank for most of our time together. One of the longest living fish we had was a plecostomus, one of those creepy, algae-eating sucker fish. Every once in a while, Phil would turn to look at me, I'd look at him, and then he'd lean over and attach himself to my arm, my leg, whathaveyou, with his mouth and start sucking. He did so with such a creepy look on his face that I always yelled and pushed him off, saying, "Ewwww!" Because really, if the plecostomus ever attached itself to me, I'd say the same thing. Apparently, Phil puts this under the category of foreplay.

Now I understand. Phil was merely expressing his need to mate for life. He wanted to attach himself to me, allow our skin to fuse together, and then follow along behind me as I went about my day. How lovely that would have been as I dragged my conjoined twin around as I showered or made dinner or went to the ladies' room. That's love, people. That's real love. Oh, how I adore my sperm-producing organ.

In our quest for love, we discover that it's not very easy to find a match. Then, one day, a dame swims by and catches the fella's eye. He is caught. Ensnared by her charms. He MUST attach himself to her flank. They are one. Together forever in the black darkness of the deep sea. No one ever said that nature is kind.