A romantic Valentine's Day exchange

I'm sitting with Zeke in the rocker, trying to get him to go to sleep. He's been up past his bedtime and is overtired and a little fussy, so I'm trying to soothe him and get him to settle down. He finally starts to relax -- he's working on a bottle and his left hand is massaging the top of my left breast, just under my shirt collar.

Suddenly, I hear steps like someone (presumably Jason) is running, a loud crash, an "ooof," and then groaning.

I don't want to jolt Zeke out of his reverie, so I whisper loudly, "Honey? Are you OK?"

More groaning.

I continue rocking in the chair. Jason is apparently nursing some kind of wound on the stairs, but he hasn't said, "call 911," so I stay with Zeke. Finally, I hear Jason stumble up. It's dark in the hallway and in Zeke's room, so I can only see his silhouette as he limps in to sit with me while the baby goes to sleep.

"Did you bump something?"

"Grrhnn." He grunts in assent, and then starts lowering himself onto the floor. He also starts to chuckle, because for reasons I will never comprehend, his reaction to extreme pain is to laugh.

"Honey, before you sit down, could you hand me Zeke's blanket from the crib?"

Jason leans over until he is on all fours, resting on his forearms, head down, continuing to laugh in pain. This goes on for a couple of minutes. I still don't have Zeke's blanket.

In the gentle sing-songy voice I use for bedtime, I say, "Zekey, could you tell Daddy to stop being such a pussy and hand me your blanket?" I'm starting to laugh a little bit at this point, but I'm keeping it under control. Jason starts doing that silent shaking thing when he's laughing so hard that he can't even produce sound.

Zeke starts to fuss because what was once a soft, still, comfortable place to rest is starting to move as I am beginning to have difficulty controlling my shaking. I shush him and pull myself together, and he calms down again.

Still no blanket.

A minute later, I say, "Boy, Zekey, Daddy's really being a soft-cock, isn't he?"

Jason starts to wheeze with laughter, but manages to reach into the crib and hand me the blanket. He then collapses on the floor.

"What did you do?" I ask.

"I think I broke my toe. I was running to come up here and slammed my foot on the edge of the stairs."

"I'm sorry, babe."

We stay like that for a minute or two. I snuggle Zeke, who is close to being asleep. Jason lies on the floor, waiting for the pain to subside.

Finally he decides to go put some ice on it.

"Good night, Zekers. Daddy's going to go fan the sand out of his vagina now."

And we both totally lose our shit. I burst out with a laugh about 6 inches from Zeke's ear, who starts awake and begins to cry again, plus I'm shaking uncontrollably, so he's understandably pissed. Jason is standing up but bent over at the waist with his hands on his knees, because that's the only way he can avoid falling over.

By the time we all calm down, I think we've all three peed in our pants a little bit.

Jason finally limps out to get some ice.

"Feel better, honey! Love you!"

"Love you too, baby. Happy Valentine's Day."