Anything You Can Do, I Can Do Better

When Rikki's Right

I didn't know how I was going to handle Rikki going on tour again leaving me with two almost six month olds but it's going okay. Rikki misses Hope and Christian a lot and I can tell when we talk to each other on the phone.

My husband called it no matter how much it bothers me. Both Christian and Hope have blonde hair and blue eyes like me. The twins are growing fast and they're the absolute loves of my life (sorry Rikki). Christian has been bigger than Hope from the time they were born and I was kinda worried about my little girl but she's catching up to her little brother (God, I was so happy that Hope is older than Christian so he can't pull the age thing that CC pulls on me).

I have lost almost all of my baby weight which makes me happy because I might actually be able to play rugby again. Again, Rikki was right (I really hate when he's right).

Poison had went back on tour for Open Up And Say...Ahh in June. Rikki didn't really want to go and he actually contemplated quitting the band to be able to stay with Christian and Hope but I wasn't going to let him do that. CC didn't want to go either, he didn't want to leave Ashley and his beautiful baby girls but Ashley told him that he had to go because millions are counting of him.

Its Labor Day weekend now, so it's the very end of August. Christian and Hope are about eight months old and have started to babble. They babble on the phone at their daddy all the time. The bigger they get the more they seem to out number me, like I'm counting the days until Rikki comes home.

Rikki misses his kids something fierce, like I'm sure he missed me too but Hope and Christian occupy his thought majority of the time. Rikki feels like he's going to miss something which there's a good chance he will with his profession and he's aware of it. Rikki calls everyday and talks to them on the phone but it's not the same.

I roll over and look at the clock, it reads two thirty seven in the morning. I sigh and roll over again. I don't like sleeping without Rikki, it always feels safer when I know he's right there beside me. Like when I roll into him at night he wraps his arm around me and tells me that he loves me and to go back to sleep. I miss that when he's on tour.

I no more then get the covers pulled over my head and I hear the baby monitor. One of the twins is crying. I sigh and sit up.

"I'm coming, baby." I mutter to myself.

Even for being the end of August the floor is still cold when I walk across it. I walk out the door of the master bedroom and down the hall to the nursery. I get about halfway there and I realize that I don't hear the baby crying anymore. What? I mean did the baby calm him or herself down (I can't tell which twin it was from the baby monitor).

I open the door of the nursery and go to flick on the light but it's already on and burning my eyes. Once my eyes adjust I see Rikki holding onto Hope.....So I'm dreaming? He smiles and puts our daughter back into her crib.

Rikki comes over to me and picks up my face. His lips meet mine and I smile, he's real. We kiss for a while before he pulls back. My husband moves hair away from my face and tucks it behind my ears.

"Even half asleep you're the most beautiful thing on god's green earth." He tells me and kisses my nose.

"I didn't think you were coming back until Thanksgiving." I say and he smiles.

"A couple shows got canceled." Rikki explains. "I'm home for a week."

"That's great, baby." I say and kiss his lips again. "I love you."

"I love you too." He says and looks back at the twins. "It's scary how much they've grown in two months. I feel like I'm missing so much and that they'll never know who I am."

"Rikki, my love, your daughter is the most stubborn and temperamental thing I have ever met--"

"She gets that from you by the way." Rikki laughs and I gently hit his arm.

"You got her to stop crying just by picking her up." I explain. "She knows exactly who you are and so does Christian. They love you, Rik."

"I love Christian, and Hope, and you, my dear Bianca, more than anything on this planet." Rikki says and puts his forehead on mine. "You're my whole world." My husband says quietly.

"I love you so so much, Rikki." I whisper and he kisses my lips.

Hope squeals and her father laughs.

"I agree with her." He says and grabs my hand.

"And what did she say?" I wonder and he smiles.

"That mommy and daddy missed each other and they should go have fun in the other room." Rikki says and I laugh.

"Okay." I agree and he lights up.

"Hold on!" He says.

I watch as my husband kisses our sleeping son on the forehead and tells him how much his daddy loves him. Then Rikki does the same with Hope who is wide awake in her crib. I smile and lean in the doorway.

I'm the luckiest broad on the planet. I have everything I've ever wanted and I wouldn't trade this life for anything.

Rikki turns around and grabs my hand again.

"Let's go." He smiles and I kiss his hand.

"After you." I say and he lights up.

Rikki raises his fist in the air exactly how Judd Nelson did at the end of The Breakfast Club, the movie we watched on our first date. It seems like it was a lifetime ago but he still makes me feel like he did on that first date.

I've never felt this way before, I've always gone on the whole idea that love is for suckers. Or that the media over romanticizes it into this unattainable thing, like trying to catch smoke. But if that's what this feeling is, it hits you like a freight train or like lightening. The world is suddenly clearer and enhanced. I'm not saying you want to skip through daisies and wear tie-dye but it makes you feel like the world isn't this horrid place of corrupted ideas of peace but still being in a constant threat of nuclear war. It makes you believe in those small things in life, like books and instant hot chocolate. Maybe all that stuff The Beatles were preaching about is attainable, maybe All You Need Is Love. Maybe I've lost my fucking mind, maybe I found something while in the mists of losing my mind. Maybe, maybe I just need a drink.

That's how I feel every time my best friend, my husband, the father of my children, Rikki fucking Rockett looks at me.

The End