"That's Not Food!"

Alex is four months old.  Four months is not that long.  It's shorter than a single basketball season, which I specifically looked up because I am the mother of sons, with penises, who will likely, unfortunately, be interested in sports one day.  So now I can act like I know what I'm talking about should one of them bring up basketball at the dinner table in ten years.  I can say, "Oh, hey, did you know the season runs from early November through... Smarch?"  And they can say, "Mom, you are so lame, but I like the fact that you doubled the cheese in this recipe.  Love ya!" So, Alex has been here four months, not even half a year, and yet it's hard to remember life before him.  Hasn't Andy always been a big brother?  Haven't I always had two kids?  And was there EVER a time all those size one jeans in my dresser fit just right?  Doubtful.  It's amazing how quickly the new has become the new normal.  I am a stay at home mom...

What happened to these??? Andy probably gets a Happy Meal about once every three weeks or so.  Happy Meals are ridiculous these days, including only about six French fries (freedom fries?), juice or milk, and a bag of apple slices.  It's the apple slices that really get me.  I remember getting Happy Meals when I was a kid- back when you could SMOKE in a McDonalds.  I'd be eating my Happy Meal, inhaling second hand smoke, eating a big ass bag of fries and pretending the extra long ones were Virginia Slims, and if anybody had tried to offer me a damn apple slice, I probably would have thrown a supersized tantrum.  And even still, with all those fries, fake smoking, and very real second hand smoking, I managed to turn out okay.  Which is one of those arguments that mean nothing because everybody has some horrible tale in which extreme irresponsibility turns out "okay."  My uncle used to run blindfolded and barefooted across I-90, and he turned out oka...

I noticed that one of Andy's school mates was absent last Thursday, and on Tuesday I asked her mom, "Oh, was Mia sick last week?" "Yeah, she was just a little under the weather, so I kept her home," her mom replied. "She had a sniffle and was a little mopier than usual." This is one of the differences, I've noticed, between the two realms occupied by (a) the stay at home moms and (b) the working moms.  As a former working mom, Andy would have to be more than "just a little under the weather" in order for me to keep him home.  A sniffle?  Mopier than usual?  Forget it.  Andy would have to be bleeding profusely from at least two separate wounds and/or running a fever of equal to or greater than 102 accompanied by occasional, but measurable spells of losing consciousness before I would consider keeping him home.  That's the general litmus test I used to use back when Andy was in day care, and I'm pretty sure it's going to ho...