"That's Not Food!"

There are some moments in life that feel like memories even before you're done actually living through them.  They get crystallized and stored away into the folds of your brain while they're happening.  It's almost like you get robbed of the actual experience, because it's already over and done with while it's occurring, and you can clearly hear an older version of yourself talking about it somewhere down the road.  In this instance, I am an old lady in the home (not MY home, but THE home), and my grandson Andy Junior is sitting before me trying to mask his boredom while I drone on and on about how his father was such a cute ring bearer at Andy Junior's Great-Aunt Beth's wedding.  "And he was just so darling in his tuxedo," I'm telling Andy Junior.  "Even if he did spill soup all over it during dinner." Unfortunately, I didn't get to see Andy's full journey down the aisle, because I was tucked into my row at the church and t...

Very few things in life are as difficult as grocery shopping with a two year old and a baby. The looks I get at the grocery store match up neatly with the life spectrum.  If you are looking at me and are older and/or a parent, you smile at me with pity and comradeship.  If you are younger and are carrying a basket (a basket!) full of cheeses and wine while talking on your cell phone, you raise your eyebrows at me in disapproval.  You twenty-something yuppies in your pre-24 American cheese product slices stage just simply can't relate to the likes of me.  Perhaps you fear becoming me.  Well, keep drinking that wine on date night, accept that proposal, and before you know it- YOU WILL BE ME.  Only not as skinny. Even though it's a disaster every single time, I still insist on doing my grocery shopping during the week with both kids.  Sure, I could eat up my free time on the weekends with getting the nuggets or go at ten at night like some lunatic, bu...

And Andy's okay with Alex, too. Andy's demonstrations of love towards Alex are more of the give-the-baby-something-inappropriate variety, such as when I caught Andy cramming a goldfish cracker into Alex's open, grinning mouth. "Noooo!" I shouted, heroically leaping over the couch and tucking and rolling until I could reach the offending cracker and pluck it out of my four month old's slobbery little mouth. "Do NOT give the baby food," I scolded Andy. "Do you remember why Alex can't eat food?" Andy nodded solemnly and replied, "Teeth." I have tried to ingrain the fact that Alex can't eat because he has no teeth into Andy's head. I know that Andy gets this, but I guess he just wanted to see what would happen. On a side note, Andy thinks the reason that Alex cannot do many other things also has to do with Alex's lack of dental parts. "Can Alex go to preschool today?" "No. Teeth!" ...

Andy was a bus for Halloween. We (Chris) transformed a diaper box, some yellow wrapping paper, and a handful of craft supplies into what was arguably the best costume, two year old division, this side of Lake County. By "this side," I mean the wrong side, the side that ISN'T near Lake Michigan. It would be nice if this small tidbit were noted by our tax assessor next spring. Originally, Andy was going to be Cookie Monster for Halloween, since he does an admirable impression of the crazed blue dude. Then I looked up Cookie Monster costumes online. Forty dollars for some blue fabric with a couple of eyes glued onto a hood? Seriously, what kind of schmucks do the Halloween costume people think we are? I flat out refuse to spend forty dollars on a costume for a two year old, and this is not just because I'm cheap- it's the PRINCIPLE, dammit. Also, I can think of a million better ways to spend forty dollars, including the following: - Forty boxes of graham ...