"That's Not Food!"

I've gotten into the habit of giving Andy a PediaSure every day.  (Disclaimer:  This blog post was not sponsored by PediaSure, but if the PediaSure people are interested, it can be.  In fact, the whole blog is basically for sale.  I'd especially love a partnership with the Lexus people.)  I am forever convinced that my children are undernourished, which is most likely a ridiculous notion considering that, as a four month old, the doctor told me that Andy was somehow in the 105th percentile for weight, and Alex will basically eat anything in sight, including but not limited to the entire string family: string cheese, string beans, shoe strings, and string theory.  And I mean the whole theory, not just the questionable bits. Does Iron Man get enough iron, man? So, I became paranoid that Andy wasn't getting all of his vitamins, and I started buying PediaSure.  I gave him one every once in a while, on days when I felt like he'd barely eaten a thing o...

I think I need to spice this blog up a little.  Oh, sure, who doesn't get tired of reading about the mostly ordinary adventures of Andy and Alex and their crabby but happy mommy?  I have a pretty good thing going as it is, I know.  But maybe there's more that I can contribute to the blog-o-sphere. Perhaps I can add some weekly features to the old blog.  Ideas so far: Eating In Places Where You're Not Allowed To Eat.  Sometimes businesses don't want you to bring in snacks.  I'm looking at you, library and assorted play cafes.  But these kids have to eat, and Mommy's not paying a premium for crackers.  Travel along with us as I show you the best way to sneak cheese into places and where to find workable nooks and crannies for slyly snacking. Other Children I Don't Like.  Is it so wrong to actively despise a two year old?  I didn't think so.  Every Wednesday, I will choose a brat that I just can't stand and defame him or her unt...

I saw a book at the library yesterday-  "Your Three Year Old:  Friend or Enemy?"  This is by the author of other such classics as "Benadryl:  Ignore The Label and Go Ahead and Give It To Your Two Year Old" and "Toddlers:  Horrifically Charming or Charmingly Horrible?"  Anyway, I did not check this book out, partly because another mom of a three year old was checking it out, and besides, I already know the answer to the age old riddle of whether or not Andy is my friend or enemy. He's neither.  He's my son, and it's perfectly normal for me to want to smother him with hugs and kisses one minute and a big heavy pillow the next.  With transitioning from two to three, I can already see that this next year will be in many ways amazing (wow, look at you learn these various semi-interesting tasks!) and in other ways infuriating (wow, I can't believe the blatant manipulation and conniving coming out of someone who doesn't even weigh 35 pounds....

Because of Alex's blond hair, people often joke that he must be the mailman's baby.  I'd like to know where this myth of the lustful and indecent mailman first got started.  What neighborhood, with its surely poor and unreliable postal service, was gifted with the kind of mail delivery man that found all of that time during the work day to impregnate the lonely, bored, and somewhat sleazy housewives of suburbia?  How much better looking was this hunk of a mailman than, say, my mailman, who is just some lazy putz driving his dorky little mail car straight up to the curbside boxes?  Did this slutty mailman actively seduce a subdivision of stay-at home moms with free subscriptions to Cosmopolitan and the scoop on who was getting foreclosure notices mailed to them? And how did these women, these ladies of questionable morals, find the time between changing diapers, washing dishes, and applying band-aid after band-aid to mostly imaginary owwies to invite the mailman in fo...

Andy got a pretend doctor's kit, and now we play doctor.  Sometimes I am the doctor, Andy is the patient, and Alex is the incompetent nurse. Sometimes Andy is the doctor, I am the patient, Andy is also the nurse (he runs a real two-bit practice), and Alex plays the role of himself.  And sometimes, just sometimes, Andy starts as the doctor, forgets what we were doing, starts self-medicating halfway through his turn, and then has an argument with himself regarding how much the co-pay was supposed to be. Playing doctor is some of the most fun we've had.  The doctor's kit comes with play scissors, for some reason, so every check-up include a hair cut.  "Now I cut your hair," says Dr. Andy, snipping recklessly at my ponytail.  When I am the Doctor (Dr. Mommy, MD), Andy reminds me, "Don't forget my hair cut!" The scissors have provided a further element of nuttiness to our play and will no doubt provide confusion when we go to Andy's three year old...