"That's Not Food!"

I've been proposed to twice in my life.  The first time was by Chris back in 2004 on a day I gave him a glimpse of what life with me would be like.  He begged me to go out to dinner; I whined and complained and told him I wanted to stay home and watch TV.  At the restaurant, he tried to persuade me to get a drink and a pricey appetizer and the most expensive entree on the menu; I believe I told him to leave me alone and go straight to hell.  Still, despite my crabbiness and overall unpleasant demeanor, the engagement ring arrived at our table and Chris proposed marriage and perhaps a dessert of some sort.  I said yes to both. He's going to make someone very happy one day. The second proposal was just a couple weeks ago.  It wasn't as much a proposal as a statement of fact. I was cuddled with the kids on the couch and Andy said, "Mommy, when I grow up, I'm going to marry you." "Aww," I replied.  "That's nice.  But I'm married...

Alex is confused.  If he could construct sentences, I'm sure he'd say, "Is it Christmas again?  Is it STILL Christmas?  What's going on out here?  Am I getting more toys or not?" We've survived the polar vortex.  It's over, folks.  The snow has melted, and although I empathize with how cold and lazy it is out there, it's time to put your Christmas junk away.  At this point, you should just be embarrassed.  I wish I could say it was only one or two houses in my neighborhood that still have decorations out, but it's literally every third house. This is why we don't bother to put outdoor decorations up in the first place.  Actually, there's a couple reasons.  Here's the complete list. 1.  Don't want to. 2.  If you put them up, then, yes you have to take them down BY FEBRUARY AT THE LATEST PLEASE. 3.  I can think of about ten thousand other things I'd rather spend money on than a fake Santa for the yard. Su...

Sometimes I think Andy ghost-wrote this book by Mindy Kaling.   Not that I've actually read this book, but I do think that it's, hands down, one of the best book titles ever. And right now, Andy believes that everyone (mainly me and Alex) is having fun without him, and this fear is gnawing at his soul and making him a touch paranoid.  I keep reassuring him that it's not true, but my reassurances are false, and Andy is highly suspicious of what exactly goes on after he gets dropped off at preschool. He has caught me and Alex in the children's museum in his preschool building, and he sobbed about it for hours after spying us through the small window in the door.  "Why did you go to the museum without me?" he kept asking.  Eventually, after reasoning failed, I managed to calm him down with some sort of sugary bribe.  That was only one particular instance, though, and his small life is now clouded with anxiety whenever Alex and I bid him adieu at preschool. ...

I'd like to write a blog entry about my grandfather dying and about what that means to me and my family.  I'd like to throw in the mortifying pieces of humor:  Andy thumping on his chest and crumbling cookies into his casket, the comically morose demeanor of the funeral director as he grew angrier and angrier with all of the children (and their toys), and how Andy kept asking why dying means you have no legs (as you can't see the lower half of the body in the casket).   Ideally, in this blog entry, I might tell you how we explained death to Andy- the hodge podge of narratives, including people getting very old and sick, souls flying up like angels to be with God in Heaven, a person passing away simply because they are done with their work on this Earth.  Did Andy understand all this?  Yes, I think so.  Because now he wants to know if Mommy will die one day.  And he wants to know if I'm sad that my grandpa is dead.  And he has listed all of the peo...

Sometimes, while we're sitting on the floor, Alex will announce, "Hat!"  This does not mean that he wants to WEAR a hat; this means he wants to BE my hat.  Alex will say "Hat!" and then proceed to scale me like I'm a climbing wall and try to arrange his whole body over my skull in makeshift hat fashion.  He thinks this is hilarious.  I think this is hilarious.  Then, of course, Andy also tries to be my hat, and pretty soon I feel dangerously close to having my neck snapped.  Hilarity, over. Alex is quick to call out "Yeah!" whenever he falls or tumbles into something.  He will knock his big head into the wall and then say, "Yeah!" in anticipation to the question he knows is coming:  "Are you okay?" Yet we don't even have to ask if he's okay anymore- we just watch him fall and know that a "Yeah!" is about to instantly echo back up at us.  That Alex is so reassuring. And then there's Alex's favorite w...