crying. There are tears.

tonight my 3 & 6 year olds came barreling up from the basement to wrestle savagely over possession of...a dirty sock. Why? Stop asking stupid questions, Mom, it's a dirty sock and I NEED IT!

Recently my 3yo told me 'I'm not going to eat any FUCKING GRAPES!' We don't swear (or spell-swear) in front of him, so I had about 1.5 seconds to be shocked & strategize. 'Funky grapes? Why are the grapes funky?'

Weren't we all in love with Raphael the Emo Turtle? Even my husband had a boy-crush on him.

I'm sitting in bed next to my human husband now, but let's be honest- he's no Prime.

Around age 7 I was obsessed with Transformers. When my parents bought a Suburban I was convinced it was Optimus. I would lie down in the third row and talk to him. We were going to get married.

Totally agree. I marched in there a few years ago & asked how to do a basic smoky eye. She didn't oversell me, I learned a lot, and it made me feel so much more confident & willing to experiment.

Even in whitest, blandest suburbia this is true.

There's something aspirationsl about an item like that when you're living on student loans & frozen pizza. We had to get ourselves well & truly established before I was ready to officially decide I am not a chafing dish kind of woman.

That reminds me of the advice my mom gave me about engagement rings. I wanted a nice one, but I felt guilty about the money. She told me to do it and not wait until later because forever after there would be something better to spend the money on and I'd never get one. SO TRUE.

An artsy friend of my mom's gave us 'personal' gifts- i.e. shit from her house. One was a very used throw pillow with a lighthouse appliquéd on it. Another was a sloppily framed charcoal sketch of a houseplant done by her father. I finally got the guts to ditch the sketch recently. I always felt guilty before because…

As part of our moving purge we gave up on a few huge, heavy crystal frames that were wedding gifts. I mean, they were very nice, but I don't want 'em and never did.

My now ex-step-MIL gave us a set of a dozen crystal goblets that she swore up and down were on our registry. They weren't, because I am a practical woman. She was so vehement, though, that I faked delight at remembering them. My husband uses them occasionally to drink Belgian beers. FIL is now onto #3.

God bless everyone who bought off our registry. Those are still the plates & silverware we use, 11 years later. I am only now replacing some of those pots & pans.

My husband (who cannot remember what year we married in) and I managed to book airline tickets for me to leave town one year without either of us remembering the travel date was our anniversary. My mom had to tell us.

I had one of those black eggs at a restaurant in Bangkok. I swallowed because I wanted to be a polite Westerner, but I've never wanted to repeat the experience.

So if you're swallowing it whole & not really chewing, is there a flavor to enjoy, or is it just a pleasing alternative to hunger?

So if you're swallowing it whole & not really chewing, is there a flavor to enjoy, or is it just a pleasing alternative to hunger?

My older son was 4lbs 13ozs, or about a third of this child. Granted, he was 7 weeks early, but even his fully cooked brother was 6'12".

No. Any basic insurance covers it, including all government programs.