Cracker Jack has always (ALWAYS) been in a hurry to grow up. He sees Fruit Loop and can't contain his excitement. His desire to play like a real boy ("I'm a real boy!"..."Ah!") is palpable. And this is not limited to playing, oh no.

So it was inevitable, I suppose. A perfect maelstrom just waiting to happen. Cracker Jack has reached his first rebellious stage.

(Isn't it a little early for this?)

Okay, so, backstory: we do a lot of store-bought baby food around here. Gerber babies, indeed. Sure, Cracker Jack got the occasional bite of "real people" food, and he gets more as he gets older. He's only working with four teeth, but don't anybody ever say the boy limits himself. He would eat steak if I let him. Doesn't matter what it is, if he judges it to be "real" food, he'll down it. (Funny story: this morning he was refusing his usual baby cereal-based breakfast. Clever - read: sneaky and conniving - mom that I am, I pretended to scoop the food off of Fruit Loop's plate, when the whole time I only ever had baby cereal on the spoon. (I know, genius. Right.) Guess who gobbled THAT down?)

ANYway, so the whole day was pretty much more of the same. HOW DARE I? I mean, why would I even THINK that the baby would deign to look upon - let alone touch or eat! - anything of baby food ilk? He didn't even want his baby yogurt (a guaranteed success, once upon a time), and preferred to cast about with much wailing and gnashing of his four little baby teeth at the terrible lot in life to which he has been cast. When I finally gave him a whole wheat bagel with plain cream cheese, it was as if the heavens themselves had opened up and it was raining baby yogurt-covered manna from the sky.

AND YET. Who, I ask you, do you think was demanding - DEMANDING, when usually he could care less - to be breastfed AROUND THE CLOCK? Hint: it wasn't Fruit Loop, that's for sure. Dude, it's like I had a sign on me that said "All you can eat - open 24/7!" (And it's like Cracker Jack could read, and...eh, it was funnier in my head.)

What gives? I can't win! He wants to dine on real food, yet he's decided to regress back to his newborn days and nurse, nurse, nurse, cry, repeat.

I'm wondering if he's hit a serious growth spurt or something. Although he's obviously discriminate about what he eats (see: no baby food for YOU referenced earlier), which I take it to mean he's not starving and willing to eat whatever slop I put in front of him, so ... yeah. Not sure what to make of that.

Maybe it was just one of those days. In which case, I will go have some peanut butter Oreos.

Head of household, sole breadwinner, king of the castle: Hottie McHots. You may read posts mentioning/about him from time to time, though I assure you that my writing will in no way do justice to his complete awesomeness.

Fruit Loop: Our first-born, Fruit Loop is a brilliant, expressive character overflowing with personality. (And by that I mean yes, absolutely, we have discussed adopting him out. Or exchanging him for the pizza we're having delivered because the day was WAAAAAAAAY too much for me to whip up any kind of enjoyable (or even edible) dinner. You know THOSE kinds of days? Oh yes. Indeed.)

Cracker Jack: Our second child, still a littl'un. Far more serious than Fruit Loop, it will be interesting to see how this one turns out. One of our favorite things about Cracker Jack at this point: he sleeps through the night! (Aaaaaaaaand...THERE, now I've done it, that right there is a pretty much guaranteed FAIL at sleeping through the night anymore.)

The pet: a surprisingly hardy carnival fish. We hope to fill this section out a bit more in the coming years, primarily with a dog. Or two. Or ten, really, why not? I'm also really liking the idea of some sort of working farm, and our future menagerie keeps growing (in my head, at least). So far it includes chickens, sheep, a cow or two, horses, the requisite barn cats... Ooh, and maybe we could have a buffalo farm or something, yeah!!

But, for now, having kids is not unlike having pets. In fact, Cracker Jack has a penchant for chewing on DVD cases and shoes. And while I try to feed them a well-balanced diet, shoe leather is not a part of that. Pardon me, there are some shoes that need saving!