Love and Marriage

Lately, Darby is very interested in marriage. That is a little disturbing, but what do you do? So anyway, she keeps choosing a husband, then changing her mind. She was going to marry Thomas, but she changed her mind. When Frankie asked her why she changed her mind, she said, “Cause he’s kind of mean and I don’t think he’d be a good dad.”

Isn’t that interesting? She is choosing a spouse based on the kind of father she thinks he’ll be? Man, my girl is on it!

So, she decided that she’d marry Cooper. I must say that she has good taste in boys; both Thomas and Cooper are darling. But there is a problem. Cooper wants to marry Anna. This doesn’t seem to hurt Darby’s feelings, so that is good. I can’t figure out why Cooper would choose Anna over Darby, but maybe that’s just because I’m Darby’s mom. Probably not, though. Darby is way cuter and cooler. There, I said it.

So the other day, Cooper and Darby are swinging on the swings before school (you know I hover, so of course I am there) and out of the blue, Cooper says to me, “I’m going to marry Anna.” I said, “You are?” and he replied with, “Yeah. Cause when you get married, you get to push pie in the person’s face and I want to push pie into Anna’s face!”

Mystery solved. And therein lies a microcosm of girl/boy relationships. Darby chooses a husband based on his potential for being a good father and Cooper chooses a wife based on whose face he wants to push pie into.

Later, I explained to Darby why Cooper wants to marry Anna. She was surprised that people push pie (or cake) into the other person’s face, and then she looked worried.

“Does Boston know that?” (Boston is a little boy in her class). I said that I didn’t know and she said, “Well, don’t tell him that or he WILL want to marry me!”

Aw. Young love.

Fear Revisited

Whoa, guys. Whoa. I know we’ve talked about this before, and we’ll talk about it again, but I am freaking scared of lizards. I can trace it back to an incident where, as a child, I was mercilessly attacked by a massive gila monster with red eyes and sharpened claws. It ran at me on two legs, like a raptor. The blood and carnage seemed endless and I prayed for sweet death. At least that’s how I remember it. It might have just been a regular lizard running out from under a bush and startling me, but how can we determine the truth after all these years? Anyway, I was going to shred a box full of papers that has been sitting in the garage for an unforgiveable amount of time (best afternoon of Haley’s life, right?!) and as I moved it, a little lizard came running out from behind the box. I started having flash-backs and right before my post-traumatic stress set in, I remember saying in sort of a growl, “Whoa!” and then I ran inside and locked the door. The growl is what surprised me most. That was strange and I’m super glad that Frankie was not there to hear it. It was definitely not a turn-on.

Aside from that, all is well. The Darb is enjoying kindergarten and kicking butt (literally---she had to sit on the bench during recess for the sake of the other children’s safety). I am really proud of her. My semester is off to a slower start as my math class is self-paced, so naturally I have yet to look at it. My English class is a memoir writing class and that is fun since I can’t get enough of myself. All the essay ideas I have, though, seem to revolve around poop, underwear, or a mixture of the two (intrigued?). I am pretty immature at my ripe old age of 31. Frankie is doing great and we are just waiting for a cool down out here in mesa. I am usually pretty good with the heat (you know, I stay indoors or go swimming, so it is no big deal for this princess), but after the last few weeks of “excessive heat” warnings, I’m getting pretty sweaty.

I guess that’s it. Are you still awake?