Entries by Matthew Groeninger

The other day Angie asked me to do her a favor. She asked me to trim the ham that we have left over from our Christmas meal, so that she could use it to make some soups.

Her exact words were “Can you trim off all of the white and gray stuff from the ham?”

If you haven’t seen a ham in a while, here is a picture:


You will notice, if you use a pragmatic eye, that much of the ham could be considered white or gray.

Angie and Alphie are home from work and school this week, which means I have the strange experience of leaving them to go to work in the mornings.

This morning I moseyed through the act of getting ready and then announced “Ok, ladies, I am leaving! I will see you tonight!” and kissed each of them.

Then, as I walked towards the stairs to actually leave, I revised my plan and said “Actually, I am going to go downstairs and make an English muffin, and then I am leaving!”

As I strode down the stairs Angie called “It’s trash day.”

So I again revised my order of operations, and answered “OK, I will take out the trash, and then I will make a muffin, and then I will leave.”

To which Alphie responded “No! We will take out the trash! The ladies!”

I am sure I will still be taking out the trash, but it was darn cute to see Alphie refer to herself and her mother collectively.

My Dearest Alphie;

I am so sad that I missed being able to see you open your Christmas presents. It is such a fun and exciting time.

Here are 2 pictures of my Elmo ring. I think I will have to share it with you because it is too small for my ring finger.
I really like it though. Elmo just always looks happy!

I love you

Sending Hugs,

Gramie Curran

P.S. I am also sending you a picture of my dog Zsiga. I sent this picture with my Christmas cards. He is watching for Uncle Luke!

I was wrestling with a shirt on my head, so I didn’t witness it.

Alphie has recently taking to saying “I’m OK!” immediately after falling. Sometimes she doesn’t even finish falling before she says it. It is funny to watch her contort and fly through the air while insisting she is alright.

Well, it is funny after the fact, when we establish that is is actually alright.

This time she didn’t say it. This time she said “UGH!”

Angie, being closest, surveyed the damaged, quickly establish Alphie was actually alright, and uttered a phrase that may never have been uttered before:
“Yeap, sometimes you trip over elephants.”

You have a funny understanding of pretending. You are not one of these children who are surrounded by a world of imagination. You do not live in a world of your own making, filled with things no one else can see.

You are pragmatic. You are sensible. You seem to enjoy sharing the same world with everyone else.

But you do still pretend.

Sometimes, you will use your little toy cell-phone to call your friends, like Daric.

Of course, when you do this, you know that the phone is fake and so you tell me “I am calling Pretending-Daric.”

You seem to have four or five real friends that you recreate as “Pretending-Friends”. One of them appears in our house fairly regularly (I believe I have, on occasion, sat on her), though the child she is patterned on has never been over to play.

But you can clearly delineate that the pretend versions of your friends are not related to your real friends. You do not seem to ever have instances of confusion regarding when you played with someone, or whether you actually talked to them on the phone.

As someone with a brain-cloud that seems to filter out the little details like what day of the week it is, or what I did thirty seconds ago, that ability impresses me.

The only strange intersection of pretending and reality is with Bunny. You talk to Bunny, you dress Bunny and you walk around the house yelling “Bunny!! Where are you?!?!”

It seems like she is genuinely real to you and that you view her as something like a sibling or a pet.

You bought her a Christmas present. You and your mom went out to the mall and waited in line for an ungodly amount of time (for which you were extremely good) and you bought her some pink clothes, pink shoes, and some beautiful pink bows for her ears.

And you came home, and your mother asked you “Would you like to wrap Bunny’s presents so that she can open them on Christmas?”

And you got very serious, using the tone of voice that is reserved for when your parents are a special kind of stupid, and you said “Mom, Bunny is just pretend, so she can’t really unwrap them.”