I know

You're back! I missed you, SO MUCH!! You always go for SO LONG!! Where have you been? And why do you always smell like food I've never smelled before? What is going on?

You don't have to tell me. I already know what's going on.

I'm used to being left alone. I get left alone everyday. Sometimes I spend most of the day alone. And it feels like forever!!! It starts the same way every time. Peanut butter comes out, like I told you about before, and it uses Dad's voice to tell me to go downstairs. And I love (LOVE!!!) peanut butter so much, that even though I know exactly what is going to happen, I do just what peanut butter says anyway. And it must tell you to go away after I go downstairs, because that's what you always do. And then I'm all alone... waiting to see if you will come home and what you will smell like when you do... Because you always smell a little different when you come home. And that's the first part of how I figured out what was going on.

You smell like oily-saltiness, or you smell like sandy-ocean, or you smell a little bit like forest trees or garbage (it's true, Dad). But you always, always come home smelling like some kind of food I didn't get to try. You smell like some kind of cow-meat mixed with sweet potato, or like tomatoes mixed with bananas and cheese, or like citrus drizzled on leather... AND IT SMELLS SO GOOD, I WANT TO TRY ALL OF THOSE THINGS TOO! But I don't get to. And that's how I know you're out eating with someone else!

You are going places that you don't EVER take me to! And you are eating foods that you don't EVER feed me!! And I know you're allowed to go where you want and eat what you want and do what you want. But you can bring me to those places, too! And you can feed me those things, too!!

But you're not doing that. You're not bringing me and you're not sharing your foods with me, and I know why. I figured out the other part because just a little while after you're gone peanut butter is all gone too! You're out with peanut butter! You're taking peanut butter out to all the fun places and to eat all the fun foods!! And that's why peanut butter is always here again when you come back home.

And love (LOVE!!!) you SO MUCH!! But I know what's going on.