Tonight I brought Archer over to an old friend's house. She hadn't seen him since last summer and was in town for the wedding, having a family party. So we crashed it. Upon arrival, Archer hid behind me for half an hour. He immediately buried his face in my coat, like he does, and slowly came out of his snail-shell to blink at the dozens of waving hands.

Slowly, he slid down from my lap and landed with a thud on the floor, where he crawled to the nearest coffee table and hid, as he so commonly does, when surrounded by strangers.
 

And then. DUNT. DUNT. DUUUUUUUNT! It happened...

He saw her across the living room at first. She had long brown hair. (Archer loves himself some brunettes.) Freckles. And the sparkling eyes of a goddess. Archer smiled at her through the slits in the table, before pulling himself out from underneath and heading straight at her with arms open. Ahhhhhgaaaaaaaaaydagaygay!

 
She picked him up and sat him on her lap.

"Well, hello there, Archer!"

 
He opened his eyes wide, smiled and nuzzled her cheek while gazed starry-eyed at her, patting her arm with love.

At first I thought maybe he thought she was me. We have had quite a few incidents lately where Archer stumbles into a similarly dressed woman and tries to hide between her legs, only to realize moments later, that he is actually grabbing the ass of a stranger instead of his mommy, only to freak out and run screaming in circles like a cuckoo. 

Not that this girl looked anything like me, but hey! Maybe he saw the long brown hair and thought, "same diff." PotAYto, potAHto.

 
"Archer! Do you have a friend?" I asked, figuring as soon as he heard my voice across the room, he would realize he was in the arms of a stranger. But no. Instead he flashed me a "can't you see I'm busy here?" look and turned toward his new girlfriend for more cuddles.

What am I, lately? Chopped livah? 

And all I kept thinking, as Archer snuggled with his new, pretty, high-school girlfriend was, "what the fuck, bitch?" My inner-mean girl got all sassafrass and jealous and shit. Even though I played it off like it was all good. Totally cool.

"Aw. So cute! He totally loves you! Okaywehavetogonowsoooooooobye."

And even though it was completely innocent and totally the cutest thing ever, I got to thinking about the future and how some day, Archer's going to fall in love for real. And then I really will become chopped livah. And I will stay up all night worried about teenage girls breaking his heart.

And then I decided that the perfect scenario might be if somehow I could find a way to keep Archer a twenty-month-old forever. That way he could hide under the table whenever he wanted and everyone would always love him, even the pretty teenage girls, and he would never know heartache. Ever. Or pain. He would never have to mourn a friend. Attend a funeral. Get married. Move away. Listen to my bitching about how nobody will ever be good enough. Because I can already tell I'm going to be that person...

...And I really don't want to be. 

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