2.28.2011

unintentional hilarity

(a running joke between my husband and i mirrors the "shit my dad says" guy. most of the time the jokes are unintentional, and by most of the time i mean some of the times. as my husband says, "you're 12")

anywho. tonight's was totally unintentional.

"i tried to power through, but she's just a screamer."

2.27.2011

East coast winter

55 degrees in February is nothing to complain about.



twinkle twinkle little star

Ge didn't talk until he was right around 2 and a half. It wasn't because he couldn't talk, but because he refused to do so in front of people until he felt like he had mastered it. While he was in his silent phase he would hide in his room and when he thought no one was looking he would talk to himself, listening closely to the sounds of his voice and perfecting the words that he knew. At least once a day he could be found hiding in his room quietly working on mama, ball, balloon, and papa. When he started to talk he would do so only in whispers and then one day he just burst out in long sentences full of demands and questions. He is amazing with his words now; speaking in sentences of 6 or more words usually, and is up to four syllable words. We couldn't be any prouder of how smart the little shit is, but we were always surprised by how much he hates music.

Listening to the radio in the car will illicit, "mom turn that off, I hate that radio." Singing songs to him usually leads to him screaming, "mom don't do that. I hate it when you do that." He has never joined in on a sing along, hasn't danced to music in the last year, and has all out started a hate war on everything lyrical. On his second birthday he burst out into tears and screamed at us for singing him happy birthday. The kid hates music. Enter Chunk. The Chunky loves her some music. She loves it when I sing to her and Ge recently started to allow me to sing - only to Chunk and only songs that he approves of. It took me weeks to get him to let me sing the ABC's, he is just starting to love the fact that Old McDonald has a farm, and he definitely enjoys his sister's favorite - the original Ticky Tack theme song from Weeds.

I always thought that Ge was going to hate songs, maybe they just aren't his thing, but I was wrong. Much like talking he was just frustrated that he couldn't do it. As I type this him and his Daddy are playing in his room and he keeps asking him to sing him a made up song about being an alligator. Months ago this never would have happened, but Ge has been having closed door sessions with himself on a daily basis. Once a day he will go into his room, close the door, and practice singing about twinkling stars and the letters of the alphabet. Normally he stops when he knows I am listening, but his comfort level is growing because today he gave me the first two lines of Twinkle Twinkle Little Star in spoken form. He might not be ready for American Idol, but watching him get more comfortable with himself is such a delightful thing.

2.26.2011

re-beginning, again.

For the last month I have honestly wanted to blog, and sat down several times to do so, but I just couldn’t find the energy to update my tired old blog with all of my tired old stories. You see, that blog is over 3 years old. 3 years is a long time in Kerry years. If my blog were confined to the rules of dog years it would be sitting at the bar, drunk and crying about all of the things it never accomplished and hoping that it isn’t making a fool out of itself. The people behind the bar serving my blog drinks would be rolling their eyes and suggesting to my blog that it just move on, and that is exactly what I am doing.

My life is in an absolutely beautiful place right now. I have two wonderful children, an amazing husband, and a kick ass view of a golf course and a river on the East Coast (where the magic happens.) 3 years ago me wouldn’t even believe that I would wind up here and that is why I am going to say a fond farewell to the Life of Kri and a big hello to whatever this blog is destined to turn into. I am going to try and stick to it, but I make no promises. I have a hard enough time sticking to a diet - finding the time to type word thingies after a day of chasing around a 3 year old tornado while carrying around an 18 lb baby is just sometimes impossible. Most nights I am so exhausted that I barely remember how to breathe, let alone put together coherent sentences.

I will start this by sharing a story about the preschooler – the preschooler who I have to beg not to tell strangers that try and speak to him that he doesn’t like them. This week he discovered Bob the Builder and fell in love with him (thank you strategically placed previews on Thomas the Train DVD’s). This week his t.v. channel, Nick Jr., caught the digital sickness and started to fail by way of massive pixilation. I called Fios (who promptly had a guy out the next day!) and our installer, Bob, came in to be our cable fixing knight in shining armor. Ge asked who the man coming over to fix our t.v. was and I said, “Bob”, to which he quickly replied, “Bob the Builder!” And sure, why not? I mean, BtB fixes things, BtFG (bob the fios guy) fixes things; it seemed silly to break his little 3 year old heart. BtFG was a nice guy, he worked quickly and fixed our problems, and Ge told me, “I like him. I like him because his name is Bob and him fixed my cartoon teevees”. This was huge. Our cable guy was literally the first person outside of family that Ge has ever “liked”. We figure it is a step forward in some direction.

And as I type this, peace falling over our home like the warmest, cuddliest blanket ever, Chunk is asleep and Ge is sitting on his Dad’s lap playing his last Nick Jr game for the night and I am excited. I want to be better about keeping these stories for the future. About Ge liking the cable guy, or the DramaSaurus screaming at us uncontrollably if she even catches a glimpse of a bottle – like we wouldn’t feed the beast ever again. Or the husband saying or drawing ridiculous things. Those little things in life are the reason I am starting over – because the future is worthy of the freshest of starts. I will leave my old blog to those poor bartenders.