eventually

i would like to get back to blogging soon, mostly because i enjoy the creative output of writing.plus, i need a break from telling the kids to stop fucking with each other. if i have to stop one more argument over nothing i am going to start pulling my hair out.

our house has bee full of the plague for the last week - actually, since the beginning of 2013. so far this year i have suffered a miscarriage, the husband has suffered large amounts of stress at work, and the kids and i have been sick on and off every other week.

on the plus side ge man has been enjoying his gymnastics class, chunk has been a little more reasonable even though the has ramped up the drama, my husband has a job to support us, and i have a great amount of support and love surrounding me from family and friends.

the miscarriage was hard. we have been trying for over a year to get pregnant and were so excited to get the positive line 2 days before christmas. to be honest i felt something was amiss from the word go, but i wanted to believe that we would finally be getting the baby we have dreamed about so i pushed forward with hope. my pregnancy signals started and i thought this was going to be it, but at the six week mark i miscarried and was crushed. a lot of my girlfriends around me are either a.) newly pregnant b.) ready to give birth or c.) just gave birth this week and it has been an emotional struggle. i am super happy for everyone, but the quiet moments are hard and often full of tears. we are trying to be hopeful, but it's hard after the emotional struggle from the last year to keep my head up. i was amazed by the female support i have received through all of it, though, and am grateful to be surrounded by some amazing female friends.

chunk is doing really well and is talking up a storm. i tell everyone she lives life like she is writing a story and it is so true. there is always a scenario to play out, a mystery to solve, or a song to sing. she brings high energy and high drama to absolutely everything she does and is hard to keep up with some days. we are working on teaching her colors, but she simply cannot connect the words to the colors themselves. her recognition of animals is beyond anything i have ever seen, and she enjoys telling you what they say as loudly as she possibly can. she still loves reading books, is starting to enjoy crafting (although it never goes off without a lot of stress), and potty trained herself in two days (TWO DAYS!) her current favorite toys are her baby dolls and her doll house (filled with a variety of small plastic toys to create drama and happiness with). she prefers spicy food, loves her big brother more than life itself, and gives some damn fine hugs when she wants to be nice.

ge man has come light years from where he was when we first moved here. his playgroup has been super good for him and he has forged friendships that i didn't know he was capable of. our little ladies man has quite a few girls with crushes on him and he always enjoys making sure they are happy in the sweetest of ways. he is the most considerate little guy i have ever met and has a brain unlike any i have ever known. still a lover of all things rules, he is starting to be able to build a bit more structure for himself and is thriving under his new status as a 5 year old. he loves his legos, anything scientific, and creating art. his phineas and ferb birthday party was a huge success and i was amazed to see how many people showed up to celebrate him. i may or may not have cried many a time because i honestly don't know how he got this old so quickly. ge man is loving his gym class at the community center - so much so that i signed him up again through the spring. we also enrolled him in tball for the first time and i know the hubs is looking forward to taking him and watching his big guy do the sports thing. ge is insistent he will be an artist when he grows up, but is letting us push him a little in the activities direction. he is reading, wonderful at math, and loves to learn. he loves his little sister and tries not to be too annoyed that her favorite activity is pushing his buttons. i could write paragraphs on how far he has come, and how proud i am of him. he continues to amaze me daily.

we are grateful to be here, even on the hard days. the husband and i's anniversary is coming up soon and i am continuously grateful to be married to him and to have him in my corner. he works incredibly hard for this family and rarely complains. we are a lucky bunch.

well hello there

i'm not sure how we got here, but it turns out that it's november again. that seems to be happening a lot faster lately. november brings around nablopomo and for 30 days i make the commitment to say useless bullshit for an entire month that not many people will read. HOORAH! i can make words. i do find that nablopomo helps me feel more inspired for the month of november, which is why i come back each time and pretend that i have time to blog every single day for 30 days. go me.

i can make 2 promises about this month of blogging right now - 1.) i will really try to do it. not for anyone else, but for me. i have really slacked on keeping track of everything in words as of late and i want to be better. 2.) if mitt romney wins the election on tuesday and you are offended by works like fuck, you probably want to not check on my blog for at least a week. and then probably not anymore after january. these are just the facts.

i will try and not talk about my children every post, but they are kind of my world so it tends to happen. i will try not to mention politics every moment, but my vagina and i are a little stressed right now due to the fact that some people in our country think that men know what is best for us. also, because mitt romney is so not what this country needs. not at all. because the thought of mitt romney running our country makes my stomach churn.

this week my family and friends on the east coast experienced hurricane sandy. luckily for my family we did not get hit too hard, and avoided having any of our (many) trees in our yard falling down, but people all around us were devastated. today as i heard more about the awful aftermath from some friends of ours up in jersey, i couldn't help but feel thankful for our lucky outcome and for all that we have right now. work and life can be incredibly stressful, but we have a warm bed to come home to after a long day and we have our health. some days i am guilty of letting my many first world problems overwhelm me, and some days i need to remind myself to stop whining and be nothing less than grateful.

the struggle

the doctor's tell me i suffer from anxiety, agoraphobia, and extreme ocd. i tell myself, well, of course i do. i think we all struggle with something or another. i know a lot of beautiful people that all struggle with something. i have a lot of wonderful female friends that struggle with so many things each day and i am proud of all of them for so many reasons. it is easy to feel like you are your issues, and i have made a promise to myself, my kids, and my husband, that i will no longer let my struggles run my life. and so, instead of keeping my kids indoors this spring, i have decided to pick myself up and move us all out to explore our new stomping grounds. today was awesome. limerick, pa has an amazing park. and rather than tell my blog readers what an amazing time we had; i am going to let the pictures speak fro themselves.

tomorrow i urge you all to get out and do at least one thing that you don't want to do; especially if it is good for you. <3 and, if you read this little blog, please tell me what you did. i want to share these moments with my friends. <3

7 long days in withdrawal hell

last friday i decided to throw my zoloft away rather than take my dose of addiction for one more evening. the last 7 days have been nothing short of a trial and the ebb and flow of my body's withdrawal from that horrible medication has been difficult. today my lips are almost numb, with the occasional intense tingling feeling finding its way in there. my hands and feet are numb and tingling and my emotions are all over the board. i cried all morning when i saw kate's dress. i mean, it was really pretty, but i don't think that a sane kerry would have spent an hour crying because of the lacy beauty of the dress. last night the zaps were so horrible that it felt like i was going to have a heart attack. every 3rd beat of my heart was a bit off and i felt like i was being tenderly electrocuted. i hate all of these feelings. i hate the anxiety and the physical and emotional pain that this fracking drug withdrawal has given me.


on the plus side; my hair isn't falling out anymore, my sex drive is coming back, i don't feel like shooting myself in the head, and i am starting to find my old spark of me again. my husband told me last night that he was happy to have me back and that seems silly, but the last few months have just been so incredibly difficult and i had no idea that a drug that was supposed to "help me" was swallowing me whole.


i am looking forward to a weekend of 70 degree temperatures, 2 wonderful kids, and a marvelous husband to share those things with. i am thinking there will be a trip to our local dairy to find ice cream and something to cook whatever we decided we want for dinner. merrymead farm has the absolute best strawberry ice cream that i have ever consumed. and the cream i bought from there and used for a decadent thanksgiving tiramisu was amazing. perhaps a nice steak will do, we shall see. i can say, with 100 % certainty, that i will not be getting the scrapple. it concerns me that people actually eat that shit.


for those of you that haven't heard of scrapple before and do not understand why i cringe at the word, let me quote the informational gods of wikipedia to explain:


"Locally called "everything but the oink" or made with "everything but the squeal", scrapple is typically made of hog offal, such as the head, heart, liver, and other scraps, which are boiled with any bones attached (often the entire head), to make a broth. Once cooked, bones and fat are discarded, the meat is reserved, and (dry) cornmeal is boiled in the broth to make a mush. The meat, finely minced, is returned to the pot and seasonings, typically sage, thyme, savory, black pepper, and others, are added. The mush is formed into loaves and allowed to cool thoroughly until set. The proportions and seasoning are very much a matter of the region and the cook's taste.


yeah, that's disgusting.


on the up and up the kids are doing well this week. ge and i have had a few battles, but only because i have ramped up lessons on politeness and listening a bit. he is such a smart and sweet little boy and is adapting to the lessons well. he never ceases to surprise me with his kindness and intelligence. chunk has decided that sleeping isn't necessary again, but i am sure that is because she is getting ready to crawl. she is doing well with solids and i absolutely cannot believe that i have made it this far with breastfeeding her. i was hoping to make it to a month when i was pregnant with her and now it has just become second nature for both of us. we have such a strong bond and i thank my body for that. i hate to spend so many days complaining, but it has been nice to blog through this withdrawal and put it all down instead of bottling it up. hopefully this passes soon.

rah-roh

so michael scott hasn't officially left yet, but i am already tearing up watching the engagement episode, so i know that in 3 minutes from now i am totally screwed in the kerry-cries-at-the-drop-of-a-hat arena. the husband and i spend so much time devoted to our marriage and our children that we forget to have real friends, so our television shows kind of turn into our friends and we really get involved. i actually talk about the people on how i met your mother as if i really spend time with them and they are something other than a script. and, to be fair, that show (and parenthood!) is the best show ever.

i could take a moment here to discuss my thoughts on the new season of teen mom and the fact that dustin from rrlv is totally effed up in the head because of his stint as a boy on boy porn star, but i won't. i feel as if i have already said too much.

i am feeling a lot more like myself today. i actually spent the morning laughing and playing and none of my feelings were forced in any way. and that is saying a lot because chunky decided that sleep was for bitches last night and that neither her father or i are bitches. don't worry, you'll get it. i cleaned the house, bought some red wine, turned some of that red wine into an amazing sketti sauce, and now it is time to tune into our television friends to see if their days were okay, too.

i love my g rated life. goodnight.

day 5 (ish) meh edition

this afternoon the kids and i finished up our shopping trip and i asked ge if i could have his hand to walk through the parking lot and he spent the following 20 minutes lecturing me because "we don't have people's hands, we hold them." and no, i did not teach him that. 

today has been rough. last night i didn't sleep; i had an incredibly weird out of body experience every time i came close to falling asleep. last night i could hear and sense everything going on around me, but my body would never let me fully fall to sleep. to say i am exhausted is an understatement. the zoloft detox has me in a bit of a depression funk today, to say the least, but i powered through and spent quality time with ge playing ring around the rosie and we laughed and laughed every time we all fell down. if it weren't for my amazing family i don't know if i could make it through everything going on right now.

living in a phillie swamp-like weather has not helped boost my mood as it is muggy and hot right now. yes, it may seem like i complain a lot, but it is seriously muggy right now. our home has no ceiling fans and ventilation is for not, so i am sending the husband to buy a fan tomorrow so we can get a bit of relief. 

the most important thing to me right now is a reminder that this too shall pass. and i know it will. 

a few things

today was a rough one in mommy land. i love my little ones, but as any parent knows - some days are more trying than others. this particularly rough day led to my husband coming home before tomorrow and i gave him the nickname, "the closer." seriously, the man is a stress relieving genius. when i feel like i am all done he swoops in and makes the kids laugh while i make him home-made blue cheese stuffed burgers in return.

oh, by the way, my dinner tonight was awesome. 2 lbs of 94-6 ground beef, garlick, salt, pepper, a spice concoction i keep on hand (smoked paprika, garlic powder, onion powder, cayenne, oregano, sage, poultry seasoning, pepper, salt, chipotle powder, and a bit o' rosemary). mix the beefy goodness together, create 8 patties, place about a tablespoon or so of blue cheese crumbles on the top of 4 patties, cover with more spice mixture, and finish by placing another patty on top and smoothing the lines out for cooking. i use my skillet to cook - medium high on both sides for 2 minutes and then tent on med for about 3 minutes more on each side. top with arugula, maters, and red onion. so. effing. delicious. so yeah, he may be the closer, but i make his tummy happy.

i am beyond thrilled that it is the weekend. we are easter egg hunting (not for hard-boiled - hardy, har, har) tomorrow. even though the rain is here, we are weathering the storm - literally. i am looking forward to our family time this weekend and for baskets full of candy and toys for the kiddos. plus, having the husband home, who doesn't babble or spit craziness when i speak to him (normally) is a gift in itself.

the best part of waking up

first thing in the morning, when my husband is rising from bed to get ready for work, i like to shift myself and my pillow over to his side of the bed and saddle into supreme comfort. i do this because i love the smell and the reminder of him just existing. ge often walks in shortly after, with the biggest pouty pants face ever, to crawl up next to me and ask sadly why daddy has to go to work. one day, during the comfort and the pouting, i let ge know that daddy has to go to work so we can have a house and presents; ge replied saying, "i don't want presents, i just want daddy to stay home." and my heart melted.

i may be the person that cleans our home, cooks our dinners, and cares for the kids throughout the day, but my husband is the glue that holds everything together. not only is he amazingly handsome, but he is such a caring and loving man. there isn't a single day that passes where he puts his own needs in front of anyone else and he always knows how to bring a smile and a laugh in the very hardest of times. i know it is cliché, and perhaps a bit fluffy lovey, but he really is my best friend and the light at the end of my tunnel. it would be impossible to put words to the way that i love him, and the way he loves us.

and so, in those morning minutes, i take in everything i feel for him with a deep breath and an intense feeling of appreciation and love. i may not tell him those feelings each day, but i try and never let a moment go by where i don't let him now that he is our strength and peace. and every day those moments are the most relaxing ones for me, the ones that get me ready to great my day and ready myself for whatever insanity the little uns' are about to bring upon me. i do not know what heaven feels like, but i imagine it has nothing on that.

it's a beautiful day in my neighborhood

it was 75 degrees here in pa today. 75 degrees, sunny, beautiful, and the air smelled of spring. if you have been on the east coast and dealt with this cold ass winter that came straight on the heals of a bitterly hot summer you know that 75 was a very welcome change. i opened my windows and doors. the fresh air flowed in and the little ones and i enjoyed every second of the day. a quick trip to the mall to finish up some anniversary present shopping for the husband, a quick grocery trip, a happy meal run, and we were back in time to put chunk down for a nap so ge and i could get our sidewalk chalk and bubbles on.

while riding in the car on the way to the mall my 3 year old was going through his round of asking the same question over and over and over again. when i stopped him and said, "ge, you know where we are going you don't have to keep asking," he burst out laughing. when i told him he wasn't funny he replied, "mom, you know i am funny." little kid is such a smarty ass pants.

out of nowhere in the car chunk realized that she now possessed the skills to blow raspberries. this was a definite first and it floored ge with laughter. he kept asking me why chunk was spitting all over the place and was laughing so hard every time she did that he had tears rolling down his cheeks. they literally sat in the back of the car for 15 minutes laughing at each other and spitting all over themselves. damb, i love those kids.

today has been a beautiful day in so many ways. i cannot explain how happy i am. this anniversary with my husband means so much to me. he means so much to me. the man is an amazing force of greatness in my life. in the last year he has stood by my side and just loved me for who i am and i have found parts of myself i never even knew existed. he is so passionate about our family, about our life. he works incredibly hard to provide us with a life where we can center around our kids. he is hilarious, charming, so so so sexy, and he loves all the food i cook for him. he gives a mean compliment, is an outstanding gift giver, and is beyond thoughtful. the man is one of the most amazing fathers that ever existed. his laughter is infectious and i love to hear him tell stories. he is such a strong and intelligent man and i just love him. it really is that easy; i just love him.

we spent every month of this year buying something for one another on the 18th, just a little something and always a card full of overly lovey-dovey crap, and it has been wonderful and so sweet. today he surprised me with a beautiful bouquet of flowers and a pair of tiffanys earrings; an absolutely wonderful gift. just having him, just knowing i get to wake up by his side would have been more than enough, but i will never complain about boxes in blue. and that's just who he is. he loves to see the people that he loves smile. i am so lucky to have him. i am so lucky to have to beautiful children with such loud laughs and bright personalities. i am so lucky to have a wonderful family that supports my crazy ass, and good friends who always have a nice thing to say.

to quote ben folds five, "i am the luckiest."

we'd watch what we say, but words are invisible

overheard out of the 3 year old's mouth recently :

"oh shit, mom, i forgot all my pacies!"

"mom, i need you to fix the roof on this car because it fell off and i was like, damnit damnit damnit!"

(on waiting until tuesday for his nana to come visit and with irritation) "well she should just come today!"

"mom, when i grow up i will have a baby and feed it with my booms."

East coast winter

55 degrees in February is nothing to complain about.