ruff

let me just start off by saying - these last 10 pounds are totally kicking my ass. losing these last 10 pounds is made more difficult because my children do not like to eat things that are only vegetables. ge likes things like chips and chunk's favorite food is mac and cheese, and my will and power are weak. i am a weak, weak person. plus, i am a person that indulges during stressful times and having 2 children with strong personalities makes things stressful at times. hence, a potato chip here and there more often than not. damn. 10 pounds.

chunky is officially pretty much walking and loving every step. her sleep patterns are a lot like one of those posters where you have to focus your eyes to see the picture - i think they call them optical illusions. she is still stubborn, still loud, and finds hitting people with objects across the face to be a hilarious daytime activity. my favorite thing she does is crawl over to me, stand up, crawl into my lap, and bury her head into my chest. buried deep within her chaos is sweetness. sort of like a cupcake that will burn your mouth when you eat it. a hot, delicious cupcake.

ge is brilliant, controlling, and full of crazy imagination play ideas that are a lot of fun and occasionally confusing. he and his dad play carnival a lot where his dad makes up these crazy "games" that he wins for prizes (random toys from his room), and he often will walk up to me during the afternoon and say, "mom, let's play that game where we stand and then there is a ball and things happen and yay! prizes." so i try to recreate, but mostly i just fail, and he ends the games with, "you're just not good at this like dad." but i am better than him at mario. and cooking. and i am always right - so there. i am pretty sure the little man is finally going through a growth spurt because all he wants to do right now is consume and that is so not like him. who knows - maybe one day he will actually grow into new clothes. for now we are celebrating the cost cut that comes with him being in 3t clothes for another winter. yay for clothes recycle!

we have a busy september coming up and i am filled with the need to clean. my mother-in-law is coming into town over labor day to meet her grand-daughter for the first time and explore philly for the first time. the other grand parents are coming in for chunk's first birthday and we are having a big ass celebration of family goodness proportions. chunk and her cousin share their birth-day and we are going to eat extra cake and food to celebrate. like i said, damn you 10 pounds!

tell us what we want, we'll believe it

ge switched from watching nick jr to sprout tv. i would explain why, but the title of that blog would be more like, "every single cable company out there will fuck you over, so just choose the one that costs the least and quit your bitching." or, something like that. sprout tv is different from nick jr because they have active commercials geared towards reducing the amount of money in my bank account. ge's current favorite is for aquafresh toothpaste. the commercial has little happy toothpaste thingies dancing all around in their red, white, and blue toothpaste attitude glory. and so yesterday i bought it for him, because i am the type of mom who buys her child a lot of the things he desires and, well, it's toothpaste. if that breaks the bank we are screwed.

last night when we went to brush his teeth i was super excited to see if he loved his new toothpaste, but he told me that we were not to use the new toothpaste. we are not to break into the new toothpaste until his old toothpaste is completely gone. some days i think ge is just like me, yesterday he was not.

today i opened up his new toothpaste because i personally cannot leave new things wrapped for more than, oh, a second. the toothpaste smells like bubble gum happiness and when i asked him to smell it he smiled, sniffed the delicious scent and exclaimed,

"it smells like happy toothpaste!"

and all this time our old toothpaste was an angry dick. lame.

no need to convince me

i don't need the excruciating 24 hours of labor followed by an emergency c-section to convince me that ge is my son because this morning he said this :

"mom, butter is my best food."

fact.

captain control

have i mentioned before that my 3 year old is controlling? well, he is. he is the leader of the bossy cow gang. the captain of control. the handler of all things decision. he has advanced far enough in his need to control all that is around him that he has decided it is he alone who decides people's favorite colors. mostly he has decided that he alone has the power to decide his daddy's favorite color. and so it often goes like this :

"what is daddy's favorite color?" "brown." "but daddy's favorite color is green." "no, it's brown. it can only be brown."

but a few weeks ago he shot out of left field and, for 48 hours, daddy's favorite color was green. i should mention that we talk about colors so much because ge loves to remind us that his favorite color is blue. blue is everything awesome. he will not take his vitamin unless it is blue. he likes to point out blue things and remind us that it is his favorite color. and he loves to remind me that green is my favorite color. that's right. i own green, perhaps he is just looking out for my best interests. he knows that daddy is my bitch. but i digress.

so for those 48 hours ge allowed his dad to make his own choices. did he love green? sure dad! develop a sense of control in this relationship because in 2 days time i am going to smack you down and remind you that i own your choices! me! and he did. and the conversation went a lot like this :

"look. this is green. and green is my favorite color!" (very seriously) "no, daddy, brown is your favorite color." "but, but, you said it was green." "nope, it's brown. brown is your favorite color."

and just like that, it was decided. and ge went back to micromanaging our personal choices and decisions. and he loves to remind us that it is he who decides.

it's like we always say - he is going to make some girl with low self esteem very happy one day, and then sad, and then happy again.

i am so not dad

the kids and i are playing in ge's room with his giant basket of balls. he decides to make a game of the activity. you have to put a hand on your head and then place the ball on your head so it rolls down a certain way. i do as he asks, but apparently i do it wrong because he scolds my actions and repeats the steps. i do it again, fail again, and an exacerbated ge takes the ball from me and says,

"mom, we're going to have to play another game because you're just not good at this one."

so far

11 : 27 am

chunk's 2nd meal of the day. the same apples she had yesterday - today she refuses to eat them. fickle baby. i think she just wanted to eat her fake cheetos.

i have already had this conversation - "look mom, i can lick my window!" "ugh, no, please don't lick your window." "why mom? i have an awesome tongue!"

1 of 2 baby naps has been taken. 1 lean cuisine has been quickly had for breakfast. dancing. singing. reading. toy box (a.k.a. my house) is .13% cleaned. this life is so far from glamorous.

i need a recipe for a low fat high delicious apple pie / cobbler thingie that can satiate my need for a pie without giving me 40% of the saturated fat i need for the day. i don't even like sweet things that much, but dieting is killing me and for some reason i think i want all the cookies and cake in the world. i don't. i really don't think i do. i just need to know that they still exist.

defining love

ge : "mom, i love you mom."

me : "i love you too, bug."

ge : "and daddy loves me, and polly loves me, and you love me."

me : (while eating a big bite of mashed potatoes) "i do. i love you, and meatloaf and mashed potatoes."

ge : "uhm, no mom. we don't love mashed potatoes because we don't kiss them."

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. 

that's stupid silly, mom

for easter we got chunk an adorable little "book" by vtech that sings songs and does other flashy crap that 6 month olds love. the 3 year old loves it, too, as he is finally getting into the whole music isn't evil thing. he is currently obsessed with the hey diddle diddle rhyme and presses it just to tell me, "mom, dishes don't run away with spoons, that's stupid silly. we wash the dishes."

ge absolutely hates jokes and refuses to talk about things that are not possible. he loves to sit in his room with his dad and make his dad talk to him through his mickey mouse doll. yesterday ge and mickey mouse were having a conversation and his dad tried to use his own voice for a second and he said, "dad, i am not talking to you, i am talking to mickey!" i am glad that his dad is patient, and has a decent mickey voice, because ge loves to "play that game"

and everything we do is a "game" in ge's world. he will literally look at me and say, "mom, let's play that game where i say bleck." or any other crazy sound of the moment. he uses the word game for any activity he wants to do. he has an amazing memory and told me the other day that he misses his old sandbox, a sandbox that he had in our old house over a year and a half ago. he remembers things that happened throughout his second year of life with vivid detail. i guess my point is that the kid is brilliant and we love him. and i just felt like writing it down.

it's kind of ...

every night as i get ge ready for bed we discuss the events of the day, or the weekend, in order to remind him that even though he has to sleep now, we actually did have fun in the past. tonight we were talking about our awesome easter weekend and i asked him why he didn't want to say hi to elmo or the easter bunny while we were at the fire house on saturday and he replied, "well, because they were creepy."

i have a blog that includes pictures sitting up in my head that includes all of the fun details from our weekend, but instead of writing it now i am going to put it off until tomorrrow because - well, because relax. that's why. relax + beer + last moments with the husband before he is off to month end work week + relax = no lengthy blog tonight.

we had an amazing weekend and my idea worked out perfectly and right now there is a giant thunderstorm happening outside and even though my brain and my body are pretty effed up for currently undisclosed reasons i am going to end this run on sentence by saying that all of those good things in the before of this sentence are making all the bad things okay. well, as okay as the bad things can be. relax.

he ain't no share bear

yesterday the kids received easter presents from their beloved nana and papa. toys r us messed up and sent 2 of the chunk's present, something that has confuseled the ge monster for the last 24 hours. we have had many a conversation about why nana sent chunk 2 presents and he only got 1. the realities of the additional present are impossible to explain to him and he simply cannot get over it. this morning he was lying on the floor playing with chunk's new rolly turtle happily. he looked up at me and said, "hey mom, it's nice to share!" to which i replied, "yes, you can share your toys with chunky, too." "well, no," he said back to me "today just chunky is going to be nice."

literally literal

ge: "mom, my lunch was delicious"

me: "you're deliciuos"

ge: "uhm, no, mom ... people don't eat people."

nice patrol

ge has become the hall monitor of that which is nice and that which is not. the which is not being things that ge does not want to happen. today he took a toy away from chunk, a toy that he knew he wasn't supposed to take away. when i let him know that it isn't nice to take toys away from other people he responded with, "mom, it's not nice to tell me it's not nice." yeah, that makes sense. telling him to go to bed, getting upset if he does something wrong, and asking him not to climb underneath my feet as i walk are all not nice things to do. today a bee tried to come into our home and he closed the glass door and gave the bee a lecture about how coming into our home is also not a nice thing to do. he has become the hall monitor on all things not nice for ge.

chunk decided last night that sleep wasn't necessary. i disagreed, but my cries weren't as loud as hers when i was trying to sneak in at least five seconds of shut eye between her crazy needs. i assume she is going through a growth spurt, teething, or a learning curve of some kind. i take that back, she is pretty much just being 7 months old. and, in a moment of tmi (but one other women who breastfe(e)d could appreciate) ytf do the little ones think that biting after feeding is hilarious!? she will seriously finish up the second side and clamp down. when i yell out she starts laughing and looks so proud. babies are evil. plus, they still chew on your shit and don't poop outside like puppies. mebbe an american bulldog named matthew mcconaughey would have been a better choice. mebbe not.

we have decided not to tell the kids that a giant bunny is going to hop around and bring them presents on sunday, but rather to let them know that we love them and bought them a basket of gifts. i had a hard time with the santa thing, but i have to admit that the excitement for christmas was fun. i just don't think a giant rabbit is something i want to start making lies about. and, to be honest, i find the tooth fairy incredibly creepy. i would rather them believe in powdered toast man.

shhhhhhhhh ...

chunk actually napped today. that makes the first time she has slept for more than 10 minutes in what seems like forever. when you don't get any sleep for weeks on end the days all seem to drift together; sort of like the lifetime movie network. i filled my time cleaning the crazy out of our home and answering question after question from ge. 3 year olds really have the words "what" and "why" on lock down.

"mom, what are these?"

"ducks."

"what kind of ducks?"

"yellow ducks."

"what kind of yellow ducks?"

"the kind of yellow ducks that don't say moo."

"why don't they say moo?"

"because they aren't cows."

"why aren't they cows?"

"because they are ducks."

"what kind of ducks?"

it sort of feels like a hardcore version of pete and repeat sitting on a fence except pete falls down a very alice in wonderland type well and someone is taking acid and the words just keep flying by in different sorts of font and size. it's just. that. intense.

30 for 30 starts tomorrow. i am hoping to get my blog on for 30 continuous days. it's about to get blogified up in kerry land. you have been warned.

understatement

ge : "mom, why is polly being drama?"

me : "i don't know. when you were a baby you didn't do that, though."

ge : "yeah, but now sometimes i am lots of drama."

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."

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.