Iris Music Thursday: PB&J

Peter Bjorn & John, of course. Iris really has a lot of things to say about this song. "Dey dancin' Mom? Dey singin songs. Da Mommy an da Daddy say 'WHOOOO WHOOO WHOOO' an dey whistle. Da Daddy pay uh-tar." Yep. They do that, kiddo. All adult men and women are Moms and Dads in Iris' opinion, and this video does nothing but reinforce that all Daddys play guitar (uh-tar).

Someday I'll get a video of her listening to these songs. She actually has slightly different dances for each one. The dance for this song is a subtle bob of the head with some general bouncing all over thrown in. It's a rather serious "hipster at a show" move if I do say so.



P.S. I was a little unclear in that last post. No idea what flavor FBK is. Child would not wake up and so the only thing we could see was the face/elbow. All sorts of crotch-shots will happen next month, I'm sure.

Shelby Pat Kelley cannot be moved

Today was the 'big' morphology/ID sex of baby ultrasound. I asked my doctor to schedule it sometime before the weekend of May 5th if he could, mostly so that I could participate in gender-specific shopping on my trip to DC with the fam. It's admittedly a silly reason to bump up the scan, but the doctor seemed fine with the idea and scheduled it for this week. We (I) thought I was 17 weeks pregnant, and that this ultrasound was just slightly too early (usually morphology scans aren't scheduled for any earlier than 18 weeks). Turns out I am not. My due date was moved four days later about ten weeks ago, and nobody told me. So my actual due date is October 6th, 2011. You would think that this information would have influenced Dr. G's scheduling here just a little bit.


While it is wonderful that I have four more days to cook this kid before all the c-section harpies come at me with scalpels, it is not so wonderful in the land of insurance-covered ultrasounds. There were two sonographers in the room: a super nice and presumably experienced one, and a second, mildly snippy student-sonographer who was really extra annoyed that I wasn't far enough along to get all the proper readings. I kept telling her that I think ultrasounds are really super fun (I do!) and that I'll gladly come back, but she wouldn't be cheered. What is it with us and cranky sonographers? I mean, the one today was not nearly as gruff or curt as the last one, but still - cranky mofos.


Anyway, we got some shots of the baby's face and elbow. Apparently the placenta is a lovely place to nap, and FBK could not be inspired to do more than flap an annoyed hand in our direction when we attempted to wake him (her?). I can't help but wonder if we would have had more success had the cheerful, experienced lady attempted the same maneuver. We will know in four weeks, when the next attempt is scheduled. May 23rd, 1pm central time. It's totally going to work this time.

Blue Cheese

Easter 2011 - This picture was taken five minutes after we noticed Iris' 101.2 temperature, so her cheeriness her is extra impressive. Cute, no? Motrin is my friend.

Iris Music Thursday: The Beginning

Also Known As: Hey! Hey! Hey!

Are you sensing a pattern here? Iris likes repetitive sounds. I think it might be a baby thing, or perhaps a human thing, because I don't know a lot of folks who are opposed to repetitive sounds in the form of a good beat (except for myself when we're talking about minute eleven of some awful jam band's solo). Ahem. Let us recall the relative flexibility of the term "good."

Anyway, this song is Iris' first musical love. This song is the first song she ever sang along to, and this is the song which inspired her very first word ever: "Hey!" This is the song that we used to calm Iris down in moments of parental terror (so she's been crying for 40 minutes/is about to lose her sh*t in public/looks like she's about to cut someone - PLAY THE SONG). It was a lifesaver.

Please to enjoy Vampire Weekend's "A-Punk."

Smells Like Irrational Crying In Here

How about a State of the State address, if "state" (the latter) is like, the life of the Columbia Kelleys or something similarly vague? I knew you'd be down with that! Thanks for being so supportive of my generalities, oh bloggy buddies of mine.

Iris is on the potty train. She has shining moments of totally GETTING it, then slips back into rejecting the notion altogether, just hours later. I think in those moments she throws such a fit because the idea was likely recommended by one of her totally square and lame-oozing parents. We apparently do not ever have good ideas, and the appropriate response to any suggestion of ours is to throw an enormous fit. Like, enormous. Big old ugly tears and lying prostrate with woe, eventually winding down to a little wimpering and the declaration, "I crying, Daddy. I so sad." Juuuust in case you missed that giant floor show, let me tell ya, I'm sad.

Kyle is gleefully counting down the days remaining till summer break begins (24 with actual kids present - no idea how many total, but the kidless ones don't really count). Over the last four years he's mastered the Grimace and Ignore It face, so it will be nice to see him unclench a bit and just enjoy life. He's always so happy in the summertime. This will come in handy for him this particular summer as I get bigger and less pleasant to be around.

Speaking of being unpleasant (yay)! I have been gloating these last months about how much better I'm handling pregnancy this time around, how the hormones don't seem to be affecting me as much, and how generally awesome I feel. (obvious foreshadowing is obvious!)

Then last Friday someone at work was kind of a jerk to me, and then Saturday one of my "friends" was a mega huge cruel a-hole, then a gaggle of electric guitars woke up my kid from nap, then I couldn't seem to keep my eyes open for longer than 30 minutes at a time. Was this narcolepsy a result of the string of dumb encounters, or was it its very own entity, sent to push me over the edge? Don't know, don't really care I guess, but I did end up in the bathroom for about a half hour "pooping" (where pooping = crying into the hand towel), and I did briefly consider finding Iris to tell her that I had been crying, and that I was so sad. Okay, no I didn't. It probably would have scared her senseless and made her cry too, and that's just not nice.

FBK is the size of an avocado and as far as I know, is not crying. I mean he (he?) could be, but I'd like to think it's rather warm and comfy in there. He's busy growing toenails and contemplaing his cool squishy jumprope. He's likely also not very irrational. I'd like to think he lives a very frank and sensical existence.

So, two-thirds of the non-fetal members of the Columbia, MO faction of the Kelley family are currently prone to irrational crying jags. Do not be alarmed. I'm pretty sure that both are in phases which, while likely to get worse before anything else really happens, are temporary nonetheless.

Iris Music Thursday: LA! LA! LA! LA!

Welcome to the first episode of (insert you know, like, booming voice of importance here) "Iris Music Thursdays!"

There are quite a few songs that will make Iris stop everything and drop her booty. This is the most recent, but in the next few weeks I plan to go through all of them, then of course update with the newest as they become available. Your Thursdays will never be dull or awesome-less again!

For today's inaugural Iris Music Thursday Experience, we bring you The Aquabats! with "Pool Party." Please picture Iris bouncing around and shouting along very loudly to the refrain, "LA! LA! LA! LA!"

It's too late to change your mind

You don't get to arrive all round and heartburney at 40 weeks and go, "know what guys? I maybe was just kidding. I think that adoption is an excellent route for our family, and here let me just... wiggle this thing here, and toggle this doo-dad, and er....yep! Just magicked THAT reality into existence."

You don't sell your house, buy a new one, then settle in the new place and say, "I think I liked the old neighborhood better, let's just go ahead and move back now."

You don't name a brand new human, then try it on for size and decide a few months later that Bob-Ellen is really a much more appropriate name. I mean, hopefully nobody thinks that's ever an appropriate name, but that's not the point.

I am certainly not saying that I don't want to be pregnant right now. We want another child now and I love this baby. And so far (even with the 3-month hangover minus the fun drunky times the day before) this pregnancy has been much easier to deal with than the last. I guess I'm just feeling rather fatalistic these days. I just sort of got on this train and now I don't really know who is in charge, but it is most definitely not me. That's fine. It's a little scary, but perhaps it's best to identify the situation then just let it go. I'm going with the flow. I'm zen. I suck at zen, btw.

And we are thinking about selling/buying house these days. And we are struggling to come up with a name for this kid. And somehow I can't lay on my stomach anymore because there is a beefsteak tomato sized person in there, and he really doesn't like it when you lay on him.

I feel like suddenly one day I'll be in a new house that I don't think is very cute, next to crazy zealot right-wing neighbors, while Iris again completely ignores my warnings about loving small creatures too hard and squashes baby Englebert in a breath-stealing crunch. That is, she will do so after she decorates him with butt cream and explains the pitfalls of eating markers and peeing on the couch.

I can't have a baby named Englebert, people!