You Spin Me Right Round Baby

Kirk loves bling. He'll carry around Mr. b's Halloween Barry Gibb chain and put it on and take it off. And put it on and take it off. Even better is a string of blue Mardi Gras style beads, probably from Pride. They're just a bit longer so easier to pull over his head on his own.

He's also gotten really into dancing. He's always been a very aurally aware baby. Now he's totally into "real" music, and not his little kid stuff. He'll hold his daddy's phone and jam out to whatever songs he manages to put on (oddly enough, it's usually Merc Rage's "Devil Girl"). If we're hanging out downstairs then Kirk wants a record on the turntable. We've been listening to a lot of 70s stuff, from Pink Floyd to Andy Gibb. Kirk's got some hilarious moves including turning around with one hand in the air and lifting his right leg and pointing it repeatedly. Awesome.

We think we need to get him some kind of mp3 player for Christmas but it's just ridiculous to even consider buying him an iPod or an iTunes phone. Not gonna happen! But so far I haven't discovered anything that exists that is handheld and doesn't come preloaded with nursery rhymes. We have one of those kitschy jukebox style mini plastic radios that I think will have to do for now. At least then he can have fun spinning the dial through the stations--until he breaks off the antenna. I wonder where I put it?

Keep Out

I’ve finally figured out why parents pretty much universally keep their bedroom's door shut at all times. And it’s not for the reasons I would have assumed. It’s not because of sex. It’s not because of...the Poltergeist parents’ activities. It’s to keep your stuff safe. As the rest of the house slowly becomes child-proofed, our bedroom becomes a repository for all the things that Kirk shouldn’t get into, like jewelry and guitar picks and library books and power supplies. Kirk has long enjoyed playing at the Mommy Fun Zone—the clock radio and cordless phone on my bedside table. But he recently discovered that my bedside table has a drawer. That he can open. And now my security key to remotely work from home is missing. Hooray.

Neverending Story

Kirk never doesn’t want us to read him a story. He is constantly handing us books to read to him. We are going out of our heads! We took him to Baby Storytime at the library twice and that definitely coincides with the start of his book obsession. Coincidence or cause? Who knows.

He won’t sit still long enough for full-length Dr. Seuss books yet. But we know the abridged board book versions by heart! Mr. b actually had to hide the Curious George board books because Kirk digs ‘em the most and we just couldn’t bear to look at them again. At least for a while. We decided that for Christmas, since lord knows he doesn’t need any more toys, we’re just going to get him books. So that we can have something new to look at. At least for a while.

Thankfully, it hasn’t turned me off my own reading for pleasure. I wish I had more time for it. I finished Jane Eyre by Charlotte Brontë. I enjoyed it, but it definitely wasn’t what I was expecting. I figured that it would be a Regency comedy of manners in the Austen style. It was a bit darker than that! Jane, for all her modern, independent woman trappings, really was emotionally damaged. Of course that’s largely due to her anti-Eight Cousins style orphanhood! Once she moved to Thornfield and encountered Mr. Rochester, it felt a bit like Rebecca, especially with the Mrs. Poole mystery. (I wonder if Daphne du Maurier was a fan?) Regardless, I was very pleased by the eventual happy ending. But boy did Jane have to go down a long road to finally get there!