Word To The Ys

My family is full of loud talkers. Max practically blows off the doors with his regular speech volume. The concept of “I’m sitting right next to you; please don’t make my eardrums bleed” has not yet sunk in for him.  Ollie has learned that loudness means survival around these parts. Seth was born knowing this, so though his words aren’t yet well-developed, his crying and babbling have always been turned up to 11.  Joe and I can obviously hold our own in the volume contest, too.  I tend to get louder as I grow more agitated…with, say, the politics of the day or what’s bothering me with my job (at home or elsewhere) or how much laundry threatens to engulf me every time I open the Door of the Damned.

So it’s a bit of an uncharacteristic phenomenon that, when I pick Oliver up from school and ask him about his day on the ride home, he often speaks so softly that I can’t understand him.  I have asked him to speak up mid-narrative before and it doesn’t work…he just continues quietly describing his day in murmuring tones until he’s done.  Uh…okay.  Didn’t catch what you said there, buddy.

When I went to pick him up yesterday, I decided to frame my line of questioning this way: “Hey, buddy…I want to hear about your day but I need you to talk loudly so I can hear you all the way up here in this noisy car.  How was your day?  What did you do?”

His response was a completely amusing mix of his regular soft volume and this odd growling low-level shout:
(murmuring)”Well, first we
(growl shouting) PLAYED“,

(murmuring) “Then we
(growl shouting) EAT“,

(murmuring) “But I didn’t eat
(growl shouting) MY CARROTS!”

This kid slays me,  I was seriously in stitches.  I need to write down more of what he says these days because he’s insanely funny.  And on the subject of Sir Oliver and his speech, we had some district folks out yesterday to evaluate his speech and he’s going to be starting therapy.  His vocab/understanding are perfect (advanced, in fact) but like Big Brother Max his articulation needs work.  Joe and I understand him well enough but other folks have trouble sometimes.  Unlike Max, he isn’t bothered when asked to repeat himself or when people don’t know what he’s said, which is probably why we’ve let it slide this long.  Actually, I was just expecting that it would improve as he got older but it hasn’t.  But as Joe astutely pointed out, he’s learned his speech by listening primarily to a speech-challenged kid missing a bunch of teeth.  So a bit of a disadvantage.  And while Joe and I articulate and have all our teeth, we’re much less interesting to listen to than the Big Brother Extraordinaire.  Apparently he wants to learn about the exhaustive details of world geography and an imaginary super-hero-like character named Jack and how to complain about any food item placed before him, as these are the subjects most often expounded upon by Max.  Loudly.  In a never-ending stream of words.

Maybe I should just enjoy those quiet car rides home, after all.

Posted in Joe, Max, Ollie, Seth | 2 Comments »

Hey…guess what? We’re back to our regularly-scheduled silliness ’round these parts, and last night we watched our first movie in a couple of weeks. (We’re going to have some catching up to do…) Courtesy of our 2 hours of streaming available through Netflix, we had the opportunity to view a 2008 Swedish film, Let The Right One In.

What can I say?  I was in the mood for something supernatural, having exhausted my annual quota of “Too Real to Be Good”.  Joe had a couple set aside in the queue that he was interested in and this is what I chose: “Twelve-year-old Oskar (Kåre Hedebrant), the constant target of bullies, spends his time plotting revenge and collecting news items about the grisly murders plaguing his town. But things change when he meets a new girl named Eli (Lina Leandersson), a misfit vampire who steals his heart. As a serial killer continues to prey on teen boys in their small Swedish village, Eli helps Oskar find the courage to stand up to his tormentors.” (Description courtesy of Netflix.)

Okay…vampires.  I’m going to admit something really embarrassing…I’ve read the Vampire Books.  All four of them in about 30 seconds flat.   I devoured them like the Cullens devour cougars or elk or whatever they eat.  Please do not judge me.  I also may or may not have gone out of my way to see the two films that have thus far been made.  I would most definitely not kick Taylor Lautner out of bed for eating crackers.

The books are pretty terrible and the movies worse still, so when I saw this movie I thought, “This vampire flick has to be better than Twilight.”  And oh boy, was it.  It was visually satisfying and then some, even without shirtless werewolves.  The vampire thing was almost incidental…the story’s focus was really the relationship that develops between these two misfit kids.  Okay, so one is not technically a kid so much as a very old vampire in a kid’s body, but let’s not split hairs.  Their connection is sweet in spite of the dark and sometimes grisly things that happen around them.

I pretty much despise most films in the horror genre because they too often rely on gross bloodiness or startling tactics to horrify.  This movie, while it had its moments, does not fit this model.  It must be the Swedishness.  It was just a lovely little film about adolescents, one a vampire.  Oh…and lots of scenic eye candy.  I’m not sure how, but this movie made me pine for snow and frosty trees, and I live in MN.

So, in conclusion…a really beautiful, haunting movie.  Subtle and ambiguous.  I really recommend it, and don’t want to say too much more about it in case you watch it yourself (and if you plan to, I also recommend not reading about it much beforehand…just sit down and watch.)

A night with Joe and a movie and simply being together was just what we needed after this last 10 days of difficulty and sadness.  And when it was time to pick back up my everyday life with its everyday indulgences, I’m pretty sure I let the right one in.

Posted in Joe, The Movie Project | 1 Comment »