Today is Gorilla’s birthday. I officially have a 2-year-old boy in the house. His favorite word right now is “nooooo.” I wish I knew how to put an audio clip of him saying it, as it’s pretty funny. He does it mostly to be silly. We celebrated his birthday with cake, ice cream and gifts while the grandmas were still here last Friday. Today will be more laid back, but we do have a small surprise in store for everyone.
I don’t remember all that well the day of Gorilla’s birth. I do remember telling the nurse anesthetist a crazy, weird story about one of my cousins. And then I tried to convince him to bring his family to my church. I’m sure he thought “If this lady is in charge of the kids and youth, I don’t want to be anywhere near that church!” The story I told was seriously weird…
I also remember that when the operating room nurses went to do the last of the skin closure from the c-section, all the “skin glue” in the OR was dried out. We had to wait while someone brought up fresh skin glue from another OR. That got my family a little worried because things were taking so long. All was well though.
The other silly thing was that my parents, in the business of the morning, forgot to bring a diaper bag for Girlie. When she inevitably needed a diaper change, they used an extra bed pad from the hospital room. The picture is pretty funny.
And then there is Gorilla’s real name… For those who haven’t heard this story, a telemarketer helped choose his name. Racer and I had the 2 names we wanted to use, we just couldn’t decide the order. We were having a “heated” discussion when the phone rang. It was a telemarketer. She began her spiel and I stopped her saying “Can I ask you a question first?” The telemarketer obliged and I asked “Which name do you like better?” A R or R A. Her response was what I wanted, so that’s the name we ended up going with. After her response, I simply said, “Thank you so much. That’s what I was thinking too. You have a great evening” and hung up! I do so love telling that story… And as for the Gorilla nickname? When he was a baby, Gorilla loved to hold onto my shirt when I was holding or snuggling him. He still does that often. It reminds me of how a baby gorilla hangs onto the fur of its mama. That’s why I call him Gorilla.
So today, as Gorilla is learing to say “TWO!” I’ll leave you with this picture. I love you my little Gorilla!!
Rev. Kris Mares 