There is a wave of relief in our house with the boys home. All three J-M children slept very very well last night and woke up in fantastic moods.

Everything is back together again.

Meera at Pacifico

Little Miss has been getting so much attention these past few days that she doesn’t even know what to do with it all. (But she does appear to like it!) With the boys away for their first big overnight trip to NH alone with MorMor and MorFar (!!!!!!! big huge big huge deal for ALL involved!!!!!!!), life has been very different around here. Very, very different. Very, very quiet. Very, very calm. Very, very peaceful. Very, very sane. Very, very boring and empty and placid and dull. It has been very eye-opening and we have lots and lots of thoughts about it. Last night we took full advantage of our final night as a simple quiet mobile easy-breezy threesome (the boys come home later today)… and we went out to dinner at Pacifico, a Nuevo Latino place that we love. This is something that we would never do with K & O — they are just simply too loud and way too active for a place like Pacifico. But Little Miss was definitely in her element there, quietly nibbling on avocado from our ceviche, and happily devouring the bread that the servers kept bringing her, and generally being the sweet little sit-still and enjoy-the-scenery girl that she is. She was, of course, good as gold, and stole the hearts of all of the restaurant staff as she smiled and waved and said “hi” and “bye” to them over and over and over in her cute little restaurant-appropriate voice. Braydon and I could not believe that we were out “on a school night” drinking margaritas and eating delicious things and having real conversations and just generally relishing in the extreme loveliness (and recognizing the excessively deep dullness) of having only an angel-baby singleton baby girl for a moment. Little Miss seems to feel exactly the same way that we do: this ‘life-without-K-and-O-thing’ is nice and all, but the sooner they get home the better. Life is definitely interesting-to-an-extreme with them around… and it isn’t always easy to have the constantness of their overflowingness… but we would not trade it for the world. We’re counting the hours until we pick them up at the airport. We can’t wait to get this house all filled up with those wild and crazy boys again.

Grandma Lorraine, Grandpa Les and the Great Grands

We spent Easter weekend at Bement Camp again this year. It was the best ever (click here for last year). This year was especially special because all of the cousins and second-cousins on my entire side of the family were there. Grandma Lorraine and Grandpa Les had all of their children, grandchildren, and great-grandchildren together in one place for a day (we came from the states of Washington, Vermont, Maine, New Hampshire, Massachusetts, Connecticut, and Pennsylvania). K, O, and M got to play all day with all of their second-cousins and it was grand fun. It was a really special time for us all. And the rest of the weekend –including Easter itself (Meera’s first Easter)– was the icing on the cake. We have a whole slew of photos to tell the story and show some of the highlights.

Roadtrip: the 5 hour drive from PA to MA
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Saturday morning, 6:47am: Kyle, Owen, MorFar and Neptune
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Geese on the lake at Bement Camp
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Every once in a while it’s good to check in on what music is inspiring our family. In the last few months, the boys’ interest in music has jumped up. More specifically, they are becoming aware of different songs, pieces, lyrics, composers and performers. Their love of music drives their consciousness and it’s really amazing to witness.

Some of the cuter, funnier scenes involve K & O DJing at their little stereos in their room. They often demand we come up and listen to a song they are playing. Here is the list of all three Jammers (J-M’rs) favs :

• Say Hey, Michael Franti
• Truth #2, Dixie Chicks (from the Top of the World Tour live CD)
  
• Morning from Peer Gynt Suite, Edvard Grieg
• Stir it up, Bob Marley
• 1812 Overture, Peter Tchaikovsky
• Short Ride on a Fast Machine, John Adams
• One thing, Finger 11
• Symphony #5, Beethoven
• Who let the dogs out, Baha Men
• What a wonderful world, Louis Armstrong
• Watch me baby, watch your brother, from I’m going to be a big brother
• December, George Winston

And Meera’s favorite (the boys call it her ‘sleep music’ since we put it on in the car to lull her a bit):

• Wish I could, Norah Jones

It is always an Event.
It was an Event last year (click here), and it was an Event the year before (click here), and it probably always will be.
Egg Dye + K + O = CRAZY
crazy, crazy, crazy.
craziness.
I will admit, it does get easier and less insane each year we do this.
But still, it is C-R-A-Z-Y.
Should have tried to get a video of it, but of course I was way too busy trying to do damage control.
All in all, as C-R-A-Z-Y as it is (think egg dye flying, dripping, puddling, splashing everywhere; think 2 sets of hands semi-permanently stained with egg dye; think uber-enthusiasm… like totally-into-enthusiasm-like-you-probably-would-not-believe-unless-you-could-witness-it-firsthand TIMES TWO; think insanity)… it is a darn good time and a bunch of good laughs too (amidst the mayhem and mega-challenge-to-your-quick-clean-up-reflexes). And this year, for the first time, the boys did blown eggs too (in addition to our traditional hard-boiled) and it was truly very impressive to us that they were able to not only blow the eggs out but that they were able to also not crush the egg shells in the process. Quite impressive given that this is K & O we’re talking about. I can say for sure that they could not have done that a year ago.
Progress, progress.
Next year we’ll add Little Miss to the mix. This year we just gave her the egg dye box to play with. She was more than satisfied with that.
The Egg Decorating Event. A tradition we love (and are also very glad to only do it once a year).

We are within the one-month-zone now. Less than one month until Kyle and Owen’s 5th birthday. They’ve been talking about it here and there since about November, but now — now that it is getting so much closer — we’re hearing about it daily (often multiple times daily). Kyle and Owen love their birthday. And we celebrate it big-time each year (me using it as a great excuse to throw a great big bash). You know the excitement is really building over something when they start playing that thing out in various ways over and over and over during their days. And recently the boys have started in on that phase of the birthday-anticipation. In these photos they are “playing birthday” (as they call it), this time with the cake part of the birthday ritual (there are many variations on the birthday theme, believe me!). They were out in the back yard in their play shed and were so immersed in their play that they didn’t get the least bit distracted by me sitting right there snapping photos. Here they are, singing Happy Birthday to themselves, with the (sand and stick) “candle cake,” slicing the cake, serving the cake, eating the cake. They did this over and over, many times. I’m so glad that I can capture some of these moments in photos because they are just so precious. These kinds of perfect moments make up for all their shenanigans.

Today was a big, huge, mega-big-deal day for Kyle and Owen Johnson-McCormick. The First Day of Baseball. They have been so excited for this day. Just so, so excited. Words cannot describe. They have been eating, sleeping, breathing, and talking talking talking playing playing playing baseball since the weather got warm enough to be out there every single day playing it. To say that these boys love baseball (and the Red Sox in particular) is a major understatement. Luckily for us all (because I don’t know what we would have done if it had been rained out), it turned out to be an absolutely spectacularly gorgeous spring day. Truly the perfect day for this momentous occasion. This momentous occasion that they boys had been eagerly anticipating for many sleeps now.

A few weeks ago I signed K & O up for t-ball with our town league. Technically they aren’t quite old enough, but they are soooo ready for this, and I could not imagine making them wait another year before starting. The officials let them slide in despite the fact that they are by far the youngest on the team (from what I could tell the next youngest player is six months older than them and the vast majority of the kids are 6 or 7 year olds). In true K & O style, though, they managed (seemingly quite easily) to hold their own and make a name for themselves on the first day. Owen was, as usual, quite the hot ticket on the field — a rowdy funny guy who gives everyone a run for their money and a lot of laughs along the way. Kyle was the epitome of himself — earnest and eager and completely heart-meltingly enthusiastic. Both of them hit the ball real well and (miraculously) followed the orders of the coach for the entire 1.5 hour “practice” (although it was, admittedly, getting a little touch-and-go there at the very end). This was real ‘old school’ t-ball (i.e., lots of dull time with nothing to do but pick dandelions in the field as the coach cycles through every single kid making sure each one makes at least one hit while everyone else just stands there). As a person who grew up at a children’s camp, having been a camp counselor myself, and having had my fair share of experience dealing with kids/people/leading events/etc… I sat there thinking of at least 100 different ways that they could modernize this way-too-old tradition and make the time so much more fun and exciting for the kiddos. I felt for K & O — watching was kinda painful — and at one point I overheard Owen say (sorta to himself and sorta to the coach) “Well, there sure is lots of extra time!” (a very nice way of saying, “wow, this sure is boring”) — but, alas, they did survive, with their love of baseball (hopefully) fully in tact. The highlight for each of them was, of course, when they had their own turn up at bat. They can hit the ball pretty easily off the tee (they are, after all, used to hitting real pitches from MorFar, Braydon, or anyone else willing to throw it to them), so they each got to hit a few balls in a row. Kyle got to play First Base for a while, and loved it; “I got to be the first baseman!” he told MorFar when he called to ask how t-ball had been. Meera hung out with Braydon and I as we watched the big boys play. And those boys, I’ve just got to say it: They were so cute today. As Braydon and I sat there watching with Meera we must have said to each other, at least 2 dozen times, something along the lines of: “Wow, this is like ridiculously all-Americana.” Photo documentary below! (as always, click on any photo to enlarge)

Kyle on the phone with MorFar first thing this morning–
chatting it up with excitement about the first day of baseball.
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Right before we left for practice–
they wanted to wear their Red Sox shirts, of course.
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Owen up at bat.
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Kyle up at bat.
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Meera cheers!
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Owen hitting another ball.
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Owen running home!
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Kyle hits another ball.
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Kyle running home!
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Like I said, “ridiculously all-Americana.”
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Could there be a cuter baby sister on the sideline?
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P.S.

Dear MorFar,
This whole baseball thing… this thing that the boys love so… it is all because of you, and it is all for you.
Love,
Your Daughter (who hated t-ball when I was a kid, but who is loving giving you baseball-LOVING-grandsons)

Baseball in the driveway, May 2006
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Watching a Red Sox game on t.v., July 2008
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We do our best to be very sensitive and careful in how we handle and discuss race, class and gender in our family. We work on our use of language, our interactions, our alterations of existing materials, our own internal, built-in biases. We work on them, attempt to work them out, and be in a place of natural equilibrium and equality in our daily life. We are not by any means perfect, or even always good, but we are always working to be better.