August 2002, married less than a year

August 2008, married almost 7 years (at the exact spot on the dock where we got engaged)

Braydon — My love for you would overflow the Grand Canyon, Lake Winnipesaukee, and then some. We’ve been together for 15 years as of this fall, married 7 years as of today. They talk about the ‘7 year itch’… all I know is that I’m itchin’ to find out what the next 7 years with you will bring!!! ;0 Bring it on baby! There is never a dull moment, but I wouldn’t have it any other way! xo hbj

Heather and I are celebrating our 7th wedding anniversary today – can you believe it?!?!? It’s been a wonderful time with lots of amazing changes. I am so thankful that Heather agreed to marry me, I am really the luckiest guy and I have an incredible life with her and our family. She is still my beautiful bride and I love her.

What are we doing to celebrate? Well, we went to Los Sarapes on Friday and it was awesome. But, since we have a three month old and twin four year olds, we’re going to have a nice drink together tonight.

Happy 7th anniversary Heather!

9/15/01

Lately Kyle has been quite critical that we have someone cut our grass. And for the record, I do feel a measure of shame for it. But long ago, we did a little cost/benefit analysis on it, and with buying a riding mower big enough and the amount of time it would take me on a weekly basis to tend to the lawn, we opted for some help. Now, to be quite clear, it was really about the time. We look around and see the men of the world mowing and mowing and mowing all Saturday long and we decided that I’d rather spend the time with my family. And frankly, this basically covers anything outside power tool related (to which Don, my father-in-law can attest – thank goodness for him).

Granted, we are fortunate to be in a place to make that decision…most are not. We’re thankful for it everyday. And Dave does an awesome job, so we’re double lucky.

However, at the moment, Kyle is not so thrilled with it.

“Papi, why don’t you mow the lawn Papi? Why Dave mows the lawn Papi? I want you mow the lawn Papi. With ME Papi!”

Ah ha, the truth comes out. When I explain how it will take me all day Saturday, then I have to weed whack, then rake, then fertilize and I would not be able to go to the swimming pool and I would not be able to go out to lunch with him, he gets a little thoughtful.

“That’s ok Papi, I will do it with you!”

So, after additional thought and mulling it over for a few days, Kyle bring this up and dinner tonight:

“Papi, I want 42 boxes from the box truck! I want a box with a lawnmower, a box with a weed whacker, a box with pressure washer, a box with a wagon in it that I can put on the lawn mower and carry you around in. And I want a box with a chainsaw in it too.”

When Heather points out that he will then spend all day Saturday doing yard work, he replies:

“No mommy, we will put it next to Papi’s lawnmower [the little hand push one I have and never use] and we can play with it whenever we want!”

He must be getting it from somewhere else, since he’s definitely not getting it from me….

Today the Petsch crew came over with Meena, the adorable 4-month old baby that they are caring for. Seeing them with Meena was a reminder to me that foster families are truly a gift to us all. I’m proud to have such good friends who are doing this. And seeing Meera and Meena together was beyond cute! It was, officially, Meera’s first playdate. We generally don’t post about K & O’s playdates because we typically don’t take pictures of them (too busy either chatting with the parents or doing damage control with the kids). But today we couldn’t resist the temptation to pull out the camera. Meera and Meena had a ton of fun– especially when Meera shared her playmat. 😉 Kyle, especially, was smitten with Meena. He even got to help feed her a bottle, which was an extra special moment for him. And of course K & O had a ton of fun with Zoe too (despite some serious infractions requiring some serious time outs for both boys). And amidst all the mayhem the four “growned ups” (as Owen has been calling us lately) had a good time— as always.

• The boys LOVE, love, love, love, love, love school. Any school that can do that for my kids is the right school for us. Seriously… we will milk this for all its worth and keep this going for as long as humanly possible. Two extremely active challenging spirited black boys who LOVE school……. well, all I gotta say is that this school is doing something right. Whatever they’re doing, it works for us. So, I try to remember that when I’m feeling deeply conflicted about the fact that they are two of just a handful of black kids in the entire school… and… we’re actually considering the possibility of keeping them there (i.e., sending them to a ‘private’ school) for the long-haul (i.e., beyond age 4. Because the truth is that for us this whole Waldorf School thing really started as an alternative to more traditional daycare/childcare and we didn’t anticipate that we might want to keep them there for grade school… etc., etc., etc.). Bottom line: they LOVE school. Love it!
• Kyle’s prayer last night at bedtime: “Dear God, I really love my mommy and I really love my papi and I really love my school. Dear God I love my school so much God! I love my school! I love my classroom and my teacher and my friends at school. And I love it God! And thank you God so much that I can go to my beautiful River Valley Waldorf School. Amen!”
• Owen’s prayer the night before: “Dear God, I really love my whole family and I can’t wait to go to school tomorrow! Please help me dream of my family tonight and make tomorrow come quickly so I can go to school! Amen!”
• Separate classrooms is going shockingly well. I mean, shockingly well. If I had known it would go this smoothly I definitely would not have wasted so much time thinking and planning and strategizing and thinking and thinking and thinking about it all summer long. Who knew?! Apparently, it is a non-issue for Kyle and Owen. This is not how I expected it to go down. Of course, things could change. But my guess is that this will be how it is– they’re just ridiculously well-adjusted with stuff like this. Ridiculously. I don’t even know what to make of it. They just roll with it.
• Despite the problem that there are very few black kids in the school, K & O each have a handful of other non-white kids in their classes. I don’t know to what extent they notice or care about this right now… but for me it is very important. I’m also very happy that they have kids in their classes from families with same-sex parents. To them this is all just ‘normal’ and I’m very grateful to be able to put them in that kind of environment at such a young impressionable age.
• 1st Day of School — Kyle’s favorite part: “Helping cleaning up my classroom”; Owen’s favorite part: “Ring around the rosie”
• 2nd Day of School — Kyle’s favorite part: “Mixing and grinding the wheat making bread”; Owen’s favorite part: “Hickory dickory dock the mouse ran up the clock”
• 3rd Day of School — Kyle’s favorite part: “Eating the bread we made”; Owen’s favorite part: “Making and eating bread”
• 4th Day of School — Kyle’s favorite part: “Eating oatmeal for snack!”; Owen’s favorite part: “Eating oatmeal for snack!”
• 5th Day of School — Kyle’s favorite part: “Making and eating soup for snack and using a real knife to cut the vegetables!”; Owen’s favorite part: “Eating rice with maple syrup on it!”
• Tuesday there was a huge thunder storm here. I hadn’t told either of the boys’ teachers about their intense fear of thunder. So I called the school and asked to have the message passed along to the two teachers that K & O are sometimes very intensely afraid of thunder. After school both teachers reported to me that it had been no problem for either of them. On the ride home from school this was part of the conversation—
  

  O: Mommy, there was a big rain storm at my school today.
  H: Oh! Yes, there was at home too!
  O: I asked my teacher if I could go see my brother. Kyle, I asked my teacher if I could to see you my brother because I was worried I was so worried about my brother getting cracked by big thunder.
  K: Oh. You were worried Owen?
  O: Yes, I was so worried you would get cracked by thunder.
  H: Owen, what did your teacher say?
  O: She said I could see Kyle in just a minute but then she said no it was too late. And I was worrying about my brother.
  K: Then what happened Owen?
  O: I cried. And nobody hugged me. Because nobody knew I cried.
  K: Owen, it is o.k. Because I didn’t get cracked by thunder Owen! I wasn’t even scared! I didn’t get cracked by thunder Owen! Look at me! I’m fine!!!
  O: Oh, yes! I know! So that is why. Now I’m not worried.

• Driving home from school this afternoon I announced that the first week of school was done and since it was Friday that means no school tomorrow. Kyle exclaimed, “Oh MAN! I want to go to school everyday! I don’t like ‘S’ days anymore. I like school days.”

TGIF! Happy ‘S’ days everyone!

Today was a huge day for us! Today was Kyle and Owen’s first day of kindergarten at River Valley Waldorf School! They are in a 2-year, mixed-age kindergarten program for 4-5-6-year-olds. They are the second-youngest kids in the program but their teacher from last year thought they were ready, and we agreed they were. And even though they are two of the youngest kids, they are still the tallest! There are two classrooms (evenly split between age groups and gender) with two different sets of teachers in each class. And the biggest part of all: Kyle is in the Star Room, and Owen is in the Moon Room! Different classrooms! This. Is. Huge. It was a huge (huge huge huge huge huge huge huge) decision for Braydon and I. One that we spent many-a-night this summer discussing late into the wee hours (sometimes blurry-brained between marathon nursing sessions with baby Meera). Even though many people would probably not separate twins this early, we feel very confident that we’re making the right decision for our boys with this. Over the past couple of weeks we’ve worked very hard to prepare K & O for this big thing— and the first day of school was looming large. At first they were not at all thrilled about separate classrooms. But over the past few days they’ve become more and more excited about the idea. By this morning they were ready to go, totally ready. Still, Braydon and I were feeling anxious about how it would all play out. It went splendidly. Totally splendidly. They kissed each other good-bye and went off to their different rooms without looking back. As both of their teachers told me later… “it was fantastic and could not have gone any better!” I’ll post more about this tomorrow, but now I’ve gotta go have a glass of wine with Braydon—- the gear-up for this day (the planning and prepping and shopping and packing and working-a-lot-with-the-boys-to-get-them-mentally/emotionally-ready) has been exhausting and now I’m really ready for the wine-down. 😉

8:21 a.m. — Meera is holding her head up really well these past couple of days. This morning she proudly showed off her skills for Braydon.
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4:13 p.m. — After we all came home from a very fun birthday party for one of their friends, the boys had a blast playing outside in the pouring rain for over an hour.

Each year, at the end of August we have taken a photo of K & O sitting in this one particular spot of our yard. Check out the photos on our blog’s sidebar to see the photos from Summers 2005, 2006, and 2007. Last weekend we did the photo shoot for Summer 2008. Meera was included this year! Doing it was a vivid reminder of why we generally work hard to avoid posed photos. Braydon, who was protected behind the lens of the camera and thus a bit more detached than the rest of us, was the only member of the family who didn’t have a major meltdown in the process to get these photos. Somehow, despite the pain and suffering of the posed photo shoot, the four of us over the age of 12-weeks-old did manage to laugh most of the way through it (between tantrums). We took a total of 78 photos during two different times of day, but we’ve narrowed it down to 5. Which is your favorite?!?! PLEASE VOTE!!! Vote by clicking on the poll at the upper left hand corner of our blog! Poll ends Monday… at which point we’ll reward you by posting 5 of the best reject photos from the Johnson-McCormick Summer 2008 Tree Photo Event. As always, click on any photo to enlarge.

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Every Wednesday at 11:00 a.m., for this entire summer, Calvin has come to give the boys swimming lessons. I first met Calvin in my Intro to Sociology class a couple of years ago. He was a sophomore and in a big lecture class of 250 he stood out. He’s smart. Turns out he’s a fine swimmer too. Big time. I had Calvin in another class this past spring– the spring of his senior year. Captain of the Lehigh Swim Team. President of the Black Student Union. Star Student. Late spring, as graduation was approaching, Calvin was winning every student leadership award that’s given out. He’s staying at Lehigh for the next year, getting his MA in Political Science, and applying to PhD programs. This is the kind of student you love to love. There aren’t many like him, but when they come along… well… it sounds cliche but it is true: they are the ones that make the whole thing worthwhile. And now that I have kids of my own — now that I have black boys of my own — when a black male student like Calvin comes along I can’t help but think of him as more than simply an exceptional student– Calvin is the kind of role model I want in the lives of my sons. He’s that good. So we got to talking. And in addition to having a genuine academic/intellectual/sociological interest in the development of young black boys, Calvin also has some experience teaching swimming. I had been looking for some sort of way to get K & O into swim lessons of some sort. But I had been having no luck because of the weird situation we had on our hands— at age just barely 4, K & O had never had a swim lesson in their lives but were unusually good strong confident swimmers. Swim centers I’d looked into wouldn’t take them into group lessons because their swim skills were way too advanced for their appropriate age groups, but their social skills were way too –how shall we say it… um, unadvanced…– for their appropriate swim skill groups. Calvin agreed to come to the house once a week this summer to do private lessons at our pool. And more importantly (from my perspective at least), he agreed to build a relationship with my boys. I was pretty up front with Calvin about it– yes, I wanted them to learn something about swimming, but my not-so-hidden agenda was just to get them around Calvin on a regular basis. By the third week Calvin was their hero. And they were doing the freestyle. And now, as the summer is ending, they consider Calvin their “Swim Teacher” as well as their great friend. Kyle has already announced that Calvin will be getting an invitation to his 5th birthday party (that kind of says it all). Oh, and in addition to the freestyle they’re also doing the back stroke, and treading water, and flip turns underwater off the pool wall, and they are both diving beautiful perfect 10 dives into the deep end. Calvin has suggested we continue the swim lessons through the school year. He’s looking into using the Lehigh pool once it gets too cold to swim in ours. It will be nice for the boys to keep swimming through the winter this year. It will be even nicer to watch them continue to build their relationship with Calvin. Anyone who knows anything about the studies that have been done on black boys knows that all the research evidence points to the same thing: the importance of the relationships between black boys and older black male role models in their lives. Finding those role models, however, is sometimes the tricky party– especially in situations like ours; we want there to be an organic glue holding the relationship together… not some kind of fabricated pseudo-relationship based on emphasizing black role modeling. So, right now, for us, the best part about the boys’ relationships with Calvin is that it is organically bound together by a shared genuine interest: swimming. And just for the record… just in case one (or both) of them ever are superstar swimmers… Calvin was K & O’s first Swim Teacher. You read it here first. Summer 2008.