Kyle’s special lovey, his ‘Honey Bunny,’ has been with Kyle since we gave it to him the day we met him. He slept with ‘Hon Bun’ that first night in the hotel in Haiti… and has never slept without it since. He’s also never sat in an airplane without it, never taken a nap without it, never driven home from a weekend away without it, never been sick on the couch without it, etc., etc., etc. Every morning when he wakes up he carries Honey Bunny around the house with him for the first few minutes until he’s acclimated to the day. So, when he came downstairs, found Meera in her chair, and then put his Hon Bun on Meera’s lap for her to “hold,” it was really the ultimate act of love.

For anyone interested in the Haiti t-shirts (in the photos from the Haiti Reunion post), I got them from CafePress.com — here are the links:

Haitian Roots: http://shop.cafepress.com/design/19719969

Preserve Haiti: http://shop.cafepress.com/design/21988602

I ‘heart’ Haiti: http://shop.cafepress.com/design/12720790

Braydon, my hero, has me a new computer!

Answers to questions from the comments from the last post–
(tomorrow I’ll try to do a real blog post)

Hi Amanda! — Yes! With every single stage and phase of baby Meera (including the entire pregnancy) we (me, especially) find ourselves thinking about where the boys were and what they were doing at her age. I think about it all the time. ALL. THE. TIME. We have a pretty good understanding of where they were and what they were doing — at least from the time they were born until the day we went to get them. As hard as that understanding is, I think that it (the knowledge/understanding) is a good thing — for both us (B & me) and for K & O. Adoption waiting is the worst. The WORST. By far worse for the waiting children than for the waiting parents… but that says a lot because it is just plain horrible for the waiting parents. People who haven’t been through it just don’t get it. Those of you who have been through it, or are currently going through it, you know what I mean when I say this: It pains my heart (pains my heart) thinking about Kyle and Owen in that orphanage for their first eight months. Meera turned 8 weeks old today. Not all orphanages are the same (even in Haiti some are worse than others)… but when K & O were 8 weeks old they were lying in a grungy port-a-crib, in the sweltering heat, not sure when/if they’d get another bottle, not bathed, not held, not loved. It kills me to think about it. It just kills me. But… I like to think about the fact that they had each other. I try to focus on that. They laid there everyday, together. And they lived. They survived. They transcended. They flourished. They thrived. And here they are today — lovin’ on their 8 week old baby sister giving her thousands of kisses every day and asking to hold her. Life is heart-wrenching and amazing and awe-inspiring. What a big, wide, wonderful (albeit screwed up) world we live in. So, yes, I do think about where the boys were and what they were doing. I think about it all the time. Thanks for asking about this Amanda. I hope to blog more about this sort of subject — including thoughts/feelings on adopted vs. bio kids — down the road (hopefully not in the far too distant future).

Zahara asked about the stares and comments we’ve received since having Meera with us… As always, some people do ask questions, most just stare. Unless people say things to us we ignore them. Children are the best — they just put it out there (which, to Braydon and I, at least, feels much better than coping with the stares and whispers and ‘lets-pretend-we’re-not-gawking-at-them’ that we get from most adults). This past weekend, for example, a little girl exclaimed out loud to her parents: “Look! The baby is white and they are black!!!!!” I like that kind of thing because it just opens it up wide open. Children, we find, tend to just be curious and that’s really cool and fun. Adults often just stare — and that is uncomfortable sometimes. Sometimes we get a bad vibe and that is really uncomfortable. People sometimes ask questions or make comments, and that is almost always a good thing. Another example from this past weekend — We were having lunch at a restaurant and I took Owen into the bathroom. As we were washing our hands a middle-aged white woman at the sink next to us said to me: “You have such a cute family!” I said, “Thanks!” She said, “I was looking at your baby earlier and she’s so cute and alert, and your boys are just adorable.” I said, “Thank you!!” And that was that. I thought this was really, really cool. It felt very supportive and positive without feeling at all fake or weird. Often I think people want to say something — and want to say something positive — but they just don’t know what to say and I felt like that woman had figured out a great thing to say. Just last week my mom was telling me that she was at an amusement park with my niece and it was an entirely white crowd. She noticed a family of white parents and black kids. She wanted so much to say something supportive and positive to them (especially given that they presumably felt a little weird about it being soooo white there), but just didn’t know what to say and didn’t want to come across as weird. We were talking about it on the phone and I couldn’t think of what she could say that would be perfect. And then just a couple days later I had that encounter with that woman in the restroom—- I think saying “You have such a cute family!” is just the perfect thing to say. I plan to say something like that to families similar to ours when we see them in the future (as rarely as that is).

Anonymous said — “Okay, so fess up: what’s in the delicious looking salad (including dressing)?” Well, here’s the deal… If I do this then you have to make yourself not anonymous (I hate anonymous comments!!!) and trade me one of your great recipes that you’re eating this summer. Acting on faith that you’ll live up to your end of the bargain, here goes:
Braydon and I love salads and I tend to make up a great salad idea and then make it over and over until we’re sick of it. The salad picture is of our current salad fixation. We’ve eaten it several times already this summer and just yesterday when I was food shopping I bought all the ingredients to eat it again this week. The boys love it too. I just made it up so I don’t have any measurements or anything, but here you go:

* Lay a down a bed of nice baby greens on a platter
* Toast a couple handfuls of pecans (‘toast’ = place in dry pan over hot stove until they are browned). Put toasted pecans on greens.
* Add on a couple big handfuls of fresh blueberries
* Add on crumbled goat cheese (getting good quality goat cheese is key to making this salad awesome!)
* Drizzle with good extra virgin olive oil
* Drizzle with Litehouse brand Pomegranate Blueberry Vinaigrette (I just discovered this — it is in the cold refrigerated section of the produce area)
* Sprinkle with kosher salt and fresh ground pepper
* Note: I would also add thinly sliced red onion to this salad… (I’m just not adding onion this summer because Meera seems to have a bad reaction when I eat onions so I’m avoiding them at all costs!)
* Serve with crusty baguette and white wine!

My computer crashed — like, completely died. My Tech Guy (AKA Braydon) is getting things up and running with a new computer for me. So, I’ll be blogging again soon.

There is so much to say, and so little time to say it. More than ever before I’m so glad to have this blog. It helps me to know that I’m jotting some of these things down here. It is cathartic and therapeutic and reassuring all at the same time. It is also incredibly frustrating because there is so much that is not put down here, and yet this is our only “journal”/baby book/scrap book/photo album. So much that just can’t be said (either because we choose not to make it public for various reasons, or because it simply is too deep to be able to be articulated no matter how hard we try). And so much that just isn’t said because there just isn’t enough time in the day. My mind is swirling everyday with multiple (seems like zillions) of thoughts that I wish I could blog about. Afterall, blog material, for us, has never been an issue — and now it is true more than ever. I want to try to catch up on some of what has been going on here over the past seven weeks… and I’ve been putting off doing it… but finally today I am biting the bullet. And on that note… I’ve got to do this in bullet points or it will never get done.

* The boys have said so many interesting things since their baby sister was born. One of the most interesting (to me, at least) is this: They insist (Owen especially, and repeatedly) that Meera looks like them. ???!!? Before the baby was born we had talked at length about the fact that her skin would “look like Mommy’s skin because she grew in Mommy’s belly.” That she would “not be brown”; that her skin “would not match” K & O’s. Etc., etc., etc. Bizarrely, they (Owen mostly) from the start (first time meeting Meera in the hospital) and several times since (at random times, out of their own initiative) have said: “You were wrong Mommy! She doesn’t look like you, she looks like us!” They point to their skin when they say this. They insist that her skin is more similar to theirs than to mind. I gently prod, but get nowhere. I have absolutely no clue how or why they believe that Meera looks like them, but they do. They sincerely do.

* By far the hardest part of this new life so far is figuring out how to get dinner on the table. This was my biggest challenge before (pre-Meera) too. But now it is harder than ever. In the first few weeks it felt like Meera was nursing non-stop. I could barely get out of the chair for five minutes before I had to be back there again to nurse. 24×7. It felt overwhelming to me. And making dinner felt impossible to me. Thank goodness for several good friends who dropped off food for us. I’m not sure how we would have survived without those given-to-us meals. The nursing has become easier (less frequent, and for shorter periods of time) in the past couple of weeks. But getting dinner on the table still feels like a monumental task. If I had to say what we’ve eaten for the past seven weeks, I would not be able to. Lord only knows what we’ve ingested around the dinner hour each day. But every once in a while I actually have managed to make a real meal. That feels like a huge achievement. And every now and then I manage to make something really nice that we all really love to eat. Those evenings — as few and far between as they have been — feel nothing short of miraculous. It feels so good when we can have something nice in the midst of the mayhem. There is nothing like a nice dinner to make me feel o.k. about everything– even when my shirt is covered with a long day’s worth of caked on baby spit up.

* Kyle is so incredibly gentle and sweet with Meera. Watching him with the baby makes my heart ache out of love for this boy who is so sensitive and sweet and loving and gentle (at least when he wants to be! LOL!). In the beginning he didn’t want to hold her, for fear of hurting her. But he’s warmed up to it and isn’t afraid anymore. When he holds her he is calm and soothing and deeply caring (albeit nervous). But Meera seems to pick up on only his love for her, not his nerves. She is (generally) very content with Kyle. Her body is relaxed when he holds her. She watches him as he plays around her. And she smiles easily for him. Kyle also kisses Meera constantly. Throughout the day he stops what he’s doing to give her a peck on the cheek. He does this many, many times each day.

* Kyle cannot stand to hear Meera cry. The littlest fuss and he’s immediately telling me to feed her. He’s always hated to hear babies or other children cry. Hated it. And it seems even more accute with Meera. Nothing can distract him from it if he hears her crying — not his favorite video, not his favorite meal, nothing. Luckily he sleeps right through her crying at night. Despite the fact that her room is right next to his, he has not once woken up from her crying. We thank our lucky stars for that. Owen is my huge helper. He thinks of everything, and jumps in to help, before I even ask him to help. If I need to nurse Meera during dinner Owen jumps up and runs to get the boppy pillow. If we’re going out to the pool Owen grabs Meera’s Bjorn chair and carries it out with us. If Meera is drooling Owen brings me a burp cloth. It is really remarkable.
* I’ve found Owen doing his thumb-pinky maneuver on several occasions. He doesn’t pay as much attention to Meera as Kyle does. But when he does pay attention to her, it is all about her. He seems to zone out (that’s the only way we can think of to describe it) whenever he holds her. Drifting to some distant place unknown to us. He drifts so afar that it is hard to get his attention — even if we’re right in his face. We’re not sure what is going on with that, but it is very noticeable and we’re trying to understand it. You can see the distant look in his eyes in most photos of him holding Meera.
* One day Owen said to me, “Me and Kyle were adopted. And Meera was adopted too!” I said, “Yes, baby, you and Kyle were adopted. But Meera was not adopted.” He looks at me with a blank face. I gave (for the millionth time) our basic age-appropriate explanation of adopted vs. not adopted. He said, very matter of factly, “You’re wrong mommy, Meera was adopted. She was adopted when we brought her home from the hospital.” Interesting. I’ve gotta say, though, I sort of like his logic: like all children are adopted/’chosen’… some are adopted by people who didn’t grow them in their belly and some are adopted from the woman whose belly they grew in… either way, the woman who takes them home and acts as their mom is their Mom… like it is an act to become someone’s mom– an act that requires something more than just giving birth to a kid no matter what the circumstances are or aren’t… or something like that. I don’t know– but in some way it kind of works for me and I ‘get’ what he’s saying here.
* Meera’s favorite thing to do, undoubtedly, is to sit in her Bjorn chair. There are times that she actively prefers this to being held. She also loves having a bath. She loves people. She just loves life. She has seriously got to be the most laid back, easy going baby that ever lived. I really feel like we were given such a gift with her temperment. I find myself asking daily, ‘how did I luck out?’ Granted, I prayed every day of my pregnancy for this. But still, I find it unbelievable that I actually got an easy baby. Kyle and Owen have always been so ACTIVE and they have always required such vigilent constant active monitoring……… (God forbid you leave the room for five minutes– something crazy will be happening upon your return)…….. K & O are still giving us a run for our money every day — not a day goes by that they don’t EXHAUST us.. so, it just seems waaaaaaaaay toooooooooo easy to have Meera now. Not only is there only one of her (OMG!!!!!! one baby is a BREEZE compared to twins — a BREEZE!!!!!!!!!), but she is so very splendidly mellow and easy. Don’t get me wrong, having a newborn is most definitely a full time job. It is a lot of work. But it is all relative. And after K & O… well… I’ll just leave it at that: Meera is a breeze.
* It feels remarkably different now– having another female in the house. It is noticeable to me. I like it. I think the three males in the house notice it too, although we have not discussed it and have never drawn any attention to it. I got a kick out of something that Owen said last Saturday— Braydon and the boys were leaving the house to go to the golf course to hit golf balls. I was staying home with Meera. As Owen was running (and jumping/skipping/stomping/yelping/yahoooing) through the kitchen, heading for the garage door, Owen shouted back into the house “BYE LADIES!!!” Owen loves it when Meera wears girlie things. The more pink/flowery/fluffy the outfit, the better. He says stuff like, “Oh, I like this dress! She is soooooooo cute! She looks sooooo BEAUUUUUTIFUL today!” Kyle just thinks she’s cute all the time, regardless of what she’s wearing. He regularly says — just out of the blue — “SHE’S SO CUTE!” And, regarding the other girl in their life… June (for new readers: this is their shared imaginary friend)… Since Meera was born June is alive and well, more than ever. There is non-stop talk about June these days. June June June June June. I find this interesting and I’m not sure how to make sense of it. They talk about June more than any other topic — by far. It is all June all the time.
* Kyle has twice asked, “When is she going to be a real sister?” Upon further discussion I’ve come to understand that he means ‘When is she going to be able to play with us and actually do stuff with us?’ Kyle has also twice said, “I want her to go back in your belly.” Upon further discussion I’ve come to understand that he means he wants a ‘do over’ for her birth— he is still very disconcerted about the idea that she “came out Mom’s belly not vagina.” The c-section has thrown him for a loop — more than anyone (including me). He does not like things not going as planned. So, he asks, ‘why can’t she just go back in there and we can try it again?!’
* It seems truly unbelievable to me that K & O haven’t had feelings of jealousy toward Meera. Although they have never once shown any indication that they’re jealous of her in any way, I continue to be bewildered by this. How could they not have those jealous feelings? I didn’t expect them to have lots of issues with it (because they wanted a baby so badly and because they’re twins so neither of them ever had undivided attention in the first place), and we did prepare them extensively for life with baby (read all the books about becoming a big brother, spent hours upon hours talking about it, planned like crazy for as smooth of a transition as possible for them)… but still… it truly does amaze me. The other day at a perfect moment to open up the conversation I asked them, “Are you sometimes jealous of all the attention Meera gets?” They both looked at me like I was absolutely NUTS. “No!” they both said in unison, dead serious. Then Kyle said, “We’re not jealous of her attention. We’re just jealous of all the boxes.” (i.e., gifts that come in the mail for Meera).
* One day out at the pool Kyle said, “When is my sister going to die?” I was stunned. He’s never asked this question about anyone or anything. I said, as nonchalantly as I could, “Why sweetie? Why do you ask that?” He said, “I don’t want her to die. I only want her to die when she’s very old. Not soon. Just when she’s very, very old and me and Owen are very, very old too.”
* I thought our family used to get a lot of looks, stares, questions, comments before… well—- now it is tenfold. On the few occassions so far that we’ve been out and about people have literally stopped and stared, turning slowly to follow us with their eyes, watching as we walk by on the sidewalk. You can almost just see the curiousity on their faces– they see the boys, they see Braydon and I, they see the baby stroller and peek inside to see a newborn WHITE baby. And they are visibly baffled. It is intense. Very intense. I knew it would be, but didn’t expect it to be this intense.
* Over the past couple of weeks I’ve read a novel for fun. Just a fun fiction novel. John Grisham. Just for fun. I cannot remember the last time I did this. I think it was before the boys came home. Don’t get me wrong– I’m a voracious reader. I always have at least 3 books going at any given time. I’m a professor for goodness sake— it is part of my job to read. I read a lot… a lot of sociology. Plus, all the reading I do on the homefront about anything/everything related to Haiti/adoption/twins/race/parenting/pregnancy/birth/breastfeeding/etc. I cannot even explain how great it has been to just read a novel for the heck of it. I cannot even explain how great it is to be on maternity leave. Every single day feels like a vacation. A real, true vacation. And a long vacation. My university has a great leave policy — I don’t have to be back until January. I cannot get over how wonderful this is… and I am trying to savor every precious lovely vacationy moment. To just sit and read a novel for fun… !?!!!! And the icing on the cake– I get to do it while rocking my tiny baby bundle. Some of the moments are just so, so, so sweet.
* This afternoon I did the boys’ hair (re-twisted their dreadlocks). This is a major undertaking. We had not re-twisted their hair since before Meera was born. It takes me about an hour to do each boy’s hair. We always do hair while sitting on the family room floor, in front of the t.v., so that the boys can watch a video to keep them sitting still. About halfway through Owen’s hair Meera woke up from a nap. I went and got her from her crib and put her in her Bjorn chair on the floor facing Owen and I. She happily sat there, about two feet from us, watching Owen and I, as I worked on his locs. It occurred to me — ‘just look at this scene. how many 7 week old white baby girls are sitting there watching their big brother’s dreadlocks get re-twisted by their white mother??’ I started thinking about it and it suddenly struck me so strongly — ‘seriously, how many white girls are growing up watching their brothers’ locs get re-done/knowing about black hair from such an intimate vantage point/being in that moment from the inside out, from the time of birth onward??’ And then I was pondering it for the rest of the hair session… in all seriousness– how many other newborn white baby girls watched their white mom re-twist their big brother’s locs this afternoon? I think it just might be possible that in that period of time this afternoon Meera might have been the only one like her in the entire world. Is it possible to be that unique on the entire planet? I don’t know… and I don’t know what it means (if anything)… but I couldn’t stop thinking about it. My little white seven week old daughter just watching as I worked on my son’s locs. What are the chances that anyone else out there was in that scenario this afternoon?
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* So, that’s it– a bunch of stuff I’ve been meaning to post about. There is a lot more where that came from. Lots of other posts for other days…

For many months — since long before Meera was born — Owen has been waiting to feed “his baby” a bottle. I cannot exaggerate how much this has meant to Owen. We don’t know why this has been so huge for him. Perhaps because he himself loved his bottles so much as a baby (and still loves to drink warm milk from a sippy cup each morning when he wakes up)? Perhaps because this symbolizes to Owen that Meera really is “his baby”? Perhaps because he loves everything about babies and he knows that feeding them is an important part of life with baby? Perhaps because somehow in himself he knows that he wasn’t given enough bottles, and wasn’t given them lovingly enough, when he was a tiny baby? Perhaps we read into it all too much and he just simply likes the idea of feeding the baby a bottle? Who knows. We’ll probably never know. But this morning, at 6:15 a.m. Owen sat with me in the sun room while I pumped breast milk, and at 7:00 a.m., when Meera woke up, at long last, Owen fed “his baby” a bottle.

We live in an incredibly beautiful part of an amazing country; in the summer it’s particularly wonderful. Around July it’s perfect. The corn is rising up, the trees are not just green, but full in every way, and the foliage is lush. But like peak color during fall, it’s just a short time of this perfection before August hits and things start to grow past and over grow.

Behind our house there is a tree line from when this area was a farm. I think the trees are around 50, 60 years old, some older, some younger. They too are at that perfect time of summer – when they are still buoyant and lively. And when you look out across the tops of the woods all around us in this area, you can still see the little new growth, waving gently like an undulating sea of health and vibrancy.

I like to stand in the kitchen with Meera in her little chair and stand over her and just stare. She’s just started to smile back when you smile at her. And when she does, it’s like the perfect light at 7 o’clock, when the world is painted in a warm glow – it’s warm, it’s wonderful, it lights up everything around. Her toothless, gummy, not-quite-controlled, but completely unselfconscious joyous look radiates and pierces my heart. I can’t force enough of this memory into my brain, as hard as I try.

And in that moment, I am amazed at the love I feel. And I am also overwhelmed by the connection I feel to almost every father that has ever lived in the world, ever. I think of the men standing in their kitchens, or living rooms, or garages, or fire pits, or huts, or bedroom who have done, and will do again the same thing I am doing. Men with beards, clean-shaven, religious, atheist, light, dark, clad, naked, cold or hot. They stand like I do in wonder. Holding, bouncing, watching, loving, fearing, reveling. Men who work, who don’t, who can’t and who won’t. Men who’s hands dwarf their little charges, but cradle them so gently.

Men who have no idea what they are doing, but know they would do anything.

This timeless forest of kitchens of fathers. Father’s with little babies learning to smile. Even as generations pass by, fathers and their babies remain the same. And we may get lost in the woods, but we are ultimately all in it together, if only for the briefest moment. In July, before things become over grown.

I bought a play mat for Meera. Even though she is only seven weeks old (as of today), I knew that she was ready for it. I set it up and I laid her down on it and immediately her face lit up. She smiles at the dangling toys, coos and gurgles at them, kicks her legs and bats her arms. She loves it. Anyway– once the boys saw that I had set it up they were extremely excited about “teaching” their baby sister how to play on it. The next chance they had they got me to put her on the play mat. She smiled huge, laughed, and cooed at it all. The boys ignored this and were adamant that they would “teach” her to play on it. Of course, I wasn’t going to let on to them, but Meera didn’t need anyone at all to teach her how to play (((this is… by the way… a whole new world for Braydon and I — a baby who doesn’t need to be taught how to play; a baby who has her babyhood in tact and is able to just be a baby and play with age appropriate baby toys — when we brought Kyle and Owen home we spent the first several weeks teaching them how to just be babies and how to play with toys… so our experience with Meera, even at this young age, is new [happy, exciting, good, heart-warming] for us… but alas, this is a subject for another post some day…))) Anyway… so, Meera was on the play mat, and before I knew it:
And then:
And finally:

(click on photos to enlarge to get the full effect)
Even I have to admit: so dang cute!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!