I was at work today, talking to Heather and we thought it would be fun if we finally took the boys to the driving range. With all the golfing that they’ve been doing at home, I’ve been so much wanting to take them to the range. We finally did it.

On the way there, I was explaining what we were going to do: “Now, guys, we’re going to a golf course. When we get there, you have to be quiet and no running around. We’re going get many golf balls in bucket and hit many many balls. At home we run after the balls, but here we don’t, we just hit more.” Owen sums it up perfectly: “Just like on baby golf!” (the golf video we have watched in the past).

We went to the Center Valley Club – which is a really nice public golf club around here. For the first (and only to-date) time, we could understand why someone might want to a member of a golf club. It was a gorgeous spring day – early evening – a light, warm wind was blowing across the fields, and there were a number of people enjoying hitting balls. It felt relaxing, low key, fun and delightful. Now of course, with one notable exception, they were all white, but it did give us a sense of it.

I bought tokens at the Pro Shop to get balls from the ball machine; they tumbled out of the machine and into the buckets and off we went. Got to the driving range and setup. K&O teed right up and whack! Cracked the ball straight out. It was a glorious sight.

The man next to us just chuckled and chuckled. And then said: “They both have very natural swings – that’s great!” And the pointing at Owen – “And really great for a lefty!”

We very very quickly went through 70 balls. There was a little flag out about 20 yards away and Kyle hit it 3 times. Wow – that kid can hit it straight and pretty much anywhere he wants. Owen has a really BIG swing, but Kyle has accuracy.

When we ran out of balls, we ran back to the pro shop to get more tokens and ran to the dispenser. Kyle put his token in and got more balls. While Owen was putting his token in, we look over and Kyle has walked off carting his bucket of balls – he couldn’t be bothered to wait for his brother!

On the second set of 70 balls, K&O started to look around at other people hitting. Kyle noticed that people dump their balls out into the feeder on the ground and said “Papi, can I do it?” So of course we did. Owen started noticing how other people were swinging and his swing almost doubled in size as he wrapped his whole body around.

As I looked over at Heather, then at my boys hitting balls and out at the beautiful scenery, I was looking through time, across the future of our life as a family, and it was wonderful.

And I only got to hit something like 4 balls total.

(note: you can click on this photo to see it larger)

You kinda had to see it to believe it… but here are a few photos nonetheless…

Scariest part about having 2 year old twins… those times when you seriously just cannot be in two places at once and you seriously need to be. This morning, for whatever reason, Owen decided to remove his own diaper (which had a huuuuuge poop in it). Luckily, I caught him in the act just in time. I was in the kitchen and I heard him in the playroom saying to himself, “Whoa Owen! Biiiiig poopie in there! Whoa Owen!!!” I ran in as fast as I possibly could. He’s been so good at potty training lately but every once in a while he’s just way too busy to bother with the toilet (why take the time to do that when you can just conveniently unload right in your diaper?!) Anyway… I had Owen lying on the floor of the playroom while I tried to contain the situation (so to speak), and clean him up. Very shortly into this I heard Kyle’s little pitter patter of feet disappear somewhere off of the kitchen (I figured he was going to do something he should not do in either the laundry room or the bathroom). I yelled out, “Kyle?!” and he did not respond. I could hear him moving about, up to no good. I yelled louder, “Kyle? Where are you?” and again he did not respond. I shouted out, “You better not make Mommy mad!!” At that point, I was into about wipe #21 with Owen, frantically trying to move as quickly as humanly possible, knowing that Kyle was definately doing something he should not do in either the laundry room or the bathroom. It took about 51 wipes to finally clean up the Owen situation. At around wipe #45 Kyle emerged on the scene appearing ever-so-innocent as he looked on at the Owen-clean-up-wrap-up. From about wipe #46 through about wipe #51 this is the conversation that occured (Kyle and I leaning over Owen, who is lying on the floor with his legs spread):

Owen: Kyle, what you were doing?
Kyle: Oh, I was in the bathroom.
Owen: Kyle, what you were doing in the bathroom? You did a pee pee?
Kyle: Nope!
Heather: Kyle, tell Mama– what were you doing in the bathroom?
Kyle: Um, I was in there.
Heather: Yes, doing what???
Kyle: Um, I was playing a little bit in there.
Heather: Oh God, I’m scared to see this.
Owen: Oh God!
Heather: Owen, I said Oh gosh!
Owen: Oh. O.k. Oh gosh!
Heather: Yes, that’s how we say it — oh gosh!
Kyle: I broke it.
Heather: Oh God, what?!
Owen: Oh God!
Kyle: I broke it.
Heather: Oh gosh.
Owen: Oh God!
Heather: O.k., o.k., listen to me– boys– go play. Go play. And be good. I’ll be right back.

Seriously, my heart was racing as I entered the bathroom. What I found was not nearly as bad as I had imagined. The toilet paper roll on the wall was completely empty. There was an additional completely empty paper roll sitting on the counter. The toilet was completely-overflowing-full-of-toilet-paper and endlessly-running-but-not-able-to-flush. I locked the door, pulled out mounds and mounds of soaking wet toilet paper, and then cleaned the bathroom up. As I was about to unlock the door I paused to look at myself in the mirror. I thought, “O.k., this isn’t that bad. Not that bad at all. At least some of my make-up is still in place. And my outfit has no poop on it, just toilet water drip spots. O.k. Wait, where are they now???” As I ran to try to find them I checked my watch. 8:03 a.m. My first meeting of the day is at 9:00. Just another Manic Monday.

I just had to post this photo because I always want to remember this because I just think it is one of the most precious little things in the world and because I want to be able to remember to tell Kyle and Owen about this when they are bigger –> K & O love to go through the car wash but whenever we go through a car wash they are both loving it and a teensy weensy bit scared about it at the same exact time –> and from their car-seats they reach out their hands to one another across the back seat of the car and they hold hands through the entire car wash. I happened to have the camera with me in the car on Saturday so I grabbed it to take this photo while we were inside the car wash.

(note: you can click on this photo to see it larger)

Some people have confessed to me that they are “addicts” of the Johnson-McCormick blog. They tell me that they check our blog daily — sometimes multiple times a day — to see the latest going’s-on’s with our little life. I totally understand blog addiction because…. confession: I am a blog addict too! — I am an addict of the Livesay Haiti Blog. I have mentioned this blog before (click here and here). Today when I checked in on the Livesay blog their most recent post left me with tears running down my cheeks. I was sitting in my office in between meetings and yet I didn’t even care if anybody saw that my mascara was dripping down to my chin… because… sometimes other people’s suffering just hits so hard that I don’t even care if my colleagues see me cry. Today Troy’s post on the Livesay blog hit me like that. I think it was because the subject of the post was mothers and babies and… in particular… it focused on a set of twins. I can’t help but think about my baby boys… and I can’t help but think about “what if?”… As adoptive parents it is a normal defense mechanism to try to self-protect by pushing those ‘what if’ questions to the margins of our minds — for some of us it is simply unbearable to let them seep in too often — but sometimes I, for one, can’t help it. And I actually think it is a good thing to let the ‘what if’s’ sink way down deep sometimes. The Livesay post today did that — it sunk way down deep (click here for the post). One of the reasons I love the Livesay blog is because for me it is a good, much-needed, grounding, daily reality check.