Last night we took the boys to a Lehigh University Orchestra rehearsal. (click here) Wow! They loved it! This was their first time seeing a real-life, full-blown syphony orchesta in action. The best part was that as the students were entereing the auditorium to set up for their rehearsal, they were each carrying/pushing/pulling their instruments. The boys got to hear/see/touch a real bassoon! a real trombone! and… hightlight: they got to actually play two real timpani drums!
So – everyone talks about “Finding Nemo“. Kids love it, they wear T shirts and have stuffed animals. Our kids had never seen it and didn’t know what it was. So, I thought – why not – let’s give it a try -and I got it from Netflix.
I watched it a little to make sure it was ok. And I tried to watch it as through K&O’s eyes. But you can never really see it through someone elses‘ eyes.
So we’re sitting there watching Nemo. It starts off with the mommy and papi clown fish living on the edge of the reef with all their hundreds of baby eggs (and one of which they name Nemo). Then a barracuda comes along, kills the mother and eats all but one of the eggs (Nemo). Sheesh! Of course they don’t show it, but ugh!
Cut to the next scene and 1st grader Nemo is going off to the first day of school. Where he is promptly kidnapped by a Scuba diver and taken from his papi. The “Finding Nemo” part ensues.
Yes, yes, I know, it’s a nice story about growing up and learning and loving, etc. But sheesh – how do I explain this to my almost three year old adopted twin boys?
So – I skipped over the missing mommy part, the Scuba diver part, the chasing Nemo part and the school part and it came out something like this:
Owen: “Papi. That papi fish so sad? Why he so sad?”
Papi: “Well…. he only has one baby and he wants two babies. Just like Papi has two babies. I am so happy I have two babies. And that papi fish wants two babies just like me.”
Owen: “You’re so happy you have two babies?”
Papi: “Yes, I am so happy I have two babies.”
Kyle Quote 1: This afternoon, in the car, on the way home after work/daycare Kyle says “Mommy, are you so happy you have two babies?” “Yes!” I said. And Kyle said, “I’m so happy you have two babies too!”
Kyle Quote 2: We have been spending a lot of time around here talking about the boys’ much-anticipated upcoming birthday party. Kyle, in particular, talks a ton about his birthday “coming soon.” He does, in fact, talk about it incessantly. The VIP guest list, the “candle cake,” the balloons, etc… these are all things Kyle talks endlessly about. Interestingly, however, he has never yet mentioned even once anything about presents. I think this is cool. But at the same time, now that the date is actually right around the corner, I figured I should try to get a sense of what my boy might want for a birthday present. Today I broached the topic for the first time. I have ideas in my mind, of course, about what I want to get the boys for their birthday present(s)… after all, you only turn three once!!! But I thought I should see what Kyle had in his own mind regarding presents. Little did I expect what was revealed. Here is what happened in the midst of one of his rambles about his birthday…
Heather: Kyle, baby, do you think there will be presents at your birthday?
Kyle: Yes. Yes, there will be presents. One for me, and one for Owen. We have to open them.
Heather: Oh! Yes! And what do you think is going to be inside the present for Kyle?
Kyle: There is a present inside.
Heather: Yes! What is the present going to be?
Kyle: It is a trombone for Kyle. And a big bassoon for Owen.
…… eeks!!!!!!!!!!!??!!!!! ………
Owen Photo 1:
Owen Photo 2:
There is a photo of Kyle and Owen in the May 2007 issue of Working Mother magazine! I actually really like this magazine, so I’m happy to have them in there. They are on page 60, the opening page of a big article on international adoption. We knew it was coming because the editors of the magazine had contacted us out of the blue a couple of months ago to ask our permission to use the photo of the boys. They had found the photo in another magazine and wanted to use it — the photo they had found was a photo of K & O that we had submitted for the “Family Album” section of Adoptive Families magazine. I was getting so sick of never seeing any black kids featured in Adoptive Families, and was really happy when they notified me that our photo of K & O was chosen for their December 2005 issue. The same photo is now in this month’s issue of Working Mother. It is kind of bizarre to get a magazine in the mail and open it to see your own kids on the page! But the coolest part of this Working Mother “appearance” is that right next to the boys’ photo is a little image of a HAITIAN FLAG!!! (see bottom left hand corner, below) I love it that on the opening pages of their article on international adoption there is a photo of two Haitian kids (mine!), and a HAITIAN FLAG!!! 
Our family really loves these kinds of things.
The foursome take a break from the plasma cars (click here)
Before Kyle and Owen took a long nap (we finally woke I happened to capture this on film…
While the boys were outside playing in the rain this afternoon, Owen found a worm in the driveway. He was holding it. He was showing it to me. He was fascinated by it…
As I was standing there taking pictures of him, and talking with him about the worm, I literally watched his mind kind of think, “hmmm… this worm thing is so interesting! what could I do with it? could I eat it? I wonder what it tastes like?!” And then, suddenly, in a split second, I watched him as he put the worm into his mouth!!!!!!!!!!! Before I could even put the camera down and say anything to him he pulled it out — apparently it tasted yucky!…
A split second later he said, “Mommy, we can’t eat it!” He carried it over to the grass and left it there.
Kyle found a worm too!
But he didn’t try to eat it! He was much more interested in an old umbrella we let him play with… and the puddles of course.
Devoted blog readers might remember that our next door neighbors are also an inter-racial adoptive family. Charlie and Sandy brought home their two kids — Nate & Ambika — from India in October (click here to read previous post from their home-coming day). Nate, Ambika, Kyle, and Owen are quite a group! They play together almost every day. Mostly what they do is ride anything they can find with wheels up and down our two driveways. Recently Charlie and Sandy bought Nate and Ambika plasma cars (click here). These are very cool, and very fun to ride down the driveways, and Kyle & Owen have been greatly admiring their playmates’ “helicopters” (that’s what Kyle and Owen call them — we think because the plasma cars do slightly resemble helicopters). Saturday morning Charlie and Sandy gave K & O an early birthday present!!!!! — A PLASMA CAR for each! This weekend the foursome spent hours (literally!) riding en-masse down the driveways. Childhood does not get much better than this. And add to that –thinking about the fact that these two sets of fun-loving-life-loving siblings were all adopted from orphanage situations of great deprivation… that’s almost too much for the mind to grasp. Life does not get much better than this.
I’m really glad that Braydon and I both have careers that don’t require extensive travel. We both do need to travel from time to time, but it is nothing compared to what some people have to do. I really don’t know how two-career-couples with work that requires heavy travel do it. Braydon was only gone for three days and three nights, but man are we all happy that he’s back!!! Braydon had taken photos with his cell phone camera while he was away — photos of things that only people like Kyle really appreciate — photos of things like the airplanes Braydon flew on, the inside of the airplanes, the rental car Braydon drove, the inside of the rental car, the hotel Braydon stayed at, the inside of the hotel, the office Braydon had meetings in, the inside of the office conference room… you get my drift?! Anyway, Kyle really loved looking at all these photos on Braydon’s phone. Owen, on the other hand was much more interested in getting down to business: all he cared about was getting Papi down on the floor to play.
And Braydon… well, mostly he was just wanting to cuddle with his boys.
Back in January I wrote a post about “TwinSpeak” (click here for that post). Lately I’ve been thinking a lot about TwinSpeak because Kyle and Owen are suddenly so very, very verbal. Sometimes I almost can’t even believe it myself, but seriously– I can have full blown conversations with them now!!! And every, every, every, every single day they say something so funny that I’m almost peeing my pants laughing. Their language is so sophisticated now that I rarely don’t understand them. They are totally capable of verbally communicating just about everything that they want to convey. And yet they still have certain TwinSpeak words that they both use; little remnants of their TwinSpeak; specific words that Kyle and Owen — as twins — have developed and use; unique words that only each other (and sometimes Braydon, or I, or other people who spend a lot of time with them) understand. One of the most fascinating parts about TwinSpeak is how twins continue to refer to certain things in their specific “twinspeak”-way long after they know-and-are-fully-capable-of referring to those things in the “correct” way. For example…
Despite being fully aware of the “correct” way of saying these things, and despite being fully capable of saying these things “correctly,” when speaking with each other or in each other’s presence (and only then), Kyle and Owen both still consistently say:
Note: if they are on their own, out of ear shot of the other, they will say each of these words “correctly.”
Tonight a funny TwinSpeak thing happened. There is some background info that is necessary here— 1) Since we’re really in the throws of some semi-serious potty training, lately we’ve been talking a lot about underpants around here. Mostly this is in the context of me saying things like, “Look boys! I wear underpants! I don’t wear diapers! I don’t wear pull-ups! I wear underpants!!!” The boys, especially Owen, are very interested in the whole concept of underpants. 2) For a long time I have had a koosh ball basketball hoop in my office, but it has gone unused for years. Late this afternoon I had the boys in my office with me and to occupy them I got out the basketball hoop for them to shoot koosh balls into. They loved it and I decided I may as well bring it home for them. When we got home I set it up in the kitchen.
So, this evening as I was making dinner Kyle and Owen were trying to throw balls into the basketball hoop in the kitchen. Here’s what transpired:
Owen: Look Kyle, underpants!
[I hear this and kind of giggle to myself. Out of the corner of my eye I can see Owen with his hands down and his head looking down — I figure he’s pretending he has underpants on, or something like that]Kyle: Yes! Underpants Owen!
Owen: Kyle, I can do underpants! Not you! Just me! I can do underpants!
Kyle: [annoyed/mad] No Owen, I can do underpants too!
Owen: No! Not you! Not you Kyle! Just Owen do underpants! You can’t do underpants! You can’t!
Kyle: [now really very annoyed/mad] No Owen! I can do underpants!
Owen: No! Not you! No underpants for you!
[at this point I know I need to intervene — a major brawl is about to break out any second — so I stop what I’m doing with dinner prep and start to move toward them]Kyle: [now in full-body meltdown mode, about to physically attack his brother] No Owen! No! I can do underpants! Underpants for me too! Yes! Underpants!
Owen: [running for dear life away from Kyle, and starting to lose it] No underpants for you Kyle!
Me: BOYS! BOYS! BOYS! STOP IT!!!!!! Owen and Kyle, both boys can have underpants when both boys go on the potty like big boys.
Owen: No mama.
Kyle: Mama, NO!
Me: Yes! You can both have underpants when you’re ready. Right now you have no underpants.
Owen: [now in a complete hysteric state, on the verge of a total emotional breakdown] No, no, no, mommy, no! Only Owen can do underpants.
Me: [I feel like I’m now on the scene of some sort of crazy toilet-training mediation stake-out] Owen, you are doing so good on the potty. But Kyle will get underpants too, when Kyle is ready.
Kyle: Mommy, watch this! [He has found the koosh ball and is holding it over his head. I turn to watch him as he throws it up toward the hoop]
Me: [feeling very relieved at this sign that they will potentially soon be distracted enough by the basketball hoop to drop the whole underpants thing] Wow Kyle! Great job!
Owen: Mommy, watch this! [He takes the koosh ball and holds it dramatically down between his legs, he then proceeds to very dramatically throw it up toward the hoop]
Me: Wow Owen! Great job!
Kyle: See mommy??? Underpants! Owen can do underpants!!!
Owen: Yes! And not Kyle! Kyle can’t do underpants! Only Owen!
Me: Oh! You mean underhand?!!! Owen can throw the ball underhand!
[They both look at me like I’m stupid.]Owen: Yes, underpants.
Kyle: [saying it slowly] U-n-d-e-r-p-a-n-t-s.
Me: You say, underhand.
[They both blatantly blow me off and turn away from me.]Owen: Look Kyle, underpants!
Kyle: Yes! Underpants Owen!
Owen: Kyle, I can do underpants!
Kyle: Yes Owen! You do underpants! Watch this Owen…
….. and they continue playing as though nothing ever happened…..
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