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Jan 09
0

MorMor’s Bakery, Restaurant, and Café

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My mother. I don’t even know where to begin. Lots of people complain about their mothers, I know. I really can’t. She’s way too amazing. This is what she does when she comes: she breezes right in, takes over the kitchen and the laundry room, and makes our life feel manageable for awhile. And the boys absolutely adore her. When she visits she basically moves in with us (my dad as well when he isn’t traveling for work and can come too), she sees us from the inside out (literally), and we all live together like a multi-generational family under one roof. It is interesting and it is intimate and we’re always laughing. The rest of the time — when my parents aren’t here — we’re on our own, many hours away from all of our family members, pulling our own weight in the world. It is tough, especially because Braydon and I are a two-career-couple. But when my mom is here she more than makes up for all the space in between… So as far as long-distance family goes (especially long-distance parenting and grandparenting) this is about as ideal as it can get. I know this probably makes a lot of you envious as heck… especially you working mothers out there (because you know firsthand how tough it can be!)… I totally get that, I really do, but I can’t hold back from singing the praises of MorMor. This week she’s baked almond breads (truly one of the best things I’ve ever eaten in my whole life!), huge batches of her homemade granola (that the boys and I LOVE), pigs in a blanket (Owen’s new favorite food), from-scratch-mac-n-cheese (Kyle’s long-standing favorite food), turkey divan with egg noodles (one of Braydon’s absolute favorites), my favorite spinach salad with her homemade sweet dressing (I insisted on eating it again tonight for the second night in a row), and her famous homemade honey mustard. Oh, and cookies, of course (to the tune of The Farmer and the Dell the boys repeatedly sing “MorMor has cookies, MorMor has cookies, hi ho the derry oh, MorMor has cookies”). She’s also done about 200 loads of laundry (no joke), cleaned things around my house that I never even knew needed to be cleaned, emptied the kitty litter, helped us sort through all the random items in our basement, run errands with me and taken me out for lunches, played for hours with the bambinos, and made us all feel like a million bucks. Right now she’s rocking a fussy Owen to sleep. Earlier, after dinner (a dinner that she made), she watched the boys gobble down huge pieces of her almond bread — Kyle shoving it in so fast he could barely breathe, Owen doing his famous “human purr” (a phrase so aptly coined by Auntie Jessie to describe our Owen’s happy-“purring”-sound when he’s eating foods he loves). Even earlier in the day she changed poopy diapers, wiped runny noses, cleaned booster seats that hadn’t been scrubbed down in weeks, and ran around the yard in 30-something-degree weather with two two-year-olds. So go ahead and hate me for this post y’all (!!!!) but honestly, MorMor is just the BEST!

Jan 08
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MorMor’s Twin Haitian Luge Team

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MorMor has taught the boys a new trick! She has them both get situated on Braydon’s old skateboard, they push off down our driveway’s decline, get rolling pretty fast, then land in the grass. Kyle then runs back to start again and Owen carries the board back for the two of them. They do it over and over and over. It is so, so funny to watch. The photos don’t nearly do it justice – but I’m posting some here for documentation sake so that when our bambinos are the first Twin Haitian Luge Team in Olympic History everyone will know where it all began. (You only need to have been born in the country to represent it in the Olympic Games! And MorMor has already agreed to by their official Olympic coach! Anyone interested in a sponsorship?!)

Jan 06
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Trumpets everywhere!

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I’ve introduced K&O to Fanfare for the Common Man by Copland. It’s “Trumpets, French Horns, Trombones and Drums!” We have listened to it a couple times in the car. On the CD I have, it’s followed by variations on a Gift to be Simple, and they like that too.

Today we were waiting in the car after little gym while Heather and Janet ran in to get coffee in Panera. I asked the boys if they wanted to listen to music. “YES!” What did they want to listen to?

“TRUMPETS!!!”

:)

It’s a dream come true.

Jan 06
0

A Saturday in NYC with MorMor

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Today after Little Gym, we drove into “the big city” (as K & O call it!) with MorMor. We divided our time between our two favorite parts of Manhattan: Chinatown & Greenwhich Village. We arrived in time for lunch at Joe’s Shanghai — which is, absolutely, one of our all-time favorite restaurants on the planet. My mom loves it as much as we do. We go there first and foremost for the Soup Dumplings but also for the Szechuan Style String Beans and the Shanghai Fried Flat Noodles. It was K & O’s first visit there… a big event in the life-history of our family!!!… and we found out that Owen loves it (especially the green beans!). Kyle — well, not so much! But later in the day Ky Ky loved the Haagen Dazs strawberry milkshake enough to make up for it! After exploring the streets of Chinatown (and my mom, Owen, and I exploring a sketchy back-room of a street vendor where we purchased two awesome Prada bags that clearly were not 100% legal… and for which we clearly did not pay the full “Prada” price…), we took a taxi to Washington Square Park. The highlight of the day for K & O was most definately the taxi ride! But they also loved the Washington Square Park Playground almost as much. The weather in Manhattan was unbelievably beatiful today and hit record highs in the 70s this afternoon. Everyone was out, thus we had a prime people-watching day (always a favorite passtime for my mom and I)! Owen was in his glory in the city today. Kyle was a bit over-stimulated. Braydon, my mother, and I… well, we were all a mixture of both. But how much fun was it? It was so much fun!

Owen & MorMor off the beaten path in Chinatown

The boys don’t like having to wait for a table to open up… but…

…Joe’s Shanghai’s soup dumplings are sooo worth it!

Kyle practices with his chopsticks

Braydon’s favorite Chinatown treat: Iced Black Tea with Black Tapioca Balls

Exploring Chinatown

Haagen Dazs milkshakes

MorMor & Kyle watch a street performer in Washington Square Park

Kyle at the playground in Washington Square Park

Kyle, Heather, Owen, MorMor

Owen Happy City Day
Jan 04
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MorMor is Back!

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Hip Hip Hooray! My mother is here for a whole week! We’re beyond thrilled. Among many other wonderful things this means that tonight K & O got to eat ice cream (treat treat treat!) and drink ginger ale (super duper treat treat treat!)!

Jan 04
0

Buttons, buttons, everywhere

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Our boys have different personalities. But they also share many interests, one of which is buttons. By buttons, I mean things that you can push on an electronic device.

Owen gets distinct pleasure from pressing the TV on/off button – much to my dismay. He likes to do it whenever he can – including while watching TV. Kyle not so much. Kyle’s far more interested in pushing the buttons on the Microwave. Over and over and over. Sometimes it gets turned on. Sometimes there is something in it when it gets turned on. Sometimes that something is metal. Much to my dismay.

The boys like to sit on my lap at my computer and have me show them a video I’m working on (about them of course). Owen likes to try to tap the keyboard. Over and over. The video starts, stops and closes (without saving of course).

But maybe the best is that Kyle recently said (as he climbed in my chair and started pressing keys on my keyboard – which somehow immediately shut my laptop down – I just don’t know how that happened): “Not my computer. I don’t have computer [kompootor]. I ask Santa for computer, Papi?”

Now that’s a love of pushing buttons. Most of all, my heart button.

Jan 03
0

Playing in the Dark

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The moon over our house tonight

The boys play outside even after it gets dark. They don’t seem to care at all that it is so dark out. They don’t seem to notice that we’re the only family in the neighborhood still outside. They are totally unphased by it all.


Jan 03
0

Miss Dun Dun

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I’ve noticed that many parents of twins seem to categorize twins (their own twins and other twins) into two groups: twins who conspire together, and twins who don’t. The general consensus seems to be that conspiring twins are a blessing and a curse… Parents seem to both love and hate the idea of their twins working in mischievous concert together. On the one hand, part of the whole fascination and excitement and allure of twins is exactly that: their special mysterious bond together that is right at the surface when they act in instances of twin-mischief-conspiracy. On the other hand, no parent wants to be out-smarted or duped or ganged-up upon by their own children. One mother of young twins I know told me proudly about the annoying-yet-hysterically-funny things her conspiring twins do… such as hide important household items (and, at times, each other) in the washing machine. Another mother of young twins I know told me disappointedly that her twins “are not conspiring.” She said it was sad for her because that seemed to be part of the fun of having twins, and her twins just simply “aren’t like that.” I can see both sides of it. But if I go along with the whole categorization schema (which I’m not exactly comfortable doing– but I’m ‘gonna go ahead and do it right now anyway…) I definately, definately, definately have the conspiring type of twins.

I first noticed it when the boys were about 16 months old. Given that they both walked at 10 months (they took their first steps on the same exact day), and given how physically adept they naturally are, they were very mobile (and unusually capable of causing trouble) at a very early age. One day it got too quiet, and I went to find out what they were up to. I found the two of them upstairs in their bathroom. They were soaking wet, splashing in the toilet, flushing it repeatedly, and the toilet bowl was clogged and overflowing with every single bath toy the boys had (which was a lot!) shoved into it. I couldn’t even be mad about it — it was SUCH a sight! Another day, when they were 22 months old, again it got way too quiet, and I went to find out what they were up to. I found the two of them sitting on the floor of the laundry room amidst a big pile of cat food (they had emptied our bin of cat food onto the floor), eating it by the fist-full. Yes, it was gross. But I also ran to grab the camera before I did anything else. I knew even then that these boys were going to raise a ruckus in our lives (although then I hadn’t quite yet caught on to the “conspiring” vs. “non-conspiring” categorization schema), and I wanted to be able to show them photos of this day later on when they were 16-years-old-or-so (so I’d be able to tell them with photo documentation they were up to no good even way back when!). As I was off trying to find the camera they quickly began trying to “fix” it — and this is what I caught on film…

Anyway… the latest is that my little conspiring twins have begun to make up stories in cahoots and convince me that they are true when in fact they are entirely not. Yesterday when we picked them up at daycare we asked them who they had played with during the day, etc. They listed some kids and then some teachers — including “Miss Dun Dun.” Both of them very seriously told us that they had played with “Miss Dun Dun” at daycare. We hadn’t heard of her, but thought perhaps there was a new staff member. Then last night at supper they were again both talking at length about Miss Dun Dun. That she had patted them to sleep at nap, she had been there for lunch, she had taught Kyle the new song he was singing, she had given somebody a Time Out, etc. They started to giggle a bit at one point and we started to get the sense that they might be pulling our legs. We started to ask questions “Hmmm… Who is Miss Dun Dun?” “Did Miss Dun Dun pat you both for nap?”Etc. They started giving each other funny looks and giggling and smirking and then outright laughing as they were answering the questions. Braydon and I didn’t know what to think. By the end of it we didn’t know up from down (conversations with 2-year-olds are hard enough to follow– let alone when you’re not sure you’re talking about truth or fiction). Miss Dun Dun came up a couple of other times over the course of the evening, and I made a mental note to try to find out if there was a new “Miss Dun Dun” working at the daycare. This morning at drop-off I asked two of the teachers — completely innocently and sincerely — “Is there a new teacher here whose name is Miss Dun Dun?” Before they could even answer “No,” my knee-high twins were laughing hysterically together at their mother’s folly. They were laughing so hard, in fact, that in a semi-real/semi-dramatic scene they both threw themselves onto the floor rolling around laughing (just to add a little flair to the whole thing I’m sure!)… I explained the whole thing to the two teachers and we all (all five of us) got a good laugh. Yes, I have the conspiring type. Yes, they sometimes make me feel like a third wheel. But listen up my little bambinos: Just remember this (someday if you’re ever reading this)– At least in the beginning stages of all your conspiring twinship you were laughing with me not solely at me. :)
Jan 02
0

"You’ll laugh more than you’ve ever laughed before"

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When we were waiting for Kyle and Owen people would often say things to us regarding the subject of BECOMING PARENTS. We found it very interesting that so much of what people said to us was negative, or at least tinged with transparent negativity. I’m sure part of this was because people knew we were adopting twins – and they were somewhat scared for our fate (probably rightly so!!). But they said stuff to us like, “Oh, you’re in for it!” And “Enjoy your life now while you still have it!” Similarly, they’d give us advice, like, “Sleep now – you’ll never sleep again!” And “Spend time together now since once you have kids it won’t ever be just the two of you anymore.” Etc. Etc. Etc. Truth be told: these sorts of comments were really kind of difficult for us. People didn’t seem to get it — They didn’t seem to get that during the eight months we were waiting for our boys we had a hard time enjoying life at all since our babies were barely surviving in an orphanage. And we were not sleeping (at least once they came home we were sleep deprived because we were up all night with them, not because we were up all night worried sick about the fact that we were without them). And we had spent a solid ten years together before we decided to adopt — we had gone out to dinner enough, we had gone on fabulous vacations enough, we had slept in on the weekends enough. We were so ready for kids. We were so ready for our kids. Tonight at the supper table (see photo below of Owen-“Pasta Fingers”-Johnson-McCormick!), Braydon was laughing his tush off — and he reminded me of how people used to say all those negative things to us while we were waiting. And then he talked about how he remembered that our friend Marisa had said something so divergent from all the rest. He reminded me of how Marisa had said that upon becoming parents: “You’ll laugh more than you’ve ever laughed before.” Wow. It is so true. At the time she said it to us we were both struck by how not-negative it was. It was refreshing to hear. It sounded right up our alley! But we didn’t know who our kids were going to be. And we were scared to even hope for funny-laugh-provoking-fun-loving kids. We were happy to just take whatever we were going to be given, even if they never ever made us laugh. What we didn’t know then was that our two little bambinos — those very same babies who were lying together in a port-a-crib in a hot dingy barely-scraping-by orphanage in Haiti — were to be two little spark-plugs, two huge personalities, two charasmatic life-loving fully-immersed-in-living little people. We didn’t know then that all our hopes would come true: That Marisa would be right, and that all those naysayers would be so, so wrong. Some photos from this evening:

Jan 02
0

Quote of the Day: "Happy New Year Sheep!"

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Owen & Kyle this morning before daycare

January 2, 2007. Today we’re gettin’ back in the saddle! Back in the groove! Back to work/daycare for us 4! This morning during our regular route to daycare we were driving past a field that has sheep and goats grazing in it. We drive by these sheep and goats every day on our drive to-and-from daycare. Starting when the boys were about 13 or 14 months old they’d yell “Baaa! Baaa! Baaaaaaa!” every time we’d drive by. Then, as they started talking more, they’d yell “Hi Goats! Hi Sheep!” every time we’d drive by. Often they request to “slow down!” as we drive by, or they request “windows down!” so that they can actually shout out the car windows when they see the goats and sheep. Sometimes I’ll even stop the car so that they can take a good long look at the sheep and goats. For the past couple months they’ve been shouting other things to the goats and sheep too: “Hi Goats! It’s raining Goats! Go inside Goats!!!” or “Hi Sheep! Good Morning Sheep! We’re going to daycare Sheep!” Etc. Today is a beautiful gorgeous sunny day, and this morning, as we were driving by the sheep-and-goats-field K & O yelled out (completely unprompted): “Hi Sheep! Happy New Year Sheep! Hi Goats! Happy New Year Goats!”

Jan 01
0

New Year’s Day

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Years ago Braydon and I started a pseudo-tradition of doing *nothing* on New Year’s Day. Back when we were in our 20s and living in Boston and had a thriving social life we’d get invited to all sorts of New Year’s Day get-togethers — mimosa parties, fancy brunches, dinner parties. Those were the days! But we always RSVP’d “no” to all those invitations in order to spend the day lounging in our apartment together, watching movies, and eating junk food. Most years we never even got out of our pajamas. We did this partly because we wanted to start the New Year in a very low-key way, just the two of us. And we did this partly because we were infamous for partying like crazy with all our pals ’till the wee hours on New Year’s Eves. Whoa– when I think back on some of those New Year’s Eve fiestas… Some of you reading this participated… So you know exactly what I’m talking about. Again – Those were the days! Well, now of course we are living a different existence — a “post-K&O” existence. And I’d happily give up all those wild and crazy nights of partying for the beautiful family life we have going now. But it did have us in a quandry: what to do on New Year’s Day? We decided to go onward with what we had going and make our lounge-all-day-watch-movies-eat-junk-food an official family tradition. We never left the house today, except for a quick run to the grocery store this morning to buy our junk-food-supplies. Turns out all four of us love our ‘new’-‘old’-tradition!

Kyle’s choice junk food’s for the day: Whole Grain Fig Newtons, Bologna & Cheese Sandwiches, Hot Fudge Sundaes w/ Peanut Butter Cup Ice Cream and Rainbow Colored Jimmies

Owen’s choice junk food’s for the day: Juicy Juice, Ritz Bitz Cheese Cracker Sandwiches, Egg Nog, Hot Fudge Sundaes w/ Peanut Butter Cup Ice Cream and Rainbow Colored Jimmies

Heather & Braydon’s choice junk food’s for the day: Potato Chips, BLTs, Espresso, Lindt Chocolate Truffles, Hot Fudge Sundaes w/ Peanut Butter Cup Ice Cream (no jimmies!)

K & O’s movies for the day: Dora the Explorer – “Penguino”/South Pole Episode, Bob the Builder’s Christmas to Remember

H & B’s movie for the day: Domino

Tomorrow reality hits and we get back into the swing of normal life. The boys have had two full weeks off from daycare (and me off from work). I think we all have mixed emotions about starting the day tomorrow. But I know we’re all looking forward to a great 2007. The boys said many times today: “Happy New Year!” and raised their sippy cups for us all to toast. :)

Jan 01
0

Happy New Year!!!

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Happy New Year! We kicked off 2007 with a great start– we spent New Year’s Eve with one of our all-time-favorite families: The Uhrigs! Ben and Kyle and Owen are only six months apart, and very good friends, and we like to think that someday in the far-off-distant-future, when the three of them are clubbin’ it together in Manhattan rockin’ out for New Year’s Eve, that we’ll be able to tell them that the New Year’s Eve that they were all 2 years old was just as fun! ;0 We think maybe they’ll buy that and decide to spend every New Year’s Eve of their entire lives with us. Yeah, right!!!!! 😉 We had a great dinner at the Uhrig’s house, then we all headed out to First Night Morristown. A major highlight was a brass concert with “many, many trumpets! and trombones!!” The three boys loved it (and everyone in the packed audience loved watching them watch/listen/dance/clap!) Other highlights for K & O included balloons made for them by a big clown on stilts, and the 9:15pm “halftime” fireworks display over the city green (“halftime” for some, but for us it was the end-time). And we discovered… as Kyle will tell you — he “likes fireworks!” As Owen will tell you — he thought the “fireworks so so SCARY!” (Owen hated it and was deeply afraid – we had to quickly escape to the car and head home). We got home to tuck the boys in bed at 11:00pm, and then we drank cosmopolitans and watched the ball drop. Happy New Year everybody!