If I posted about basketball as often as it dominates our life, I’d be posting about basketball almost every day. But, because this is not a basketball blog, I tend to avoid posting about the subject. The last times I really gave basketball any devoted blog time was last July (post is here), and then a short post in August (post is here). Here I’ll try to convey, in one fell swoop, the past 9 months worth of basketball in our family life.

It might be a slight exaggeration to say that basketball dominates our life. It would only not be 100% true in the sense that — especially in the spring and early summer — baseball is huge too. But to say that K & O play basketball all the time is not really an untrue statement. We have an over-the-door hoop in the hall of our dorm. From the minute they wake up, until the minute they crawl into bed, it is where K & O spend the bulk of their free time. And when I say, “the bulk,” I mean probably — no exaggeration — at least 75% of the time (Braydon confirms this estimation to be an accurate one in his opinion).

It is intense bball. Sometimes (when the students are here) guys will join in with them. But usually, it is just the two of them. Going at it. In a big way. I have never seen them not sweating like crazy by the end of one of their little sessions. Often these ‘sessions’ involve — at some point — screaming, tackling, full-on-duking-it-out over some rule or regulation that one or the other has bent or broken (they make up all sorts of games and the rules are impossible for anyone but them to follow, let alone referee, so they are entirely on their own to work it all out). So far, no blood has been shed, but it has come very close many times.These bitter battles last approximately 2-5 minutes, and then it is on with the game.

It is shooting, jumping, blocking, slamming, non-stop hard-core hall ball. It never gets old (for them). But the constant incessant non-stop sound of dribbling, slamming, dunking, and swishing reverberating through the dorm day and night can often feel like it is slowly (or quickly) driving the rest of us crazy. Luckily for us all, during the regular academic year, we have to follow the dorm quiet hour rules — which means that K & O can not play basketball in the hallway before 10am — THANK GOD.

Living on campus has taken their love of basketball to a whole new level. If it were up to them we’d go to every single Lehigh basketball game — home or away — all season long. We take them to as many as we can. They love it love it love it love it love it.

I wonder sometimes what impact all this is having on them. These guys, who K & O greatly look up to and aspire to, are so within reach for K & O. While many young kids are sports fanatics, K & O have real college players right in their own little world. These guys are not untouchable to K & O. And K & O see them as real. They know them. In a way that most kids do not. And these guys (for the most part) embrace K & O. It is not at all uncommon to find K & O spending real time — outside of basketball — with the Lehigh players. It is not at all uncommon for them to be eating together in the dining hall, or hanging out tossing a frisbee on some lawn, or chit-chatting anywhere and everywhere that they might run into them on campus (including, sometimes, when K & O have the chance to attend Mommy’s classes). While on one level, K & O idolize these basketball players, they also see them as regular people too. This will be especially profound, I think, when tomorrow night K & O watch the NBA Draft on tv, and see a guy who they really actually know (a guy who was Mommy’s student) go pro. {If you don’t know about CJ McCollum, just google him to see.} What does it do to boys like K & O to watch someone they know become an NBA player? I have no idea. I suppose only time will tell.

As much as they love the hall ball, they’ll play on any court they possibly can, whenever they can, too. And living on campus, they have lots of options. They’ll play in the rain…

They’ll play in the snow…

And when they can’t be outside (because it is way too far below freezing), they’ll take any opportunity they can to play inside.

This year — the year they were 8 — was the year that basketball really exploded for them. Along with that came a newfound interest in basketball attire, Nike Elite socks, and — especially — basketball shoes. Our boys who never cared one bit about what they wore, now care. They want all sports attire all the time. Preferably basketball attire. The brighter the better.

They played again this year for their school’s basketball team. I wrote about that a little bit last September (post is here). The school has an official team for 3rd graders and higher, and a separate sports program for the younger kids. They had to bend the rules a little bit for K & O (the head of the program for younger kids said they were too good to play after kindergarten), and they started on the team in 1st grade. This year, as 2nd graders, they played again as real contributors.

Despite being much, much smaller than most all of the other players they played with and against, our boys proudly held their own against the competition. “Playing up” is an understatement here. But they did good.

Their team, once again this year, lost every single game that they played. But they had a ton of fun. And K & O have definitely had the privilege of learning at a young age how to lose, and lose gracefully.

Their coach from last year (a guy whose expertise with sports we greatly respect and trust) advised us that K & O need to be playing in an elite basketball program as soon as possible. We looked into it. Our local AAU program expressed interest in K & O and invited them try-out. They had a team for the youngest players (boys just slightly older than K & O were this year) and they thought K & O might be contenders to play on it. We went to the try-outs, and it was a mind-blowing experience for us all. We had never seen first-hand such an elite level of play, coaching, and training for kids. It was a 2-hour workout on a school night. We got a babysitter for Meera. We took it very seriously, and Kyle and Owen *LOVED* it. At the end of the session, the director of the program invited us to have K & O join. He was very clear: they are looking for three things — natural talent/athleticism, coach-ability/intelligence, and genuine passion for the sport. K & O were hitting on all three cylinders, at a very young age. Braydon and I thought long and hard about it. I did a lot of research and poured my heart out to some trustworthy sources (including coaches — and importantly — coaches-who-are-moms — at Lehigh). For about a week I grappled intensely with the decision. The kicker was that K & O would have to specialize– they’d have to basically devote themselves to basketball, and only basketball, starting now. Little League would be automatically ruled out for the spring, and the AAU program would mean heavy travel for us on many weekends. Kyle could have gone either way with it. Owen was chomping at the bit to sign up immediately for the AAU program. Ultimately, Braydon and I decided (after losing much sleep) that we had to make an executive decision to not do it. We felt strongly that they are too young to specialize, we did not want them to give up baseball, and we felt like it would be too much too soon to jump in 100% to one single sport. Now, looking back on it, it seems so obvious that we made the right decision. But at the time it felt like a grueling decision. Braydon and I are not well equipped to make determinations about the sports trajectories of such young and gifted athletes. We are new to this world and the learning curve is big.

Once basketball season ended they moved quickly onto baseball. (Our Little League experience deserves its own long post.) But basketball remains fully in tact as their primary love. At least for now.

Often after baseball practice, or between innings when watching a Red Sox game on tv, or upon coming inside from playing baseball together out in the yard, they’d move seamlessly to their beloved hall ball (note the gloves and bat on the floor in the photo above). One of the amazing things about having a twin is that you always have a built-in playmate who is your same age, same size, and same level of skill. Pretty amazing. (And pretty effective at a spiraling-never-ending-ratcheting-up-of-competitive-play.)

And then, of course, there is their “Heaven on Earth Week” (aka Basketball Camp) to round out the year. It was last week. There is really nothing much that they love more than that camp — the chance to play basketball all day long for an entire week with other boys and men who can understand and appreciate and relate to their love of the sport (people who are unlike the other three members of their family).

While I’ll never fully understand their adoration of bball, I try to be as respectful of it as possible. I’m trying hard to be the best mother I can be to these boys. Their athleticism is a challenge (a good challenge, one I embrace, but still– a challenge).

At the end of the day, though, one thing I can say for sure is this: I’m learning to love — and I mean, LOVE — watching them play. There is really nothing much that I love more than watching them play. Even when it does drive me absolutely crazy…. the sound at ridiculous decibels… the intensity reaching a fever pitch… the never-ending-inflow-of-sweat-drenched-clothing… the dribbling and slamming reverberating everywhere… at 7am, 7pm, and every time in between.

Who knows what the future holds? We sure don’t. But I’m so honored and privileged to be on the sidelines for these two.

These two dudes had their first visit to the eye doctor today. They got the works, including eye dilation (they thought the post-dilation-shades were super funky and way cool). Turns out they both have 20/20 vision!

Big happenings here!

We’ve been letting the boys’ locs grow for the past two years, with only very minor trims here and there. Today we did a drastic loc-cut. This had been coming for a long time. Although the locs started as my thing (when I first started K & Os locs they were 20 months old), over time they have become K & O’s thing. They were very hesitant about cutting them. But they were also getting so hot, so heavy, and so in their faces (especially during sports). Slowly but surely over the past few weeks K & O both became convinced that cutting them was for the best. Today was the big day.

It turns out they are so happy with their loc-cuts! (And I am too!) Their hair looks so healthy and their short locs are so strong (which will be great for sand, sun, and chlorine this summer!). It was a good decision. But a dramatic change!

BEFORE:

AFTER:

This week was K & O’s annual “Heaven on Earth Week” (their own title for Lehigh Basketball Camp). This was their third year of doing this camp, and it is truly one of the best weeks of their year. It is right up there — NO JOKE — with Christmas week and their birthday week. I am not even kidding.

100 basketball-loving-boys, a slew of idols coaches, a TON of sweat, and nothing-but-pure-basketball 8:30-3:30 Monday-Friday. This is Kyle and Owen’s idea of heaven. On Tuesday Kyle announced: “Instead of school all year and basketball camp for one week, I wish that it was basketball camp all year, and school for one week.”

I, however, don’t think I could handle that. I simply could not possibly handle the food production that would require.

As this past week progressed, I found myself shocked and awed by the sheer consumption of food they had going on. And believe me, at this point it takes a LOT to shock and awe me where my boys’ food consumption is concerned. I have blogged often about this subject over the years– the sheer volume of food these two put down. But during the week of basketball camp Heaven on Earth their food consumption jumps to a whole new level. (They are hustle hustle hustle non-stop on the court — in fact, Owen won the “Mr. Hustle” award this year for the second year in a row; can you just imagine how many calories they are burning each and every hour of this week?)

It takes a lot to fuel these basketball-loving twinados. It occurred to me two days ago that I should be somehow recording this for posterity sake. In the past two days I’ve tried to document their food intake. Here, for the sake of preserving history, are my notes from the past two days of food production:

TWO DAYS IN THE LIFE OF: Fueling the Twinados for Basketball Camp Week

note: I signed them up for the camp’s Gatorade program– that includes all-you-can-drink-Gatorade all day long. This year I also signed them up for pizza lunch. You can buy as much or as little pizza as you want your kids to have (pizza by the slice). I signed them up for three slices each, each day. So, they drank Gatorade all day and ate 3 slices each for lunch.

Day #1:

Breakfast: two eggs over easy, 3 slices thick-cut bacon, a pile of blueberries, OJ. Owen also has a Boost Plus, in addition to his breakfast, every morning because he needs the extra protein, calories, and fat.

After-Camp Snack: in addition to what you see below, they each had a very large glass of milk and a banana.

Dinner: grilled teriyaki salmon, grilled zucchini, watermelon, and penne with spinach and white beans. For the record: Owen ate 4 pieces of salmon that night. FYI: that is over a pound of salmon (that is a lot of salmon; it kinda makes my stomach turn just thinking about eating that much salmon in one sitting).

Late Night Snacks: Kyle ate a bowl of black raspberry ice cream that night. Owen ate two (yes two!) mint chocolate chip Klondike bars, then had to get out of bed later claiming that he couldn’t fall asleep because he was “so hungry.” He proceeded to eat three (yes three!) bowls of his favorite cereal (Kashi Heart to Heart Warm Cinnamon Oat cereal).

Day #2:

Breakfast: homemade waffles (note: they each ate two of these), smoothies.

That particular morning their smoothies = high protein plain greek yogurt, a handful of fresh kale, a handful of fresh spinach, 1 whole apple, 1 whole banana, a few chunks of frozen pineapple, mango puree (as amazing as it is, even to me, these guys don’t care at all that the smoothie is bright green, with a very thick texture, with no added sweetener whatsoever. They just slurp it right on down without even batting an eye.

After-Camp Snack: a huge pile of very sharp cheddar cheese, sliced salami, and grapes. In addition to what you see below, they each had a large glass of milk and a Nutrigrain cereal bar.

Dinner: grilled steak, sautéed mushrooms, mashed potatoes, steamed green beans (we also had grilled asparagus that night, and although Meera loves it, K & O have always had the gag reflex from asparagus so I don’t make them eat it). Note: after eating everything you see below, Owen came in after dinner claiming he wanted “more steak.” He proceeded to eat another half a steak before getting ready for bed.

Late Night Snacks: Kyle ate a bowl of black raspberry ice cream; Owen ate a chocolate dipped, nut-covered Drumstick ice cream cone.

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This morning, after we dropped off the boys at basketball camp, Meera and I made a grocery store run to re-stock. She saw this box of glazed donut holes near the check-out line, and wanted to get it for her brothers as a treat for the end of basketball camp week. This afternoon she presented it to them. They were beyond thrilled. I gave them each a huge glass of milk to go along with it. 15 minutes later I returned to find the box completely empty. Whattha?!?!

Here they are, watching a movie, this afternoon in their delirious post-donut-hole, exhausted post-basketball-camp-week state:

I am delirious and exhausted too. This food production gig is heavy-duty. Braydon is taking me out to dinner tonight so I can sip a cold glass of white wine and eat something delicious that someone else made.

Oh, and today is the 21st — Happy First Day of Summer!!! (And Happy 44th Anniversary to MorMor and MorFar!!!)

Photo from yesterday, texted to me by Cristina, from The Cup (Meera’s favorite place on campus: the campus ice cream shop!)

While her brothers were in basketball camp all week, Meera was at home having her own awesome first week of summer. I lined up a series of her favorite babysitters for a few hours each day (lucky for us some of her faves are taking summer classes!). Meera did lots of crafts, took lots of walks, and ate lots of ice cream. She also had her first major allergic reaction of her lifetime (note blotchy face = hives = diagnosed today by our pediatrician as serious allergic reaction to something — who knows what — started Zyrtec today and starts Prednisone tomorrow morning). Ahhhh! Summer glorious summer! (allergic reactions and all!)

Our summer is off to a good start.

Here’s a quick re-cap of the past couple of weeks:

The Last Day of School ~

The last day of two 2nd-graders and a pre-schooler. Onward and upward! The last day was a half day. I picked ’em up and took ’em out to their favorite lunch: Hibachi ~

We’ve managed to pack in quite a few lasts in the last bunch of days:

Last Little League game of the season ~

Last playdate of the school year ~

We weathered the storm of “lasts” quite nicely all things considered. We woke up on our first official day of “summer” (i.e., first day of no school) to the most torrential downpour and flash floods we’ve had since moving here. I could not get over how hard it was raining. The bambinos were in their pjs and I sent ’em out there to celebrate the first day of summer break. They went cray-z. (That makes their mama proud; I love a kid who can go wild in the rain; I was always that camp counselor who was first out of the cabins for puddle jumping, with all my little campers like little ducks stomping right behind me. Big warm rain + happy free kids = the best.)

That was a nice start to summer. But, for the boys, the start of summer is most symbolized by the newfound freedom to stay up late watching Red Sox games. This is their happy place:

Summer for Meera means more time to toodle and doodle. This is her happy place:

Summer means more time to read ~

I believe strongly that in the best case scenario summer should include getting sufficiently bored for creativity to set in. If the start of our summer is any indication, this summer will include a lot of creativity. Sufficient boredom (“dead time”; “unstructured activity”; time to “do nothing”) is a prerequisite for the kind of rich play I’m talking about here.

Late afternoon pedicure in the bathroom sink is a good sign of sufficient boredom ~

I also believe strongly that in the best case scenario summer should include water. Lots and lots of water. Of all kinds of varieties.

{Note: despite the fact that I miss our pool a lot, the bambinos have not mentioned it once on their own, and seem to not miss it much at all. In fact, when I ask them straight out, “Do you miss our old pool?” they respond simply with, “Sorta.”}

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P.S. Summer is also a time of eating. Lotsa eating. I can barely keep up (the demand often outweighs the supply on summer days). Speaking of eating… our girl turned a big corner upon turning 5 — the other day, for the first time ever, she ate her entire sandwich at Subway for lunch (the Subway “kids size” – her usual: turkey and cheese on wheat with cucumbers, tomatoes, green peppers, and mayo). She was rewarded with a chocolate chip cookie for dessert. She made her brothers proud — Owen especially could not have been a prouder big brother of his sister’s momentous feat. (Of course, her brothers were eating an entire 6-inch each by the time they were 5, but we didn’t feel the need to mention that to her).

Onward and upward! Growing, playing, summer fun in the sun and rain. As my dad is famous for saying, “This is going to be the best summer ever!!!”

Meera and Jewel have birthdays just a week apart. Despite the fact that these two BFFs have gone to different schools for the past year, they remain about as tight as two 4-now-5-year-olds could possibly be. It doesn’t matter that they are so young, their connection is the real deal. Here they are at Sweet & Sassy for Jewel’s 5th birthday!

(I think my longest series of posts ever)

1 of 8

2 of 8

3 of 8

4 of 8

5 of 8

6 of 8

7 of 8 (Close-Ups of the Fairy Houses!)

8 of 8

And, Follow Up Posts:

The Fairy Forest in the Fall

The Fairy Forest in the Winter

The Fairy Forest One Year Later

also… A Discovery in the Fairy Forest!

When we moved onto campus we knew that a major perk would be having 1,800 acres of woodland right outside our front door. We imagined that Kyle and Owen would love mountain biking with Braydon (which they have), and that we’d spend lots of time exploring the walking/hiking paths (which we have). What we had not anticipated was that Meera would instantly develop a love affair with the woods.

In our first weeks on campus, Meera (at age 4) found that her favorite thing to do was to go on walks in the woods. These woods are 100% natural, preserved woodland, filled with all sorts of deer, birds’ nests, wildflowers, and trees of many varieties. It is vast, and devoid of people, and loaded with nooks and crannies to discover and explore. Meera was convinced, right from the start, that these woods were an enchanted place where fairies lived. She’d see a hole in a tree, and exclaim it was a “fairy’s house!” She’d discover a small crevice in a rock filled with rain water, and announce it was a “fairy pool!” She’d collect acorn caps and explain that they were “fairies’ bowls!” Right away she began calling the woods behind Sayre the “Fairy Forest.” And the name stuck. Walks in the Fairy Forest became a regular thing for us, and it was always her choice of activity whenever it was her turn to choose. Soon enough, we all sort of started to believe that the woods behind our new home were enchanted with fairies and woodland creatures and all sorts of magical happenings.

So, as we approached Meera turning 5, it was an easy choice to plan her birthday party around the theme of the Fairy Forest. She was so excited at the idea of having her friends see her special place! And I was so excited at the idea of making the Fairy Forest come alive in a most magical way that even Meera could not have imagined!

We sent out the invitations to Meera’s classmates and a few close family friends. Meera doesn’t want huge blow-out parties like her brothers do, and the smaller size of her parties allow me to go into a great depth of detail that I couldn’t if they were larger. Meera also notices, and appreciates, everything. She is very detail-oriented. So going into great depth of detail is a joy to do for her.

And this time around — boy of boy — did I ever go into a great depth of detail!

Readers know that I go all out for my kids’ birthday parties. Meera’s past two birthday parties have been incredibly glorious (her 4th birthday party click here; her 3rd birthday party click here). I wanted this one to be too.

And on that note, here, before I go any further, I want to write a disclaimer.

PREFACE: Before proceeding please read the following fine print—

DISCLAIMER: There is lots of chatter these days on the internet and everywhere else about the downfalls and pitfalls of mothering in the modern era of Mommy-Blogs and Pinterest and Facebook and Google. I am totally sympathetic to a lot of this in the sense that I do think it is outrageously awful for us moms to compare ourselves to what we see online. We will always come up short in our own assessments (or, at least, most of us will– myself included– especially if we’re even the slightest bit perfectionist-oriented, competitive, or self-critical). Thus I feel compelled to explain, just a bit, about the motivation and inspiration behind my CRAZY party-making. See below.

NOTE: I do these parties as much (if not more so) for me as for my kids. I love doing it. It is important, I think, to acknowledge that. This is not an wholly altruistic, selfless, “all for the children!” thing going on here. And this is definitely not a one-up, or ‘keeping up with the Jones’s’, or trying to out-do all the other kids’ birthday parties thing. All year long I work ridiculously hard at my job as a Professor of Sociology at Lehigh University. My job is intellectually challenging and requires intellectual creativity. But I don’t get any chance to pursue very many of the other aspects of my creative self. And it just so happens that the end of the academic year (when I’m most burnt out from my job, and when I finally have a chance to take a breather for the first time in 9 months), and the month of K, O, and M’s birthdays (which I want to mark and celebrate in a big way), all collide right smack in the one little month of May. It is like a whole academic year of pent up creative energy suddenly explodes in May. I also will admit: I love being a mother and I love kids and I love throwing parties and I love bringing people together for any kind of large or small celebration (thank goodness for my career or else I’d surely be one of those crazy ladies on Pinterest who makes the rest of us look bad with her endless outflow of creative-over-the-top-mothering-crafting-entertaining-to-the-9th-degree; my career is enough of a distraction to guarantee that I’ll never be one of them). So, for one month each year I let myself go wild. I take off the reigns and let it all go. I try not to think too much about what everyone else thinks of me (because I know they think I’m ridiculous with this stuff!). I just let myself go nuts. And so, May is insane. I become this totally insane birthday-party-creating mother. But it is insane in a whole other different way than the rest of our year. And by the end of May I’m totally completely 100% done. It is all out of my system and life resumes to normalcy. This is all just to say that the process of making the parties is a therapeutic, cathartic, good experience for my own mental health.

SPOILER ALERT: If you are prone to compare-and-contrast, where being a mother-or-woman-or-person-at-all is concerned, then you should know in advance that this set of posts about Meera’s birthday is not in any way meant to make you insecure or questioning. Only the opposite: this is just me being crazy-old-me and shouldn’t ever be compared to or contrasted with you being you. I want to be sure to say the following, especially because I know many young women [in particular, female PhD candidates who hope to be Professors-and-Moms someday] are reading this: 1) This crazy-birthday-party-throwing aspect of me is highly unusual [possibly unique?] for academic women. That should go without saying. 2) Please see this as an example of ALL THAT CAN BE. Not an expectation, or a bar set, or a standard to strive for. My hope is that this will be interpreted simply as I mean it to be: As proof that we can fill our lives with the things we choose. We can be mothers and professors and we can be intellectuals and party-planners. We don’t have to do it all. And we can’t do it all all the time. But we can do bits of it all some of the time. We can find ways to choose to be ourselves. And we shouldn’t have to apologize for it.

ACKNOWLEDGEMENTS: I could not do this without my mother. I have the vision. But she helps me to actualize it, and we work great as a team on things like party throwing. I also could not do this without my husband who accepts this ridiculous part of me and puts up with me to being just this insane. I also want to say thank you to everyone who sees these parties (in real life and online) and doesn’t judge me. Thank you for having my back! xoxxo

And now, without further ado, Meera’s 5th Birthday~~~~~~

{artwork by Tracy Kane}

Meera and I had spent many hours this winter with the Tracy & Barry Kane books on fairy houses. MorMor had given us the story book, Fairy Houses, which Meera loves. Then we bought a Fairy Houses photo book, which we were both totally taken with. I have fond memories of cold nights with Meera on my lap in her bedroom rocking chair, just studying every detail of the fairy houses in that book. We were awed and inspired! Meera spent much time throughout the winter and spring building very rudimentary fairy houses — often with Braydon — in the woods behind our home, and all over campus.

My idea for Meera’s birthday party was to build a handful of very elaborate fairy houses in our ‘Fairy Forest’ in advance, and to have a party where the centerpiece would be a walk in the Fairy Forest where Meera and her friends would discover fairy houses that they could never have imagined. I wanted to build the houses ahead of time, and without Meera knowing, so that it would be as magical for her as it would be for our guests.

As soon as Kyle and Owen’s birthday party was done with and all cleaned up, I got straight to work on Meera’s. First I had Braydon help me clear some spaces in the woods and set up some basic frameworks for the construction of fairy houses. We also had to deal with the rampant poison ivy problem in the Fairy Forest. Once that part was under control, for about a week straight, I spent every spare minute I had making many, many detail pieces for the fairy houses.

The glue gun became my best friend.

There were a bunch of very late nights, there were cups of coffee drank at 5pm, there were several (8 out of 10) of my finger tips covered in blisters from the glue gun… and there was great fun had by me. Let me reiterate: I LOVE THIS STUFF.

Braydon would come check on me at 11 or 12 at night and see what I was doing and just shake his head with utter befuddlement. I sat there for hours making fairy beds and chairs and swings and tables. I loved every second of it.

The bambinos caught on quick to what I was doing. K & O just shake their heads and grin and bear this about their mother. But Meera loves it more than you can imagine. In the mornings Meera would want to check what I had done the night before. In her pajamas, in the morning light, she’d play and play with the fairy beds and chairs and swings and tables. It was like I was making whole play-sets for her pure enjoyment. She could not possibly have conceptualized that I was putting together whole houses for the fairy forest. She definitely did not have any idea that up in New Hampshire, MorMor was doing the same.

I was very, very into it. For about a ten day stretch it was all fairy houses all the time. The bambinos (and Braydon) started to realize that Mommy was a tad little bit off her rocker when they noticed that I had a new phone case:

(FYI: I got it for $4.99 as an add-on when I ordered the party invitations on Vistaprint.com)

So, yes, I went a little CRAY-Z.

By the time my mom arrived I had bags and boxes of supplies and fairy house accoutrements all ready for assembly in the forest. She arrived with her car trunk stashed full of pre-assembled fairy houses. We had one night together before we had to set up the houses in the woods. We spent that night hot glue-gunning like crazy and laughing at our selves every single step of the way (well, mostly us laughing at me). I hope I’ll never forget these times with my mom. I hope this post will tell the story to Meera of how MorMor and me had such a good togetherness. I hope we are setting an example so that Meera and me can have that one day too.

The next morning Papi and MorFar took the bambinos out to run some errands. MorMor and Mommy got to work making magic in the fairy forest. By later that afternoon MorMor and I called it quits in time for our Third Annual Pre-Meera’s-Party Trio of Pedicures.

This year we all got the same color… pink, of course, for Meera. Note: a color that MorMor and I would never ever choose independently. We do this for, and in honor of, our girl (a girl who is — in many ways — much more of a gender-stereotypical “girl” than MorMor and I have ever, ever been.)

That night we got the bambinos to bed and put the final details on the party room (the lounge of our dorm! a great space for a kid’s birthday party!!!) My dad and Braydon partook in their bi-annual ritual of blowing up about a million balloons and determining the physics of the best way to handle the piñata set up. We called it a night early so that we could be ready for the morning party the next day.

These three woke up on Memorial Day ready for a party that was just perfect for Meera.

They got it!

First and foremost, it was a morning party — which we’ve never done before — but which I wish we had always done for younger kids’ parties. Little kids are at their best in the morning. And, come on… who are we kidding?!… grown-ups are at their best in the morning too!

We had fruit, bagels, cream cheeses, lox, and mini powdered-sugar donuts. We had sparkling water, plain water, chocolate and vanilla milk boxes. And that was that. And it was perfect! Why did I not always throw morning birthday parties?

Our guests began arriving at 10am sharp. The kids played and painted fairy houses and ate donuts and drank milk. The adults talked and ate bagels and wondered what the “fairy forest” thing was all about.

And then we were off!

OFF TO THE FAIRY FOREST!!!!

“Have you ever seen a real fairy house?!” “Have you ever seen where fairies live?!” “Have you ever gone for a walk in a fairy forest?!”

As it turned out, we all soon discovered, the fairies left a “map” at the entrance of the fairy forest. Meera told her friends all about the map– “see! look! they made a map of the path! and I think they wrote my name here!” It was insect trails etched into a log we had leaned up against a tree.

I think it was then that the kids started to realize something special was going to happen. They caught on to Meera’s sense of wonder, and it was contagious.

We entered the fairy forest and began our walk along what had truly come to feel like a genuinely enchanted path. Meera led the way, looking for the nooks in trees and crevices in rocks that had caught her attention many times before. Quickly, however, early on the path, and to the left, she discovered something new. Oh my gosh! A fanciful and very elaborate fairy house!

As much as I loved the lead-up to this party, the preparations, the making of fairy house furniture at midnight, the glue gun blisters and the collecting of acorn caps… as much as I loved all of that… seeing my turning-5-year-old’s wondrous eyes blew that all away. Watching her was my gift. The icing on the cake was watching her friends, and our friends, discover the fairy forest. Even her brothers were overcome with the mystical nature of it all.

It was pure magic.

And then she looked up. And realized it wasn’t just one elaborate fairy house there in the woods. Up further along the path was another.

And thus began our walk in the fairy forest for Meera’s 5th Birthday Party. It was a magical experience for everyone there. There is wonder and inspiration in the idea of magic created. Even when we know who made it (even when we know we made it), we can still get caught up in it. The magic is in the concept of the creation of it — something good and special made real, out of thin air, for another. And there is something truly special about experiencing magic with others.

My favorite photo of the day:

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Somehow, in the best of situations, magic feels like love. I think everyone there knew that this was a crazy expression of my crazy love for Meera. And love — like magic — is sort of contagious sometimes. People were awed by the wonder of it all. And for a little bit of time that fairy forest was really a lovely magical place. It was a break in time from everything else. Where just for a moment we could be caught up in it together. Like all good magic, there was an amazing quality about it that forces our minds to question the realities we thought we knew. For a moment professors could be fairy-house-makers, five-year-olds could be experts, and genuine relationships could cut across every sort of traditional line.

Our walk in the fairy forest was done. (Although many guests did return later to re-visit it before they went home!)

It was time to head back for cake!