GO LEHIGH!

All three bambinos got to stay up late tonight to watch Lehigh vs. Duke in the NCAA Basketball Tournament. Talk about March madness. Holy Moly. Not sure that they fully appreciate the historic, epic proportions of the awesome game they saw played, but Kyle and Owen get it enough to know it was a BIG WIN. They fell asleep smiling. (Literally.)

K & O have been following Lehigh basketball their whole lives (they first fell in love with it via Zahir, who is still to this day their #1 basketball idol of all time). Meera mainly colored while her brothers jumped up and down like little maniacs, pounding their fists in the air, and screaming their lungs out at the television. We’ve gone to a whole bunch of the Lehigh games this season (where K & O are some of the loudest fans in the arena), K & O went to Lehigh’s basketball camp this past summer (where they got to know many of the players and coaches pretty well), and I have one of Lehigh’s biggest star players in a course that I’m teaching this semester (where I get to see a whole other side of things, far off of the court). All of this has led to the fact that over the past few months we’ve developed a real relationship with a couple of the key hot-shot players. It is pretty wild to then be sitting in our family room on a Friday night watching our guys play on CBS during primetime.

At the end of the game, when it was clear that Lehigh was going to win, I had chills and got tears in my eyes. I know some of these guys in a way that few do (as a professor, teaching the sorts of subjects I do, I often see a vulnerable part of students that is rarely seen elsewhere). I watched as my boys (K & O) overflowed with true joy as they watched my boys (#11 & #3). I thought of Zahir, and I thought of other awesome guys from the past ten years who played basketball at Lehigh while also taking my courses. My boys. Tall, strong, quick-as-a-flash, basketball star black athletes who are also smart-as-a-whip, intellectually curious, deeply driven, successful black students/people.

There is so much to this for me. And somehow, as I watch my boys watch it, I can see how it all fits together. Sometimes people really do come from behind, suspend all disbelief, and do mind-bogglingly amazing things. Not without the help of others, no. But sometimes it really does happen — there are big upsets and epic wins and most everyone is proven wrong. I’m talking here, of course, about my boys and about my boys.

Before Braydon and I had kids we were entertaining constantly. And I do mean constantly. It was rare for a week to go by that we didn’t have friends over for at least one dinner. And many weeks we’d have company over several nights of the week. We (especially I) loved doing that. I loved having a home where people were always coming and going, drinks always being poured, food always being feasted upon. It all came to a screeching halt, however, when we brought Kyle and Owen home.

We knew that the first six months as a family we would hunker down and close up shop where all-things-entertaining ware concerned. But we presumed that once we got settled in we’d fling the doors back open again. I imagined us entertaining in the same way that we had pre-kids, only now it would be more fun with two baby boys bouncing around. Well, no. No, no, no, no, no. It did not go like that. We quickly realized that it was basically impossible for us to have anyone over for dinner. #1) I could no longer set aside the chunks of time necessary to plan, prep, shop, and cook for dinner parties, #2) we, literally, could not sit down for more than 10 minutes –to eat or otherwise– with Kyle and Owen in the mix, and #3) we could never really count on when our lovely little babies would actually go to sleep [bedtime has always been… shall we say… challenging]. Dinner parties were completely out of the picture. Period. We dabbled with inviting people over for lunch. But the same issues were there, plus… the napping… we could never be sure how long they would (or would not) nap. Pretty quickly we came to discover that entertaining was no longer going to fit into our newfound lifestyle.

We grieved that for a long time. Still do, at times. Seriously– it was hard for us to give that up. Feeding people in our home had always been our way of connecting. Taking it out of the equation had huge ramifications for our social lives. Over the years we would sometimes try to host meals with friends in our home. It was usually a disaster, and always more stress than it was worth. It was sad.

We went like that for a long, long time. And then, about a year ago, we discovered a new form of entertaining that — as it turns out — really works for us! Brunch!

Over the past year we’ve been inviting many of our friends over for brunch. Always a Saturday or Sunday, always around 10am-1pm, and I always pre-warn them: “this is going to be a simple, casual, family-friendly brunch of bagels and fruit!” This sets their expectations so that they are not imagining fresh-off-the-skillet-pancakes, omelettes-cooked-to-order, roast-carving-stations, or anything resembling a traditional “brunch” that you’d get if you were to go out to a nice place. The goal here, for us, has been to keep it simple and easy (this, my friends, is always my challenge as I tend to go overboard with just about everything and have a serious problem with limiting my scope).

Here is why our Brunches With Friends work for us:

• Everything can be prepared in advance (so that we can focus on our friends, and trouble-shoot our kids, not worry about food/drink during the actual brunch-time).
• Most everything can be store-bought so that putting it together is super easy.
• The whole thing takes only 2 hours (absolute max!) the morning-of to prepare and set up, and then 1 hour (absolute max!) to clean up.
• Most kids (ours and our friends) have already eaten some sort of breakfast, so brunch is just sort of “extra” (which is nice, since it is often hard to get kids to eat, at all, when there are friends to be played with).
• Most parents (us and our friends) appreciate a mimosa on a weekend morning. Note: that is an understatement… most parents LOVE a mimosa on a weekend morning.

We always have mimosa-makings, bubbly water, ice, and champagne glasses out for everyone. I am a true believer in not letting the fancy glassware sit on the shelf, and have no problem (truly) when these things are broken by raucous kids. The kids love having a fancy glass, and they like making their own “mimosa” mixing Pelligrino and OJ. But since people are making their own, they can make it as strong or as weak as they like, they can have straight up OJ, or straight up Pelligrino… whatever they want. And it works. I sometimes also put out organic chocolate milk boxes (the ones like juice boxes) for the kids in addition to the mimosa-makings.

And the “Brunch Menu” is always basically the same– just variations on a theme:

• Bagels with fixings (various cream cheeses and lox for a “breakfast bagel” & various sandwich makings for a “lunch bagel”), all sitting by the toaster so that people can make their own however they like.
• Fruit (either simply out for the taking, in a bowl as fruit salad, or on a platter as fruit kabobs…depending on how industrious I’m feeling).
• Veggies, potato chips, and dip (the chips and dip are always the huge hit. for kids and grown-ups alike. always. always. always. everyone loves chips and dip and it makes it feel like a real party).

  

The best part about brunch is that even after everyone has left, and the house is entirely cleaned up, and the dishwasher is running, we still have a nice big portion of our day still before us. There is time for Meera to take a nap, or for the boys to watch a movie, or for us all to chillax and enjoy the rest of our “S-Day” (Saturday and Sunday have always been called “S-Days” by Kyle and Owen).

Brunch with Friends! The J-Ms give it ten thumbs up!

…they are starting to slow down.

Not very often, mind you. And not for long. That’s for sure. But every once in a while, with no transparent pattern, rhyme, or reason as to when or why…

They take a little break from running/jumping/climbing, pedaling/digging/swinging/sliding, pushing/pulling/tackling, throwing/catching/kicking/hitting/slam-dunking… and sit.

And when they do…

It is a beautiful thing to see.

(top: Owen engrossed in crayon and watercolor / bottom: Kyle reads Ruby Bridges)

The daffodils are blooming here, and tonight we ate dinner outside on the deck for the first time this year. The seasons are shifting. You can feel it in the air, and all around. Times are changing. I see it mostly in Meera. Our Little Miss Diva. She is evolving right before our eyes, becoming a Big Girl, no longer a toddler. This metamorphosis is clear in the way she talks, in the way she holds her body, her steadily increasing independence, and in her slow-move-toward-no-napping. But It is most obvious — interestingly enough, as it has always been with Meera — in her tastes and preferences for the way she presents herself. Specifically, in how she dresses. Her clothes, shoes, and accessories have always been incredibly important to Meera. Since she was a baby she’s been expressing herself this way. And while I don’t want her to place too much value in these things (especially as they relate to her own self-worth), I appreciate her willful insistence on adorning herself the way she wants to be adorned.

Meera is now, and has forever been, a Fashionista with a capital “F.” She comes from a long line of women who have exquisite taste in clothes (my Nana in heaven is surely beaming at the sight of her great-granddaughter’s attire, and my own mother is quite the fashionista herself). As for me– I will be the first to admit that I am thoroughly enjoying ‘Dressing Meera.’ This is one of the most fun indulgences of having a little girl. I like helping Meera to look the way she wants to look. And I especially love seeing her self-confidence and self-love as she walks through the world feeling like the smart, beautiful, strong-willed girl that she is.

Meera’s fashion sense is evolving, but is fundamentally the same as it has always been. It is still about ‘Fancy,’ but it is becoming a more sophisticated look as opposed to a girlie-girlie cutsie look. Her favorite color is still pink, but she rarely insists on it anymore, and is very open to a broad spectrum of color. Meera still prefers dresses and skirts to pants, but she will wear pants. She still, however, refuses to wear jeans. She will almost never agree to wear sneakers. She will often be sure to wear a necklace, bracelet, or ring to school. And she has specific ideas about how she wants her hair done each day. Interestingly enough, Meera is the only kid in her class who dresses so ‘formally’ for school. While the other girls and boys wear sweatpants and velcro sneakers, Meera wears a full scale “outfit” (as she calls it) to daycare each and every day.

Over the past month I’ve tried to take a picture of Meera each morning before she goes to school. I forgot some days, but I captured most. I hope someday, when Meera is feeling those feelings of self-doubt and insecurity creep in (those feelings that all of us girls, unfortunately, eventually have to battle), that she’ll maybe catch a glimpse of this post and be reminded of the smart, beautiful, strong-willed girl that she is and always has been.

We returned last night from the best birthday celebration I’ve been a part of for a long, long time. Today is MorFar’s 65th birthday (HAPPY BIRTHDAY MORFAR!!!), and we celebrated his 65 years over the weekend.

My dad’s wish for his 65th birthday was to have his family together. My mom (the Master of making-a-vision-a-reality) made his wish come true in a big way. She sprang for treating us all to a weekend away, with many special treats thrown in. My parents and my sister’s family all live a good 8-12 hours away from us (depending on traffic, weather, who is driving, and who else is in the car!). The halfway point between where they live and where we live is somewhere in the viscidity of Worcester, Massachusetts… which is a pretty nice coincidence given that is where my dad grew up and where his dad still lives. So we all met up in the Worcester area for the grand celebration of MorFar’s 65th.

The centerpiece of the weekend was “MorFar’s Birthday Party” which took place on Saturday afternoon/evening at “the most fancy restaurant!” (direct quote from the bambinos). We went to an old favorite steakhouse of our family– One Eleven Chop House. Oh my goodness gracious, what a special treat for us all! It was my dad’s birthday, but I walked away from that restaurant feeling like my mom just gave each of us our own birthday present for the whole next year— it was that good! (THANK YOU MORMOR!) We went all out, ordering everything you can imagine, and I think it is safe to say we all enjoyed it to the max. Kyle, in particular, was totally smitten with the fancy-shmancy steak house experience. He keeps talking on and on about it reminiscing about the “tender juicy steak” he ate (his quote), and the hand-cut french fries that he discussed at length with the wait staff (“are these made here? are they homemade? from scratch? what kind of potatoes do you use?” etc! — yippee do dah day, my dream of raising foodies is coming true right before my eyes!!!). It was just a fabulous experience, complete with (for some of us — me included) an excellent bloody mary, oysters on the half shell, a great glass of cabernet, and incredibly delicious lamb (four of my very Top Ten Edibles in life). Impeccable service, a great vibe and atmosphere, and a relaxed group of 11 (nobody had to cook! nobody had to clean up!) made for a truly stunning 65th birthday party. Over the top excellent!

After dinner the party continued back at the hotel. It was so nice to be away together, without anyone having to worry about hosting or cleaning or anything else (thank you MorMor for the hotel!!!). That night the kids got to swim in the hotel’s pool with MorFar (a highlight of life for these four cousins is always and forever swimming swimming swimming! add MorFar to the mix and it is like putting icing on a cake!). Then we had MorMor’s best-ever homemade carrot cake and sang Happy Birthday to MorFar. We also, together, listed 65 things we love about MorFar. After the kids were in bed there were drinks and cigars late into the night.

The next morning the J-Ms joined my parents and Grandpa Les for church. This is the church my dad grew up going to, the church where I’ve spent every Easter of my life (and where my kids have too), and the church where my Grandma Lorraine’s memorial service was held. This church goes way, way back for the Johnson side. It is always special to go there. After church we went out to lunch with MorMor and MorFar before heading home. I had to snap this picture when I realized my boys were all matching on Sunday morning!

We J-Ms actually drove up to Massachusetts on Friday so that we could ensure our 3-year-old’s best spirits for Saturday’s celebration. It worked, and Meera (and all three of them, actually) was nothing but a charm for MorFar’s occasion. But because we had driven up on Friday, and the festivities did not begin until Saturday afternoon, we had a little extra time for something adventurous Saturday morning. We realized upon arrival in New England that we just happened to be there smack dab in the middle of Massachusetts maple sugaring season. So on Saturday we took the bambinos for An Education in Maple Sugaring.

We found a farm online that was open to the public, so we headed out for a little maple-sugaring adventure. And what an adventure it turned out to be! Turns out that not many people from the public actually do take part in the K E Farm “tour”… but nonetheless it did not seem to phase Ernie and his wife, the farm’s owners, when we showed up at their front door on Saturday morning! Ernie took our crazy family in stride and took us all out to his sugar shack where he showed us hands-on everything we’d ever want to know about how maple syrup is made. As a kid growing up in rural New Hampshire, it was not rare for my family to tap trees for sap, and cook off our own maple syrup in the early spring. So, I personally know all about it. But for Braydon and the bambinos this was a real eye-opening inside glimpse into the maple-sugaring process. We had such a good time! Ernie patiently answered the 1,000+ questions (and statements) that the bambinos came up with, dealt with their boundless energy and curiosity inside his sugar shack (and around his wood-fired sap cooker), and by the end Ernie seemed genuinely enamored with our crazy little kids– he was giving them all sorts of samples of syrup straight from the cooker, fresh maple sugar candy, and syrup straws (like honey straws, but with maple syrup inside instead). Thanks to Ernie the bambinos will never take real maple syrup for granted again!

All in all, just a fabulous fabulous weekend away for us J-Ms. We came home wishing the MorFar could turn 65 more often!!!

The bambinos love minestrone soup. Kyle and Owen, especially, go nuts for the stuff and always have. A few months ago I was listening to NPR and one of the chefs from Cooks Magazine was being interviewed. She was asked to give a few great food tricks/tips, and one of the things she said was this: V8 juice is the absolute best trick for making a great minestrone soup. She talked for just a minute or two about using V8 as the base for the soup, but I was totally intrigued. I’ve tried to make minestrone-like soups in the past and have never been totally happy with them. And I’ve always hated V8 as a juice, but have never tried it as a soup base. A few weeks ago I devoted a little bit of time to googling “V8 minestrone” and was shocked by how much I found! Turns out lots of people know about this little V8-soup-base trick!

The bambinos and I recently gave it a try. Without using any real recipe we made what all of us agreed was the absolute very best minestrone soup we had ever had! The V8 really made this soup so much better than any minestrone I’d ever made before. It made the soup thick and sort of creamy (but with no cream), and with lots of great flavor (but perfectly balanced). With a “special drink” (cans of seltzer for K & O, and an apple juice box for M), this soup was the best weekend lunch we’ve had in a long time! (And leftovers happily went into lunch thermoses the following week!) Super easy, super flavorful, and super fun to make with little ones… here’s our recipe:

The Bambinos’ Best Ever Minestrone Soup

(no real measurements here, just wing it and use what you like and you’ll be just fine! that’s the beauty of this soup!!!)

1. In a large pot, over medium heat, sauté some chopped onion and garlic in a bit of olive oil. (We used 1 medium onion and 3 cloves garlic.) Cook, stirring often, until onion is translucent.
2. Add chopped carrots and celery to the pot. (We love carrots so we chopped up a whole bag of them, and used 4 stalks of celery.) Cook, stirring often, until just barely beginning to soften.
3. Add chopped zucchini and green beans. (We used one medium sized zucchini and a couple handfuls of fresh green beans.) Continue to cook for just a couple minutes longer.
4. Add 1 large (46 ounce) can Original V8, 2 (14 ounce) cans vegetable broth, and 1 can of diced tomatoes. Stir to combine.
5. Simmer, stirring occasionally, until slightly reduced and vegetables are tender. (We had time, so we let it simmer on low for about an hour, but it would be fine with much less time.)
6. About 20 minutes before you want to eat it, add 1 or 2 cans of kidney beans and/or garbanzo beans (drained and rinsed), some frozen peas, some chopped fresh spinach, and as much small size/shaped dry pasta as you like (such as Ditalini). (We like beans and peas and spinach and pasta — and we like chunky soups — so we added a lot!). Once pasta is cooked through, it is ready to serve!
7. Ladle into soup bowls and grate fresh parmesan cheese on top. Delish!!!

Today is Thursday. Thursday is “Library Day.” Every Thursday, Kyle and Owen’s class goes to their school library for an hour of library time. They do activities with the fantastic school librarian (a person that they both adore, in part because she is the only adult they know in their every-day-life who shares their status as “Adoptee” — like Kyle and Owen, she was adopted — which, to them, is huge), they listen to a book or two be read to them (by the adored librarian), they hand in their previous week’s two library books, and they get to pick out two new library books to bring home for the next week. K & O love Library Day. Every Thursday four new library books come home from school (two each).

But here’s the thing that really gets me—– Every Thursday, three of their four library books are chosen by them for them, and one is always a book that they have picked out specifically for Meera. This started the very first week of school, completely out of their own initiative, and has continued for each and every week since. They seem to trade back-and-forth (although it seems entirely unspoken) as to who is technically checking out the book for Meera from the library. Meera is always genuinely happy when they show her whatever book they’ve brought home for her each week. And it seems to make K & O genuinely happy to be empowered to enact this each week. I have no idea what the librarian (or their teacher, or their friends) think of it. But we at home think it is pretty sweet.

Today they brought home — as usual — three books for themselves (usually books on space, sports, or semi-bizarre often-complicated ethnically-based fairy tales from around the world), and one for Meera. The book for Meera this week is “You’re the Boss, Baby Duck!” I got such a kick out of it when I saw this book because it sums up a lot of our family dynamic (and especially sums up much about their sibling dynamic!) — while she is the baby duck in our family, Meera is definitely The Boss.

work trip: view from my hotel room in Times Square / work skip: view from behind my laptop screen as I type this today, a sick day for Kyle

When I was growing up, my father travelled a lot for work. When he’d come home from big trips, he’d always bring my sister and I gifts. Sometimes it would be a little trinket he picked up at the airport, other times something more substantial or special. It didn’t matter, I always loved whatever he brought me. As a mom now, I am sure to always bring something home for my bambinos each and every time I go on a work trip. Just like when I was a kid, my kids sometimes get a little knick-knack, or sometimes something more. This past weekend I had to go to NYC for a conference. K, O, and M all know that NYC is not very far away, but a work trip is a work trip, and I was away from home (anything more than a day trip, i.e. any overnight no matter how long, qualifies as a work trip), so — as far as they’re concerned — I may as well have been on the other side of the planet. In their seven+ years of life, K & O have never once asked me to bring them anything specific home from a work trip (in fact they’ve never even acknowledged that I might bring them home something, and each and every time they act completely 100% over-the-moon-surprised that I brought them home a “work trip gift”). Meera, however, is apparently a different story.

A couple of days before this last work trip, Meera asked me directly, “Mommy, when you come home from your work trip, will you please bring me a horse with real hair?” At the age of 3 she has already caught on to the pattern (work trip = gift). I was kind of stunned that she asked (and was feeling — as usual — quite guilty about the impending time away from my babies), so in a moment of weakness I responded (probably too quickly) to her question: “Yes! Meera, when I come home I will bring you a horse with real hair!” (??!!! OMG! a “horse with real hair”??!). I spent the next couple of days trying to figure out exactly what she was envisioning/expecting. (She was able to communicate it very clearly to me.) And then I kept my fingers crossed that it existed to be bought in NYC (I was banking on the fact that pretty much anything that exists can/could be bought in NYC). Turned out that the (in)famous Times Square Toys R Us was right next door to the hotel where I stayed for the weekend. On Sunday morning, before heading home, I walked over there in search of the ‘horse with real hair.’ It was pretty easy to find. I also found two “light up light sabers” (a toy which Owen and Kyle have both been coveting for over a year now; a toy which I never in a million years would have thought I’d ever buy for any child of mine). I figured that if Meera was getting a ‘horse with real hair,’ I better bring something super cool for the boys (it didn’t help that standing there in that Toys R Us, surrounded by throngs of kids-with-their-families, missing my own, feeling enamored with my boys for them having never asked for any work-trip-gift ever in their entire lives, and feeling significant Mommy guilt for being at work on a Sunday morning, I had a moment of weakness as I thought about how AWESOME they’d think I was for bringing them that particular uber-cool gift; I mean, really, what gift could be cooler for a 7-year-old boy and his twin brother [the beauty of twins and light sabers is that they always have someone to battle with]).

Upon arriving home with those three gifts, there was a moment or two wherein I’m pretty sure that my bambinos thought I was pretty much the most awesome working mommy in the whole wide world. That wore off quickly (it couldn’t/shouldn’t last), but it was pretty great for awhile. And now we’ve settled back into our normal routine (only now we have a horse with real hair and two light up light sabers added into the mix). But I’m always and forever being humbly re-reminded that “normal routine,” for us, means constantly flying by the seats of our pants and never really knowing what is going to happen from one minute to the next. Today I’ve had to cancel everything I had planned as I’m home with Kyle, who’s home sick from school with a nasty head cold. Home sick for him = work skip for me. The work trip seems like ancient history as I sit on the couch with my Ky Ky, both of us still in our pajamas, with me catering to his every whim (he is a very needy sick patient; needing some part of his body to be in constant contact with some part of mine at all times; needing a constant flow of liquids and snacks provided by me; needing help with appropriate placement of Kleenex under his nose; needing every-two-second reminders to cover his nose when he sneezes; etc.). But the light saber on his lap today is a constant reminder to me of where I was three days ago. And a reminder that more than anything else I’ve learned from this mommy gig, I’ve learned this: being a mommy means being a constant Giver. Whether giving work-trip-gifts or giving home-sick-work-skips, it is just giving, giving, giving. And sometimes that feels draining. But sometimes that feels invigorating. And there seems to be no rhyme or reason to when or why what feels like what.

It feels like just yesterday that I took Kyle and Owen for their first trip to the dentist. It was actually almost exactly four years ago. They were three years old, so cute, and so eager. This past Friday afternoon, Meera had her first dentist appointment.

In some really poignant ways it was like deja vu (Meera now = 3 years old, so cute, so eager, and in so many ways just like her brothers in her pure joyful engagement with most all of life). And in some really poignant ways it was so different (the boys were rambunctious highly spirited twins, whereas Meera is a sweet mellow singleton; with the boys we have no dental/genetic/medical history, whereas with Meera we have that all; the boys suffered from early malnutrition so we worry about their teeth, whereas Meera has had the most privileged of beginnings). None of this is lost on me, and as an adoptive mother, trips to the dentist with K & O always seem to bring a lot of particularly strong thoughts and feelings up to the surface for me.

I made appointments for all three bambinos this time, so I took the whole crew together (by myself! which I consider quite a feat!). Kyle, Owen, and I had been prepping Meera all morning for her big First Trip to the Dentist. We read her our Berenstain Bears Visit the Dentist book, we talked about what a dentist is and does, and the boys role played the entire thing with/for her (with dramatic flair). She was prepped and ready when the time came.

When the dental hygienist called Meera’s name in the waiting room, Meera jumped right up and with a huge smile held the hygienist’s hand as they walked down the hall (with me trailing 10 feet behind!). Meera hopped right up into the seat with Bunny. She was a superb patient while she had her teeth cleaned and examined for the first time. No cavities! A toothbrush to bring home! And all was good. I was so proud of my girl.

The boys have always loved going to the dentist every six months, and this time was no different. They too have no cavities (and never have), and I was once again reassured by the dentist of their rock-solid-genes and their amazing lack-of-any-signs-of-early-malnutrition. Every time I hear that I get the lump in my throat: a flood of gratitude and awe for my boys’ life stories.

On the drive home we had to stop at the grocery store for a few things. As a small token of my appreciation for their superb tooth-brushing and their exceptionally good dentist-visit-behavior, I bought each of them a Silly Putty. Which the three of them played with in every which way imaginable for the rest of the afternoon.

Too much is happening too fast around here these days. The utter overwhelming nature of my/our life right now has led to a severe lack-of-blogging. Sorry to all those regular readers who miss us when we’re gone (thank you for all of your emails of concern about our MIA status). The truth is, I just haven’t been devoting the time to the blog. The truth is, it has been nice to blow it off. The truth is, I miss blogging when I get out of the habit. The truth is, it is sometimes hard to justify blogging when life is so fast paced (and so many things are falling through the cracks). The truth is, I’m back to the blog tonight. The truth is, we have a CRAZY week ahead of us so I’m not sure if I’ll drop off again.

Here are my Top Ten Excuses and Explanations (for the fact that I’ve been a Seriously Slacking Blogger these past two weeks):

1. These Three. They keep me busy. If that is not a statement of The Obvious, then nothing is. {thank you MorMor for the red-themed V-day outfits. I have had to wash the red UnderArmor hoodies every.single.night.since.you.gave.them.to.them… because the boys have strongly desired to wear them every single day.} The fact is, although these three provide ample blogging material, they just don’t leave me much time to blog.

2. This Project. Braydon and I are in the process of purging much of our earthly possessions. We’ve been at this since January 1. Over the course of the next few months we plan to radically downsize our life. The de-cluttering/de-stuff-owning/de-knickknacking/purging/giving-away has been (so far) one of the most interesting and awesome experiences I/we have ever had. I estimate it is about 2/3 of our “stuff” that we are ridding ourselves of. Braydon says it is more like 40%. Regardless, it is a lot. And it is occupying a lot of our time. It is a big project.

3. Basketball Games. In addition to the crazy (brutal) basketball schedule that Kyle and Owen maintain (and love) playing for their school team, we’ve gone to three Lehigh basketball games in the past three weeks (that is one game per Saturday). It has been so fun. Lehigh beat Holy Cross, then Colgate, then Lafayette. We invited Kyle and Owen’s school basketball team to the Colgate game. We hosted a group of 30 kids and their families, and I think it was probably a Top 10 high of K & O’s year.

We got to sit with Zahir for the Lafayette game. That was also a Top 10 high of K & O’s year.

4. Meera’s Latest Obsession. She is not obsessed with basketball. She tolerates basketball (very well, I think, all things considered). Her current obsession is coloring an entire sheet of paper with one color so that the entire sheet is entirely covered. This must be some sort of developmental stage (?)… but it is time consuming… and she wants me to sit with her while she does it… over and over and over and over (with various colors on various sheets of paper). It is such hard work for her; the creation of these masterpieces is a sort of sweet-but-painful experience to witness (over and over and over and over).

5. Kyle’s Latest Obsession. Kyle is obsessed (and I mean, absolutely obsessed) with space and all things space/solar-system/universe related. He is thinking and talking about space from the minute he wakes up until the minute he goes to bed. More uniquely, he has become “a prolific writer” (direct quote from his teacher). His teacher has him (and only him) now using composition books to try to contain his sheer-volume-of-pages-of-writing. He writes “mostly non-fiction, but some reality-based-fiction” (direct quote from Kyle). His latest was a 4 chapter volume (which he wrote in two sittings: a Friday night, and then the next [Saturday] morning) focused on his idea to create a company that will use rockets to shoot trash from earth into space where it will combust upon making impact with Jupiter and Venus. His plan is to base the rocket-launchers in Haiti, which will provide a substantial boost to the Haitian economy while at the same time fixing the “landfill problem for planet earth.” He backs up his “stories” with data that he finds in books from our bookshelves. If we were willing/able, Kyle would occupy all of our time with his obsessive-compuslive-writing.

6. Owen’s Latest Obsession. Basketball. Pure and simple. He is absolutely obsessed (he claims, “addicted”) with/to basketball. He literally wakes up, immediately gets dressed into something “basketball cool and sporty” (his words), and runs either outside (until his hands get hypothermia-like cold), or downstairs (to our little over-the-door-hoop) to play play play basketball basketball basketball. Every spare second he has it is basketball basketball basketball. It is driving Braydon and me absolutely crazy. He cannot get enough of it and it is jumping, shooting, dribbling, lay-upping, talking-basketball morning-till-night. He very often gets his brother and sister right into the action too. It is enough to drive their parents nuts. The non-stop-action finally, after about five years of pounding, took its toll on our little over-the-door-indoor-bball-hoop. And because we are truly out of our minds, we bought a new one. We can only blame ourselves for fueling the fire. But we could not handle the make-shift “hoops” that Owen was constantly creating to try to replace the real one.

7. MorMor & MorFar’s Visit. They came last week for five days. We had been really looking forward to it. Sadly, the photo below (MorFar and Owen play chess) is the only photo we have of their visit. Why?–you ask– well… let me tell you: They arrived Sunday afternoon, and it started out as a great visit. We had lots of plans for the week, and high hopes for all we’d do and bond over. Instead… we ended up bonding in one of the most horrifying/gross ways imaginable: over the course of the week SIX OF THE SEVEN OF US were struck with a HORRENDOUS STOMACH FLU. Imagine the worst. It started with Meera on Monday (picked her up early because she was throwing up at daycare… then on the drive home… then at home… then raging fever and the whole nine yards), and proceeded to move like a tidal wave through the rest of us over the next few days. Only Owen was spared (MIRACULOUSLY. I swear, the boy has an immune system of steel). It was awful. My poor mother did more loads of vomit-laundry than any grandmother should ever have to do (and then she got IT). Not one of the best visits with MorMor and MorFar (but definitely one of the most memorable). This ordeal (the SICKNESS), alone, would warrant at least a 10-day-blog-break.

8. Valentines Day. V-Day was in there somewhere too. Luckily I had pre-planned for it. I’d learned my lesson the hard way for the prior several years, and finally, this year, made sure we spent substantial time devoted to V-Day during the couple of weekends leading up to it. Still though, around here (thanks to a school that insists on multiple days of handmade gifts — which I truly appreciate and respect, but which is GOD-AWFUL WHEN YOU HAVE TWIN BOYS WHO HATE CRAFTS), V-Day is a huge project. (This year, I just want to say this: THANK YOU PINTEREST FOR SAVING MY LIFE THIS V-DAY SEASON. (And thanks to MorMor, too, who helped in a panicky pinch in the 11th hour). Note, for the record (to accommodate for 3 kids’ worth of classroom valentines): we made *47* of the button-candy hearts pictured below.

9. Trifle Et Cetera. I’ve been cooking and baking with Owen and Meera lately. Kyle has relatively little interest in the kitchen. But Owen and Meera are into it. Amongst other things, we made a Valentine’s Trifle for dessert for MorMor and MorFar’s arrival. I had forgotten what a great idea trifle is for a fun and “fancy” kid-friendly dessert. Try it sometime! Recipe can be found here.

  

10. Speaking of love… Slice of life: This morning, 9:15am — Meera and Kyle share a spacial brother-sister-breakfast together in Meera’s bedroom (mini pancakes and milk; Kyle’s idea) while Owen and Braydon share piano time downstairs in the playroom (Owen has long been figuring out songs on the piano, but his latest quest is to learn how to write out the music with actual musical notation; Braydon is trying to teach him). This (this tiny slice), for example, is why I am so in love with my life (and is why I want to blog, but also why I want to devote very limited time to it).

Postscript. Most of all, the truth is, who would want to be blogging when there is this to be a part of?—

There’s lots and lots of other stuff going on too. So, for the past couple weeks I’ve blown off the blog. Tonight, though, I finally forced myself to catch up on this old blog. We fed the kids an early “Kids Only” dinner (I’m sure someday I’ll miss making these little-kids’-meals), got them to bed, Braydon made martinis, and we turned on The Bachelor (the one and only show we watch, pathetically enough). And somehow, it is so cathartic to pound out a blog post. It makes it seem — somehow — like it will all be harder to forget if I write it down. And as much as these days are nutty-crazy-busy-over-the-top-overhwhelming-at-times… they are good days — truly good days — that I don’t ever want to forget. And these days are passing much too quickly.

Cheers!– to another crazy upcoming week in Never-A-Dull-Moment-Land. And cheers!– to you for following along with this old blog, despite my severe slacking. Thanks for reading y’all. ~H