Every year it is an event (click here for years past). This year did not disappoint. There was egg blowing and egg breaking; there was the making of creative masterpieces; there was egg dye everywhere; and there were hands semi-permanently stained— a good reminder that we managed to fulfill, yet again, to the max, in never-a-dull-moment-fashion, one of our favorite annual traditions: The Great Easter Egg Decorating Event of 2011.

We spent yesterday – Palm Sunday – in Baltimore with my dad/MorFar. It was such a great day. We left the house bright and early to head to Baltimore to meet MorFar there. We talked in the car about Palm Sunday: the story, the significance, what it all means, what we think about it. Kyle and Owen are able to grasp more and more these days; they are starting to get it; and they love hearing these traditional stories that have been passed down for generation upon generation. They know I was told these stories by my parents— and that MorMor and MorFar were told these stories by their parents— and so on and so on and so on. By the time we arrived at All Saints Lutheran Church in Baltimore, they were primed and ready for Palm Sunday. And what a glorious Palm Sunday it was. Honestly, probably one of the best church services I’ve ever experienced (and that says a lot since I’ve experienced a lot of them – and a wide range of them – in my lifetime). It was a virtually all-black church, with an awesome gospel choir, a passionate pastor, and a truly embracing community. MorFar preached the sermon (a really good one too!), there was great music, and a two-hour service flew by (which really says something). It was the best possible Palm Sunday service I could ever imagine.

We then headed to the Inner Harbor for lunch with MorFar at Phillips. Oysters and clams on the half shell, crab cakes, bloody marys… what could be better?

Next up was a benefit concert for Lutheran Campus Ministries by the Morgan State University Gospel Choir. Holy cow. There is nothing like seeing something like that. Just nothing.

We ended our day with a leisurely walk back to the Inner Harbor for cheesecake outside on the patio of the Cheesecake Factory—Kyle and Owen’s favorite dessert, and their only request of the day. A beautiful night with a full moon and lots of street action to entertain us all. The boys would have never left Baltimore if we hadn’t literally pulled them away. We said goodbye to MorFar close to 9pm (very late for the bambinos!!!), and after a couple of stops arrived home at midnight with three happy snoozing children.

A really, really great Palm Sunday in Baltimore with MorFar.

Thoughts from the Week Before Easter, in 13 Haikus

I’m developing

A love hate relationship

With that “spring bunny”

That’s right: that bunny

You know, the Easter Bunny

And Santa Claus too

Love: collecting gifts

For my precious bambinos

Excuse to spoil them

Hate: He gets credit

Is this a conspiracy?

Starting to wonder.

Love: making magic

All the giddy excitement

For them and for me

Hate: He steals the show

Really— a conspiracy?

Beginning to think.

Women everywhere

Creating the memories

While He reaps benefit

And for professors

The two worst times of the year

December April

End of semesters

Work intense beyond reason

Fused with holiday

So we do it all 

And he sweeps in last minute

To steal our glory

Isn’t it crazy?

Because actually we’re him

And yet we are not

But still it’s worth it

Because although now they don’t

Someday they will know

Plus, I do love them

Much more than my politics

So, I go with it.

Friday, April 15, 8:04 am – Meera is caught red-handed (pun intended).

“caught red-handed” : [phrase; (rdhndd) (postpositive)]  To be caught in the act of committing a misdemeanor, with the evidence there for all to see.

2 of many mid-week meals that would never have happened without The Swap

It has been one whole year since Shalinee and I started our Swap. Last week we treated ourselves to a decadently leisurely lunch of sushi and plum wine to celebrate our year-long-accomplishment! We have religiously swapped dinner meals every Tuesday for the entire past year. And while we’ve missed a few, it has always been for a good reason, and mostly we’re just shocked at the fact that we’ve managed to keep up with The Swap for a whole entire year. It has been a lot of work (Monday nights are killer!), but it has been so worth it! I know this sounds crazy, but seriously, The Swap has revolutionized my life. Don’t get me wrong, getting dinner on the table is still a major challenge, but The Swap makes it a lot easier. Some of my favorite parts of The Swap:

• My family is consistently eating great, healthy, home-cooked, nutritious, delicious, food prepared with love.
• Although I’m still frenzied with the burden and daily grind of providing food for my family of five, it is much easier than it was before. Coming home from work knowing that dinner just needs to be heated up is a major relief. We almost always sit down to a good wholesome family dinner every single night of the week. The Swap hasn’t taken the pressure off completely, but it has taken the pressure off tremendously.
• My kids are developing an amazing food palate that is at least twice as broad as it would be without The Swap.
• My kids are seeing first-hand what a super-strong-reciprocal-friendship is all about; they see the work that goes into a friendship like that, and they see the joy that comes out of a friendship like that; they see their mom having a best friend.
• Thanks to Shalinee the J-Ms get to eat Indian food a lot! We love Indian food and always have… so this is a huge treat for us!
• Somehow, somewhere along the way in the past year, The Swap has changed my feelings about leftovers. Previously I avoided leftovers like the plague. But over the past year I’ve found that we’re eating leftovers regularly, I’m re-constituting food regularly, and we’re feeling totally differently about leftovers. All this lovingly-prepared-good-food is just too good to waste, and we are motivated to make our Swap meals stretch to cover the weekdays. It is such an interesting and unexpected twist to The Swap, and it is all good.
• The Swap inspires me to think creatively about food and I find myself investing in cooking as a creative outlet again – not just for the Swap meals, but all week long.
• We are eating pasta a lot less often (the kids aren’t thrilled about this, but I sure am!).
• I don’t feel bad anymore on the occasions when I serve my bambinos mac-n-cheese and pizza and chicken nuggets… because it happens so infrequently— thanks to The Swap.

There are lots of other reasons I love The Swap, but there’s my short list.

In the past couple of months Shalinee and I have been really bad about posting our Swaps. We’re just two really busy working moms who are struggling to find time to blog. There is no question that we’re going to keep on swapping indefinitely, but right now we’re trying to figure out how/if to approach the blogging of it. We’re toying around with a whole range of ideas from creating a whole separate Swap Blog to quitting blogging about it altogether. If you have any thoughts on this, we’d love to hear them… so what do you think? Should we keep blogging our Swap? Should we re-define our Swap blogging? Should we quit blogging it altogether? What are your thoughts?

Thanks for reading and Happy Swapiversary!  ~H

This morning I took Meera to the Ear, Nose, and Throat Specialist. Who examined her ears and then immediately scheduled for her to get ear tubes. The surgery will be next month. While it will be a relief to get that done (and hopefully eliminate her recurring ear infections), and the operation is really simple, and we’ve been through it before with Kyle, still… nobody wants to find out that their baby will soon have surgery. That was a low. But then we came home to this:

That was a high. The forsythia is blooming and there is yellow bursting at the seams everywhere. After her nap, Meera spent the rest of the day barefoot running around our yard, and we opened up all the windows in our house for the first time this year. It was in the mid-80s and felt like summer-is-on-the-way.

Then the boys got home from school. They were high-strung and agitated and unraveled. Within five minutes of them walking in the door I had to send Owen to his room for sticking his tongue out at Meera. While Owen was confined to his room, Kyle then confessed that Owen had gotten in trouble at school. I soon found out straight from Owen that he had been in trouble with his teacher at least three different (semi-minor, but disrespectful and disobedient nonetheless) times. He was in big trouble with Mama and was ordered to write an apology letter to his teacher and draw her a picture to go with it. Major low. But while Owen was working on that project, there was this in the front yard:

Major high.

And then it was, as usual, a mad frenzied rush to get dinner on the table. There just seems to never be enough time in the day. And the dinner-rush is definitely the hardest part. I think for working moms this might just be the toughest part of the whole ball of wax (at least it is for me). Frantically running a million miles an hour to get dinner on the table for my party of five when I would much rather have been playing outside with the other four members of my family. A low. But, once again, miraculously it often seems, I pulled it off, and dinner did, somehow, make it onto the table (I’m not even entirely sure how). And it wasn’t just any old dinner either. It was our first dinner-on-the-deck of the season. And there was strawberry shortcake for dessert too.

All is well that ends well. High.

1. Saturday morning the five of us were at Bounce U. It has been ages since we’ve been there, but Braydon had bought super cheap tickets for the bambinos via Groupon, and it was just as great as ever. K, O, and M were tight together jumping and sliding like there was no tomorrow. At one point a woman approached me – another mom with her family at Bounce U, white, 39 years old (she told me), outgoing, attractive, and self-confident, with two cute little kids about the same age as mine. She comes right up to me and says, “Are those your kids?,” pointing to K, O, and M. I said, “Yes.” She says, “You have a beautiful family! Oh my God! Your family is just so beautiful! You adopted them?” I gave my standard answer: “Well, we adopted our boys, and our daughter is a biological child.” Her response was over-the-top; “Oh my God! You are amazing for doing that! Wow! I just can’t believe it! I can’t stop looking at your family! I heard your boys calling you ‘Mom’ and I just thought, ‘Oh my God, that is amazing! That is so cool! That is totally incredible’” Etc., Etc., Etc. She went on and on. She was clearly sort of mind-blown about the whole thing and asked a lot of questions about how old the boys were when we adopted them, from where, how they get along with Meera, etc. (Typical stuff that we regularly get). After a couple minutes I made a point to politely step away and move back toward my family. About a half hour later, she came right back up to me again. She walks right up to me and says, “Oh my God, I just can’t stop looking at your family! You have a beautiful family and I just can’t really get my mind around it.” And here is where it gets interesting… she then said something I have never heard from anyone before (sometimes I think I’ve heard it all, and then something unprecedented happens…)…. she looks right at me and says, “I mean, you and your husband are just so Caucasian!”  I’m not sure at all what she meant by it, I just know that that was a new one.

2. Today we were out to lunch at Red Robin, using a gift certificate that I had received for Christmas from K, O, and M. Toward the end of our meal, a server (who was not our server) approached our table. She was gorgeous, bright faced-bright eyed, jet black hair, and creamy light brown skin, with incredible eyes. She looked about 20, was clearly bi-racial (black and white), and appeared to have all the self-esteem in the world. She comes right up, very confidently, and asks, “Are they twins?” We said, “Yes.” And she proceeds to compliment the three bambinos, saying how “cute” they are, and how “awesome they all get along” and how she “just couldn’t help but notice us.” It was sweet and cheery and lovely and light. I look across the table and Owen is looking up at her, just totally 100% mesmerized by this young woman. (Understandably… again… she was drop-dead-gorgeous.) We chatted for just a minute and she was about to leave to continue working when out of the clear blue Owen says, straight to her, “I know what I’m going to be when I grow up.” I have never heard him say anything like this out of the blue like that, so it immediately caught my attention. She says, right to him, their eyes locked, “Oh really?!” And then he says [NO KIDDING, I’M 100% SERIOUS…]—  “I’m going to be with you!” I think my jaw just about dropped to the floor. She flushed red, and giggled, and said something to me like, “Oh my God! That’s, like, seriously, the best pick-up line I’ve ever heard! You’re going to be IN TROUBLE SOMEDAY!” I flushed red too. I could not believe that my 6-year-old son had just said it. I said something to her along the lines of, “No kidding! I think we’re already in trouble!” And she then said to Owen, “Well, I’m 20, and you’re 6, so it is a while to wait, but I can wait for you! I really can! I think you’d be worth the wait!” This kind of went over his head, and we all laughed together, and said goodbye, she went on to serve her tables, and we soon left. I said to Owen, “Owen! Did you think she was beautiful, or what?!” He said, “Yes, she was. But I know I’m not going to actually be with her when I grow up. So maybe I shouldn’t have said it, but I just know I’m going to be with someone like her when I grow up.” And the thing is, I’m sure he is—he’ll be with some gorgeous, self-confident, dark-skinned beauty of a beauty. I just know it. But, right now, at age 6 – seriously?— “I know what I’m going to be when I grow up. I’m going to be with you!” – ??? Holy Toledo! I truly have no idea where he got that, or how he came up with it. All I know is that we’ve got our hands full with this one!

Years ago when we first started blogging we would sometimes post a “slice of life” post – just a fragment of a moment somehow captured by our camera or our memory that we wanted to preserve for whatever reason. We haven’t posted a “slice of life” post for a long while, but here is one for the scrapbook:

{Preface: Let me just say up front that this post is not going to win me any parenting awards, that’s for sure. I can already see it coming— the slew of comments and emails I’ll receive telling me what a horribly neglectful and irresponsible mother I am for letting my kids climb trees without helmets on, letting my six year olds carry my barefoot toddler up into a tree, letting them play outside without my constant and direct hovering helicoptering ever-present monitoring of every single thing that they are doing, etc., etc., etc. —but ah heck! what the heck!!?!—I’m going to go ahead and throw all caution to the wind because more important than how much I’ll probably be lambasted for this post is the fact that I never want to forget these crazy crazy days of life with my three crazy bambinos. Seriously people, these are some crazy little kids I’ve got on my hands here!}

The other day I was in the kitchen folding laundry and the kids were playing outside. When Kyle came running into the house yelling, “Mom! Mom! You’ve GOT to come SEE THIS!” my heart skipped a beat (I have learned from experience to be nervous – very nervous – about what I’m going to find in such situations). He grabbed my hand and yanked at my arm pulling me to the dining room window. And right there, right outside the window, were Owen and Meera sitting in a tree. Kyle promptly left me there and sprinted back outside where he dramatically demonstrated how he had helped them get up there. I ran and grabbed my camera and snapped one single photo through the window glass before telling them to get the heck down from there before somebody gets hurt. Meera then proceeded to scream to me, at the top of her lungs, “Don’t worry Mama! I allllright! I safe ‘wid my big ‘bodthers and I like ‘dis tree!” And then—no kidding—she planted a huge kiss right on Owen’s lips. Which he gladly accepted with a huge grin. I giggled to myself through the rest of my laundry folding in the kitchen because all I could think of was “Owen and Meera sitting in a tree, k-i-s-s-i-n-g.” The three of them don’t even know that old ditty, but the whole scene gave me quite a chuckle. A little slice of life from the here and now in Never-A-Dull-Moment-Land.

Sometimes, for no reason whatsoever, we just need to bake a cake. These times are rare (I can count on one hand the total times we have ever baked a cake at our house—ever—including birthdays). But these times, while rare, do exist. Desperate times call for desperate measures. And this time we captured some of it in photos – living proof that it happened. A totally random cake event.

Kyle and Owen made the cake, and frosted it, with only a little assistance from me. There is not much they love more than my good old trusty Kitchenaid Mixer. It was vanilla cake with butter-cream frosting (their choice). We put the beautiful finished cake on the kitchen counter and saved it for dessert. I thought we’d just slice it and eat it with fresh berries. But no, K & O had other plans. It turned into a major event. They insisted on candles for the cake. In case it isn’t obvious: there is no birthday, anniversary, or holiday of any kind going on here. Just cake. Which, I guess, when you have it as rarely as we do, is a major holiday in and of itself. Deserving of candles. Multi-color candles, each color chosen specifically for each member of the family (I have a whole stash of random birthday cake candles; leftovers from birthdays past; and they just loved going through them and picking out the random candles for each of us). They chose pink for Meera, of course. Meera decided she needed to sport her shades for this event. The glare of the candles’ fire and all. ?! Anyway, it was randomness all around—Braydon and I could barely contain our total amusement at the sheer randomness of it all. But the bambinos – all three of them – took it totally seriously. Sometimes, for no reason whatsoever, we just need to bake a cake.

p.s. A totally random fact about the totally random cake event~~  The cake was a huge hit that night. And then the next day the bambinos each had some more. After that it sat on the counter untouched until we finally threw it out… that’s the funniest part of all: they don’t even really like cake! But it sure is fun!

Kyle and Owen now have a full appreciation for that most wonderful genre of literature – The ‘Page Turner.’ Braydon has just finished reading them Charlie and the Chocolate Factory by Roald Dahl. This was probably my favorite book growing up and I’ve saved my own copy of it for all these years just waiting to pass it down to my own children. What sweetness to listen in night after night as Braydon read it to them. Amazingly, Braydon had never read it – so it was a first time read of this great book for all three of my boys. Kyle and Owen were on the edge of their seats throughout the entire thing. At very exciting times they’d literally jump up and down in exclamation; they cheered when things went well for Charlie; got upset when Charlie was down on his luck; and at suspenseful times they would hold their breath in sheer anticipation. It was truly a page turner for them, chapter upon chapter upon chapter. And now, for the first time, they really know what a page turner is.

Meera is on the mend, the antibiotics have done their job, and she’s starting to act like herself again. (She also has an appointment with an ENT coming up soon… I think we’re on our way to ear tubes.) For the past week she has been so sick. Deep in the thick of it, Meera just wasn’t herself (of course). She was whiney, clingy, and pathetically needy. Every mother that has ever lived knows what I’m talking about: the sick toddler. It is a rare species for sure. But today Meera really started to go back to being more like herself. Silly, playful, independent, adoring of her brothers’ attention (not just mine), and incredibly giving of herself. Numerous times throughout the day, just out of nowhere, she stopped everything to kiss each of us and tell us that she loved us. That’s classic Meera. She also needed to be dressed up all day long— the more tiaras and necklaces and bags and whole-entire-outfit-changes the better. That’s classic Meera. And she demanded that her brothers include her in their play, made them hold her hand when they were out and about, and required them to tell her what a good job she did whenever she used her spoon correctly eating macaroni and cheese tonight. That’s classic Meera. This one – this Meera Grace of ours – is really something special. I don’t know how we got so lucky with her, but we did.

Last night was our second J-M First Friday. It was Owen’s turn with Mommy. It was a fantastic night!!!! To be honest, I have a terrible cold/flu right now and going out to dinner was just about the last thing I should have been doing. But Owen was so looking forward to being able to do this; it was such a huge deal to him; and for Owen in particular the follow-through when we say we’ll do things is extremely important… and so I forced myself to rally for the occasion (something that – for better or for worse – I’m really good at), and Owen would never have known that I was feeling like crapola or that I could not taste a single thing that entered my mouth. Anyhoo…

I had thought hard about where to take Owen for our special Mother-Son Dinner-Date. I had picked the perfect place for Kyle when it was his turn, and so the pressure was on to pick an equally perfect place for Owen for our big night out. The place we went wound up being more than perfectly perfect for Owen. We had dinner at The Melting Pot. Honestly, this is a place that I’d never go to for my own sake (it just isn’t my kind of thing), and it really wouldn’t be the right choice for anyone in our family other than Owen. But for Owen??? PERFECT beyond perfect in every possible way. He loved that it was “fancy”; he loved that he was the only kid in the place; he loved that it was so different than any restaurant he’d ever imagined; he loved that there was a real working stove right in the center of our table; he loved dipping and stirring and cooking his own food; he loved experimenting with every one of the sauces and spices and condiments; he loved it all. It was really the perfect place for him. Most of all, though, he truly loved having his mommy all to himself. He just soaked it all up. At times he was bouncing up and down in his seat—so incredibly thrilled about the whole entire experience that he could barely contain himself. At other times he was practically in my lap, could not keep his hands off of me, just all over me with cuddles and hand-holding and lovey-dovey-ness (way more PDA than I’ve ever exhibited on any date in my entire life prior to that one!!!)… and he suggested that we sit next to each other on the same side of the booth (instead of across from each other), which we did, and which was something else I’ve never done on any other date or anything else in my entire life (sitting side-by-side, cuddling, in a booth). It was just a really fabulous First Friday #2.

A few things I want to remember— As we were getting ready to go out, Owen expressed to me that he wanted me to “dress up just like you do when you go on a date with Papi” (too cute); I did “dress up” and Owen was so thrilled with it; he then proceeded to go find his watch and his necklace that he got in Anguilla so that he could be “fancy” too (just too cute). When the server first came to the table to ask if we wanted a drink, Owen very confidently looked her in the eye and said, “Do you have pina coladas?” She said yes, and he proceeded to order a pina colada – which he loved. When the first pot of fondue came – cheese fondue, I think Owen began to fully realize what the whole night was going to be about, and the look on his face was priceless… there was a big pot of melted cheesy goodness with all sorts of things for him to spear with metal spears and dip in. It was a really great feeling to know that he totally ‘got it’ – that I had hand-picked this place especially for him. There is something really special about feeling so special for a night. I loved being able to give that to Owen last night. And it was last night that Owen tried duck for the first time. It was one of many things that we cooked for our entree fondue (along with shrimp, beef, pork, chicken, pot stickers, and a whole assortment of vegetables). Owen is such an adventurous eater and I love that about him. He did not like the duck too much but it was a big deal to him to be eating “a poor little ducky quack quack.” I must say that that has always sort of been my own reaction to eating duck too. The highlight was, of course, the chocolate fondue for dessert. Owen thought he had died and gone to heaven. The whole experience lasted a solid 2.5 hours and Owen soaked up every minute of it. So did I.

Like everyone else, we have our rough spots. Nothing earth shattering or life altering (thank God), but rough spots nonetheless. Times during which we struggle to keep it all together. We are in one now.

Meera’s been sick for the past week. Like, home-from-daycare, double-ear-infections, on-antibiotics-again, fussy, clingy, glued to my hip, and cranky cranky cranky sick. Of course, she’s been drooling, coughing, sneezing, slobbering, sleeping and breathing all over me for five days straight. So now I’m sick too. Of course. Like, can-barely-drag-myself-out-of-bed, can-barely-function sick. Kyle and Owen are all out of synch with trying to get back into some semblance of a normal routine— after a week in Anguilla, and then a week of school break, they are now flailing about as they desperately (and not so gracefully) attempt to get back into the swing of the daily grind again. Owen is in a bad phase – back to what he’s always done when he’s in a bad phase: his typical acting up (big time) at bed time (ugh) drama (oh dear Lord when will this ever end with him? we’ve been battling this boy at bedtime in spurts and phases throughout his entiiiiiiiiiiire liiiiiiiiiiiiife). Kyle is doing the best of us all (the angel that he is), but he is never-ending with his obsessions and fixations that – inevitably – begin to drive the rest of us nuts (right now it is yahts and cruise ships that he’s obsessed with; ever since we saw some when we were in Anguilla; and we’re all just about done with his ceaseless and incessant questioning and commentary on all things yahts/ships; seriously, it sounds cute, but in real life it really isn’t). Braydon is as consumed as ever with his work (I’ll just leave it at that; read between the lines). I’m overwhelmed with it all.

We’re ready to play outside but it still isn’t quite fully spring yet. We’ve got the final push of the school year just looming right out there in front of us (always a tough time of year for our family—probably the toughest). The laundry is not getting done. The house is a wreck. Meals are catch as catch can. Things (like, the blog, for one) are falling through the cracks left and right. We’re all agitated and aggravated and edgy. The glass looks half empty. We’re barely holding it together.

These are the times when it is especially difficult to be a dual-career, on-our-own (i.e., no family anywhere within a reasonable distance whatsoever), nanny-less family. We have no back-up or Plan B. We’re flying solo and it isn’t easy. On a good day we keep all the balls in the air and the whole thing is somehow held together. On a bad day some balls drop.

A rough spot = a string of bad days.

This post is, in part, an explanation for why I haven’t been blogging these past several days. It is also, in part, a record of a rough spot. Because I want to remember these rough spots as well as all the great spells. And if my bambinos ever read this one day, I want them to know straight from me in the here and now–

My babies, Your mama almost fell apart sometimes. It is messy. It is real. We try to do our very best, but we sometimes falter. Rough spots are hard. Please forgive me and your Papi for our impatience, our weakness, and our often-not-so-stellar parenting. I hope very much that whatever damages we’re causing are minimized by the joyful life that we work hard to create during all the great spells in between the rough spots. More than anything I love you. And I want for you a full and enchanted childhood in which you knew you were loved oh so deeply. Sorry for the yucky stuff. Love, your adoring and imperfect mother.