“Gifts of time and love are surely the basic ingredients of a truly merry Christmas.”  ~Peg Bracken

This weekend was Christmas Kick-Off Weekend for the J-Ms. Saturday we put up our Christmas tree. It was, by far, the most successful and “truly merry” Christmas-Tree-Decorating-Event on record in the J-M household. K & O are suddenly so capable of doing these things without causing a major ruckus or catastrophe parental-breakdown. How did that happen? I don’t know. I just know that somewhere between age 5 and 6 they began to mellow just enough to make these sorts of things suddenly feasible. They are not mellow, by any stretch of the imagination… just a bit more mellow… and a little mellowing is a good thing, believe me. Meera (Miss Mellow) was absolutely thrilled with the whole entire experience. She loved putting the ornaments on the tree and she kept saying “oooooh! prettttttttttty!” over and over again. Each ornament has a memory attached. Many have a good story. Some are profoundly meaningful. The boys are starting to remember the ornaments and delight in the re-telling of the stories. The traditions –and all the work it takes to create and re-create them each and every year— are all starting to take firm hold, and it is a gorgeous thing to see. It makes it feel like maybe all of this is worth it. We still have huge clumps of ornaments in certain places, and we still have big blank parts on the tree, but it is, to us, The Most Beautiful Christmas Tree in the whole entire world. Saturday evening we had our first fire of the season. And we drank our first eggnog of the season by the fire (even though some of us don’t even like eggnog). “What is eggnog?,” Kyle and Owen always ask. “It is the nog of the egg,” we always say, authoritatively. “What is the nog of the egg?,” they ask. “It is eggnog,” we say. They might be six, they might be slightly more mellow, but they still have no clue how to get out of circular reasoning. So, they say back, completely earnestly, “Oh. So, what is eggnog?,” and we say, “The nog of the egg.” And by that time their attention span is maxed out and they run off to play. And this goes on and on and on throughout the holiday season, with Braydon and I running into the next room to laugh hysterically in secret. The advent calendar is up and running on the fridge. Every day is a big deal. Sunday morning we had a Holiday-Season-Kick-Off-Brunch in the playroom. There were cheese omelets, smoked ham, waffles, salad, cherry tomatoes, and sliced oranges. We ate on the floor next to Fire #2 Of The Season. It was special. That afternoon we headed off to Holiday Party #1 Of The Season. Not much delights me more than dressing up my children. Seriously. I love it. And I savor these days because I know it won’t be long until they don’t wear whatever I lay out for them anymore. In the meantime, I’ll dress them however I choose. And relish in the absolute adorableness of them all. Of course I’m biased, but I honestly believe that I have the three cutest children on the planet. I also happen to believe that I have the three most-fun-to-spend-the-holidays-with children on the planet.

And so, we start The Christmas That They Were Six and Two. And we pour out the “gifts of time and love” all season long, because surely they are “the basic ingredients of a truly merry Christmas.” A truly merry Christmas not just for our adorable three, but for their two adoring parents as well.

So, Meera Grace is probably about as sweet as can be. She turns heads everywhere she goes with her ridiculously-cute-ness. But she is not without her sass. And she can hold her own with her big brothers. Seriously. This girl is a crazy mixture of sticky-sweet with a seriously-strong-soul-of-her-own. Upon first glance, her brothers dominate every scene. But anyone who’s looking beneath the surface at all sees the strength of Meera in every picture. She is a force, in her own right. Just a totally different type of force than the dynamic duo of K & O. Not better or worse, just different. And equally noteworthy. For example…

Tonight at dinner, while the rest of us were carrying on a loud and lively conversation (typical dinner at our house), Meera sat quietly doing her own thing at the head of the table. (Sidenote: since she was about 18 months old, she’s been demanding to sit at the head of the table, with K & O on either side of her. That has been her place at the table for the past year or so, maybe longer.) Anyway… as is the norm, we all sort of carried on with our very animated chit-chat, while Meera basically flew under the radar. We all sort of noticed what she was doing, but didn’t really do anything about it. At one point Owen did say, “I’m just ignoring her. We’re all just ignoring bad behavior, right?” I looked over at her and then said, “Yes, let’s just ignore it.” What she was doing was taking small bits of food off her plate, one by one, and carefully placing them in her glass of water. And then, using her fork, she was very purposefully stirring it all up. We were having blackened tilapia, rice pilaf, and a veggie sauté (zucchini and yellow squash, snow peas, cherry tomatoes, Vidalia onions). Meera’s little mixture was absolutely gross. Finally, none of us could take it any longer. She was just blatantly getting away with something totally naughty (as defined by our family). So, we stopped our conversation and we all turned our attention to her. There were lots of “that’s disgusting!”’s and “Meeeeeera!”’s and “ewwwwwww! nasty!”’s coming from the four of us. I said, “Well, really, it is just the same thing that we’re all eating, only stirred together with water.” And then, with very little prompting from us, Meera happily lifted the glass of grossness to her lips and took a sip. She then handed it to Owen, who gladly drank some too. She then handed it to Kyle, who tentatively tasted it and proceeded to run to the kitchen sink to spit it out. Braydon and I both graciously declined the offer to taste it, much to Meera’s disappointment. She then went on to eat a big bowl of blueberry yogurt with sliced bananas, a dinner she seemed to much prefer over the first.

Meera Grace. Not all sweetness.

Two days ago Meera Grace turned two-and-a-half. She is the most wonderful (literally, wonder-filled) two-and-a-half year old we know. She continues to delight us daily.

We got a little layer of white on Thanksgiving Day.

It quickly disappeared, but it was fun while it lasted!

I’ve been slacking off on the blog for about ten days or so. Which feels like a long time. Because around here a lot happens in ten days. I have more blogging material from ten days than most people would probably have from ten months of a normal life. Seriously, never a dull moment, that is for sure. Plus, I have a lot of blogging to get to –answering all y’all’s questions and all. So, in an attempt to try to catch up quickly on just the most rudimentary basics of the past ten days here, I present the following ten bullets:

• Thanksgiving was good, except that for me the whole thing sort of flew by in a blur of yet another bought of bronchitis. The photo at the top is of a painting made by Kyle the other day. In a strange way it sort of visually depicts how I felt over Thanksgiving and the several days leading up to it. Kyle is so uncannily intuitively perceptive of people’s states and emotions that it seriously would not surprise me if he were somehow channeling my raw energy through his paintbrush. Anyway, this is my eighth or ninth (I’ve lost track) upper respiratory infection in the past twelve months. Each time it takes a round of hard-core antibiotics to kick it. Given that I have never smoked a day in my life, and have a track record for being very healthy, this whole thing is completely bewildering, not to mention beyond bothersome (I mean really! I don’t have time for this sickness stuff!). It is also a bit unnerving. My doctor is completely determined to get to the bottom of it (thank God), and called for chest x-rays, an appointment with a specialist, and a whole gamut of blood-work this time around. Hopefully we’ll begin to figure out what the heck is going on with me. Bottom line: I had very limited energy for Thanksgiving, very low tolerance for the annoyances of young children’s not-always-perfect behavior, and very little patience for anything that required it. Nonetheless, it was not disastrous by any stretch of the imagination (thanks to MorMor and MorFar being here and doing everything). I’ll put up a J-M T’Giving Photo Post soon. In the meantime, here’s Kyle creating his masterpiece (I know I’m biased, but I seriously love this painting):

• Yesterday, in an attempt to use up the rest of the T’Giving leftovers, I made soup. What started as just-about-everything-left-from-T’Giving-dinner-thrown-into-a-pot, somehow turned into The Best Soup I’ve Ever Made In My Entire Life. I can’t explain it. It seriously was as if magic had happened in that soup pot. I know it had something to do with the fact that I dumped a huge tupperware full of my mom’s delicious butternut squash in there. Speaking of butternut squash… someday real soon I’m going to post about our new favorite salad (spinach salad with goat cheese and butternut squash —- to die for!).
• It is officially basketball season. That’s how we roll these days—seasons are not about the weather or the temperature or the foliage anymore. No, the season is defined by the sport. We went to our first Lehigh basketball game last week (LU vs. Cornell). and it was – just as it always seems to be – completely inspiring to the two boys in our life. Their love affair with football has not fully ended (not by a long shot!), and before we can blink an eye it will be baseball season (i.e., spring), but I think it is safe to say that we are fully in the throws of basketball now. This (this focus on sports) never ceases to amaze us; it is so entirely not like our life pre-K&O. They’ve rocked our world those two.
• On the Monday before T’Giving we had to put our beloved cat, Cooper, to sleep. I had to be a real grown up and bring Cooper to the vet and make the final decisions, etc. Our Cooper was just about sixteen years old. Braydon and I grew into our adulthoods with him, and the bambinos have never known life without him. For as much as we were ready to let Cooper go (we’d known for a long, long time that Cooper was nearing the end), it was – and is – sad. Of the five of us, Owen and Meera have taken it the hardest. Owen, especially, is missing Cooper.

• On a high note: over the past ten days I had the honor and privilege of personally welcoming home two new babies of two different sets of family friends of ours. Both adoptive families! In my opinion, there is absolutely nothing that compares with the miracle of adoption (and that’s coming from someone who has done it both ways). Biological/physiological reproduction and bonding I can intellectually comprehend and explain. But the creation of, and the attachment that goes on within, adoptive families?— it is a miracle. A true and utter miracle. Witnessing that special form of human-relationship-building goes beyond the comprehensible and is, truly, profound. Our friends the Kulps recently brought Gracie Li home to take her place as their second beloved daughter from China, and as Joy Lin’s long-awaited little sister. After months of looking at photos, it was beyond spectacular to see Grace being held by my friend, her mommy, right here in Pennsylvania. And our friends the Goodmans finally brought home their beloved beautiful black baby boy, straight from the hospital, through domestic newborn adoption. I brought them a gift of some of our favorite skin and hair products and had the pleasure of talking another white mama through her first entrance into this wonderful world of black hair and skin care. It is a special bond to connect with other adoptive families and we feel so grateful to have forged friendships with so many to share these life moments with. It is a true gift to be able to watch a new family form this way. Adoption is hard. But adoption is so, so good. Every new child home feels monumentally miraculous to me.
• Speaking of black hair… we re-twisted and trimmed K & O’s locs this weekend. And they look amazing!!!!! (and my oh my what a lot of work that project always is!!!!) Photos below = after re-twisting (with Meera’s “hair being done too”) & after the whole day-long project was done (deep cleaning, twisting, and trimming… x2).

• You might be able to see in the photo above right that Owen lost another tooth. This one, he pulled out himself. Which saved all of us a lot of drama this time around. It is sitting in the tooth fairy pillow, waiting for Kyle to lose his.
• MorMor and MorFar were with us most of the week of Thanksgiving. We took them to the skating rink where Kyle has been taking ice skating lessons so that he could show off his skills. For the fun of it, we all skated. Including Meera. Who loved it. But what a work-out that is! (skating while leaning over and holding up a two year old, barely balancing, between your legs) Here is Little Miss Meera her first time skating:

• Speaking of Little Miss Meera… I’m taking the advice of all of you and have decided – at least for the time being – not to push the bottle issue. And if she’s still drinking a bottle when she goes off to college, then so be it! (and I’ll blame it on our blog readers).

• Speaking of going off to college…  big news here in the education realm. Now, granted, I’m a professional sociologist (who has written a book on schooling decisions, no less), but this has been feeling ridiculously huge for us… I mean, really, kids’ schooling = the whole dang sociological deal: race, class, gender, and a (the?) major pillar socializing institution of our society (education), etc., etc., etc…. it feels, at least right now, like decisions don’t get much bigger than this. So, last but not least, by far the biggest bullet of this post: today K & O started at a new school. Yes, you read that right. In the past month we’ve undergone a major upheaval, a total uprooting, a big turn in life’s road (which ultimately, ironically, has wound up feeling like a huge sigh of relief and a deep breath of fresh air), resulting in our decision to pull Kyle and Owen out of the Waldorf School where they’ve attended for the past 3+ years. They had their last day at their “old school” last Friday, and then took this past week to re-group and re-orient in the direction of their “new school.” Today we dropped off our precious cargo, the terrific and tenacious twinny twosome that they are, at United Friends School for their first full day. And… it was just plain all-out-awesomeness all around! Upon pick-up this afternoon we received huge hugs and beaming smiles from K & O, and an amazing report from their teacher. We got in the car to head home and Owen exclaimed from the backseat, totally unprompted, “School is GREAT!!!!!!!” That’s just about all I needed to know that this – what has felt like a really hugely important decision – was exactly right. Finally I feel like I’ve been Mama long enough to trust myself, to listen to my inner voice, and to go with my gut instincts when it comes to my boys. I’m so proud of myself for that. I’ve come a long way babies! And I’m so happy for my boys! Big huge blog post soon to come on this subject.