Kyle is a serious sweetie pie charmer. He always has been. From the time he was a toddler women have been telling me, “He’s going to make a great husband for some lucky woman some day!” And it is true– he is seriously sweet, especially with the ladies. The top of his ‘Ladies List’ is — lucky for me! — his Mama. There are others right up there at the top (MorMor, his teacher Miss Amanda, his good friend from school Alyssa, etc.), but I am, without a doubt, his Numero Uno (and I plan to do my darnedest to keep it that way for a long, long time). Not a day goes by that this boy doesn’t do or say something outrageously sweet and lovey to me. He kisses me, spontaneously, at random times throughout the day. He loves to cuddle anytime he has the chance. Rarely does a dinner come and go without him getting up from his seat when he’s done eating, walking over to me at the table, hugging me, and then saying, “Thank you for dinner!” And he regularly says things that just absolutely melt my heart (and he always seems to be genuinely sincere in saying them). It is a gift he has, I tell ya! At one point this past weekend we were eating dinner out at Chipotle. We were talking about food, and different types of food — Chipotle is “Mexican food,” and we also love “Thai food” and “Haitian food” and “Indian food” and “Swedish food” and “Italian food” etc. I said, “I love Mexican food — I think Mexican food is my favorite.” And then I said, “Kyle, what is your favorite kind of food?” And he said, barely skipping a beat, “Mommy food.”

Every once in a while they’ll call for me –from wherever they are in the house, to wherever I am in the house– they’ll shout out to me to “come quick! and bring the camera!” Sometimes it is a crazy scene they want to capture (usually involving something “naughty” that Meera has done… i.e., took off her diaper, spilled water all over the couch, tried to ‘clean the kitty litter,’ etc.), and sometimes it is something amazingly cute — something I never could have captured with the camera if I had tried to pose them. This moment, captured above, was one of the latter.

Lately Meera has taken her love affair with necklaces to a whole new level. She is fully in the throws of another phase of lovin’-the-necklaces (and needing to wear them often). Not that Meera’s necklace phase ever really ended, but it does seem to kind of ebb and flow — and right now, the necklaces are really flowing. But in the past few days she’s started something new– she’s taken to also putting necklaces on Baby and Kitty. She gets them all necklaced-up and then takes them for a stroll. Meera Grace has really come into her own in the past couple of months; her personality is shining through loud and clear these days; and we’re beginning to think that our girl is almost as crazy as her brothers…  how did that happen????????????

I rarely do stuff like this (endorse material items on our blog), but every once in a while I can’t help myself. I just love these fabrics– check them out! I’ve already hooked in my mom to these fabrics and she’s already made a dress for Meera with some and is working on bed-quilts for the boys’ with more. Very hard for families like ours to find stuff like this out there in the world!— have a look and you’ll see what I mean!

Well, we are officially in the deep down depths of winter. Since moving to Pennsylvania in 2003 we have never seen so much snow here. This winter we’ve had a series of snowstorms that have left a bunch of snow on the ground without having a chance to melt before the next storm comes. It isn’t anything like the winters I had growing up in New Hampshire, but it is the closest that I’ve seen since moving to this part of the country. The J-Ms seem to have a love-hate relationship with snow. We do love it. And we do hate it. What it really boils down to is that basically we love a lot of snow when we’re visiting New Hampshire. Otherwise, at home, we could be very happy without it. And yet, here we are. We’re trying to make the best of it, but really– we just want spring to come, and it is only mid-February. Ugh. And we have a lot on our minds, too. Haiti is still right up at the surface for us. It is a constant, daily conversation. As it should be. But still, it isn’t easy. I cannot even imagine how hard it is for families who experienced being there for the earthquake… let alone the reality of life for everyone still on the ground in Haiti right now. It is all constantly on our minds. And we’re dealing with our own earthquake-aftermath stuff which runs pretty deep (and which I’m not going to write about in any detail here). So, again, here we are. It is what it is. And there is no way over it, under it, or around it — we just gotta go through it. But I’m not gonna lie about it —  it is tough right now. On top of it all is work. Both Braydon and I are absolutely swamped. And it is just hard when we’re both swamped because it means we’re just totally overextended and spread far too thin on every front. And so it goes. The hardest part of each day, however, (at least for me), is leaving Meera to go to work in the morning. We’ve got the best nanny in the whole world. Margie is a God send and I thank my lucky stars (and I thank her profusely) each and every day. But still, it is tough. The boys go skipping off onto the bus to school each morning, so it isn’t totally gut-wrenching to leave them (at least not most days)… but Meera is another story. She’s happy as can be, and I am grateful for that, but it still kills me to leave her each day. She’ll kiss me and cheerily say, “Bye bye!” when she sees me pick up the bag I carry to work. And now, just in the past couple of days, she has started to say “I love you!” (sounds like “la lu!”) as I walk out the door. Seriously, it melts –and breaks– my heart each and every morning. I cannot imagine not working. But I also would be dishonest if I didn’t admit to the fact that it pains me to walk out the door each day. So, it is a lot of mixed emotions. Emotions that working moms don’t really get enough of a chance to talk about or process or sort through. These are the same sorts of mixed jumbled up emotions I feel as I watch Margie with the kids sometimes. Every once in a while I work from home (I try to avoid it because it is really hard on everyone to have me present, but not really present)… and I can truthfully say that having my kids so well cared for by Margie is one of the most amazing feelings I’ve ever felt. I cannot even explain the depths of peace and comfort that it brings to me. On the other hand, as I watch them for brief moments here and there, it just breaks my heart to see them doing things together that I wish I could be doing with them. Like playing in the snow. Truth is, I have absolutely no desire whatsoever to go sledding with them… and yet… there is nothing in the world I’d rather do than go sledding with my kids. It is impossible to explain. But it is what it is. And so, again, here we are. Hopefully spring will come, and with it the blossoming of new energy and new new emotions. But right now… we’re just kind of dealing with snow and stuff. (photos below – Margie and the bambinos sledding)

 

  

 

We’re in a new routine this semester — on Thursdays Braydon brings K & O to their Kung Fu class. The class is from 5:00-5:30, but (between getting out the door, the drive to/from, getting coats/boots/hats/mittens on/off, getting settled in and getting back out, etc. etc.) they are actually gone from about 4:30-6:00. This is an hour and a half each week that I get to spend alone with Meera. This time of day has always been her hardest (as I think it is for almost all babies/toddlers/kids/grown-ups), but still… it is such a nice treat to get to spend a good chunk of time with her each Thursday afternoon/evening. Kyle and Owen used to love playing in the sink when they were Meera’s age. This water play has become a great activity for Meera and I while the boys are all out at Kung Fu.

The boys have been obsessed with the Lion King ever since we went to see it for our Adoption Day (click). We bought the Broadway show soundtrack (click) for them, and they listen to it obsessively every single day. Oftentimes they not only listen to it, but act out their favorite parts to the music. They have a few of the songs memorized. And they are Simba for large portions of each day. Owen got it in his head that he really, really wanted me to “paint” him to look like the “Young Simba” from the play. He obsessed over this until finally I found, and bought, body paint so that I could do it. We’ve done the body-paint-Young-Simba thing a couple times now. The boys love it. Meera wants a little something painted on her, too, of course. And then they all dance around dramatically to the Lion King music– Kyle and Owen acting out key parts of the story, and Meera just trying her best to keep up with them. It is all very action packed. You can just imagine. Anyway… the funniest part is that we go through this whole dramatic LionKingMania, and then, just as if nothing ever happened, next thing you know, we’re all eating dinner… body paint and all. On the particular night of the photos below it was all very dramatic and action-packed, and then… sure enough… we found ourselves eating chili. Never, ever a dull moment around these parts.

The earthquake was four weeks ago today. To say that we’ve been profoundly effected by this is an understatement. We feel that the earth shifted under our feet — figuratively speaking, that is, of course — because we are incessantly conscientiously aware that the part of the earth on which we live did not, in fact, shake under us… which makes it just feel so very, very wrong to even mention the grief and despair and world-turned-upside-down-feelings that we are feeling here in the J-M household in these days since January 12. I really just don’t know what to say about it. All I know is that I can’t seem to find a way to bring myself back to acting like all is “normal” and o.k. when, really, it isn’t. There is a lot going on with this, much of which I cannot write about on the blog. For now, we’re just trying to live through this, since we know that there is no good or right way to try to live around it, over it, or under it. It is what it is. It is our life. And so we keep on with it.

Today I bought three copies of this special edition that Time Magazine recently put out. I bought them — 1 for each of our children — to put away with the special items that I’m collecting for them. Some day, when the time is right (like when they are 16 or 18 or 20), I’ll give each of them a box of special meaningful items that I’ve been collecting for them over the years of their lives. For Kyle and Owen, over the past six years, amongst other things I’ve been storing away some special Haiti-related things. Never in a million years could I ever have imagined I’d be putting something like this into their boxes.