Last night the boys and I went to Street Beat at Zoellner arts center at lehigh. It was a great time and all three of us loved it (thank you to Heather who got the tickets). Street Beat takes the idea of street drummers (people who sit on the coner and drum on all manner of household items) and takes it to a totally new level – drumming like crazy with breakdancing and all kinds of jamming.

We already had an affinity for this (see here for where it started), but Street Beat went beyond. In addition to the normal amounts of incessant drumming and music we have in our house, we’re sure to see a lot of break dancing and all around throwning bodies into unnatural and amazing positions that will make Heather and me cringe in envisioing hospital visits.

Of course, when the dancers came out into the audience to find participants both boys’ hands shot up to be picked. Owen was picked but not Kyle. He headed up saying “what about my brother???” but the guy wasn’t going for it. So, I sent Kyle up anyway. When they both got up there, the main guy hands Owen two orange drum sticks and Kyle to Yellow ones. Since the boys favorite color is orange, Owen promptly gave one orange one to Kyle and Kyle gave him one of his yellow ones. Everyone in the audience broke up laughing, it was great. They drummed like crazy to wild applause, and loved every second.

We got them to bed around 9:30 and they were asleep in 5 minuntes flat. A great night all the way around.

Ok, seriously, proudest parenting moments ever? It is the little things, right? Like when they say ‘please’ and ‘thank you’ unprompted. Or when they show genuine love for that kid in their class who really needs some TLC. Or when they pee in the toilet without leaving pee-puddles all over the bathroom floor. You know, the little things. Well, anyway, proudest parenting moments ever? –This morning was one of them. For all the hair-pulling and tear-shedding and ranting-and-raving that they cause me…. they then go and counter-balance them in moments like this. Man, they drive me crazy (their boundless energy, their frenetic activity, their twinny-tempermental-tantrums-and-incessant-boyish-brawls, their Behavioral Problems (capital ‘B’ ‘P’) and strange-personality-traits that provide a never-ending-list-of-things-for-their-Mama-to-worry-about, ETC., ETC. ETC.). Oh, how they drive me crazy. But my gosh, they make up for it in some big, big ways — big, creative, joyful, benevolent, make-their-Mama-ever-so-proud ways. Things that just come seemingly out of nowhere and make up for oh so many wrong-doings. They say, and do, the most sweetly profoundly awesome things sometimes. So, this morning, they woke up (had slept together in Owen’s room last night). We heard them in there getting ready all by themselves. They do this sometimes, out of their own initiative, when they feel like really making us proud. It involves getting dressed, bringing their pajamas to the hamper, making the bed, opening up the window shade, etc., etc., etc. Basically, getting up and going fully completely entirely on their own. After all is done, they come to us, so proud, and we make a big deal about it, and the day is off to a great start. So, this morning, we listened and heard them doing this. A great morning was brewing. But then, a twist. We heard excited conversing (but couldn’t make out what they were saying). Then we heard them running downstairs. Then we heard banging around in the kitchen. Minor-nerve-wracking anxiety ensued on our part. What, on earth, were they doing down there? God help us. Next thing we knew, seriously, they were calling us downstairs for coffee. They had MADE COFFEE FOR US. ???!!!!!!!!!!!!!! I said to Braydon, “No matter what this ‘coffee’ tastes like, we drink it graciously and show, enthusiastically, our excited appreciation. Got it?” Yes, he got it. O.k. “Oh, and no matter what the kitchen looks like, no matter what mess or disaster has been caused down there –even if there are coffee grinds everywhere, even if our beloved coffee bean grinder and/or super duper coffee maker are totally broken— no matter what, we praise them adoringly for this gesture. Got it?” Yup, got it. We could hear them, eager whispers and excited chit-chat, planning their presentation. O.k., we’re heading into the kitchen now. And what do we find?? The photo above. Two PERFECT cups of freshly ground, fresh brewed coffee. I mean, PERFECT. Braydon’s even was ready with his milk already poured in (the PERFECT amount). Mine was black, as they know I like it. And there they were. All proud and glorious with what they had done. And the kitchen and the grinder and the coffee maker? In PERFECT condition. PERFECT. Seriously. Yes, they’ve been “helping” Braydon make coffee for years. But no, they had never done it themselves (not even remotely close), and no, we had absolutely no idea they would know how to do it (let alone PERFECTLY). Our coffee maker is not simple to use. It is a complex sophisticated-coffee-making contraption. Making perfect coffee out of whole beans is not easy to perfect. Especially when two picky coffee drinker parents are the taste testers. But seriously, seriously, seriously, Kyle and Owen did this this morning: They got up and made us coffee. They missed the bus as a result. But seriously, who focuses on details like that when you’ve got a fresh brewed hot steaming perfect cup-o-joe in your hands that your twin 5-YEAR-OLD boys made you???? Not us. We let the bus go and made pancakes instead and savored the moment. Braydon happily drove them to school and they made it just in the nick of time. And they walked in there feeling like a million bucks.

In other news, Little Miss has a new favorite breakfast that she’s become very fond of recently: two eggs, over-easy. Here she was, this morning. She won’t eat pancakes but she’d eat fried eggs every morning if we let her. I love this picture of her:

I never want to forget these moments.

It was a rainy, raw, raucous fall weekend. Everything was canceled due to weather. Everything. Birthday parties were postponed, football games were a no-go (at least for us, that is, there was no way in heck we were going to sit in the damp cold rain to watch Lehigh play Yale, regardless of how badly Kyle wanted to go despite the weather), and the big plans we had for gearing up for Halloween/Thanksgiving (pumpkins, gourds, hayrides, etc) were totally rained out. It left us all to our own devices for a whole weekend of previously-unplanned-for-free-time. Strange, but true. We’re not used to this kind of totally unscheduled time.
Friday is my day to pick the boys up from school. This is precious time for me. Meera was taking a long nap, and Braydon was working from his home office and agreed to cover Meera, so I got to go get the boys by myself. That one-on-two time is a rare treat. Despite the wet weather, we went to our old favorite after-school-haunt: Ringing Rocks Park. There is almost always nobody there but us. But on Friday we ran into a friend of Owen’s from his class at school. We had the best time. The boys playing with her. And me having time alone (i.e., without Meera on my hip) to savor chatting with her mom. (note below that Kyle still has not mastered the simple art of smiling for the camera.)

The rest of the weekend was basically spent inside. I don’t remember the last time our family spent that much time inside. Seriously. Anyway, the whole weekend is like a hazy blur. There was some “motorcycle” riding in the basement:

Lots of playing with baby dolls:
“Playing Football” (i.e., tackling each other like crazy madmen):
And the discovery that Meera loves Braydon’s work. Literally, she loves what his company does. She cannot get enough of watching music concerts streamed over the internet via rVibe. No kidding:
Saturday morning Braydon and I made a split-second executive decision that we could not possibly stay around the house for the whole entire rainy day. We took off for our new favorite museum in the entire world: The Please Touch Museum (Philadelphia’s Children’s Museum). That place is great. All five of us love it. (photo of O, B, K on carousel taken there) We became members on Saturday. That was big for us. Anyway, before we left for Philly I was determined to take a picture of the three kids because they were all wearing brand new outfits (well, except for Meera’s hand-me-down-from-K&O-jeans). It has just been this past week that we’ve broken out the fall clothes. I wanted so badly to get a photo of them because they all looked so good and their shirts were oh-so-gloriously-clean. I knew enough to know that those shirts would never look that way again, and I wanted a photo. I begged, pleaded, and bribed. Still, this was the best they could give me. Little buggers.
Ky Ky was not pleased with the photo shoot and just wanted to get on the road to Philly. But this photo, as it turned out, is just so perfectly Kyle. So, in the end, it was all worth it. I guess. If only for this one photo. (And I was right, by the way: those three shirts came home looking nothing at all like what they looked like in these photos from before we left).
Owen did this all by himself at the museum. He was so proud. He asked if he could take a photo of it with the camera (which he did, photo at top). And then he asked for me to take a photo of him with it:
Sunday was at home. We did nothing but everything. That’s how it is sometimes. Sunday evening we went to a “Work Party” at the home of the chair of my department. Driving there in the car I again begged, pleaded, and bribed the bambinos — this time to please make me proud of their behavior at the party and not royally embarrass me in front of work colleagues. They went overboard with their displays of their best manners and polite behaviors and positive party attitudes. Many people commented to me how well-behaved they were (my chair, for example, told me that she had “never had someone ask her so politely where her bathroom was located”?!!!). They got donuts on the way home for that (and lots of proud positive remarks from their Mama). At the party Kyle ate, amongst all the other food he consumed there, 4 pieces of chocolate cake. Have I mentioned how much food these boys eat? Heaven help me.
Last note: all of those new fall clothes? So quickly going downhill fast. Isn’t it just exhausting to look at?! This shirt was brand new when he put it on this morning. This is what it looked like when he threw it into the hamper before bed tonight. Braydon just takes it in stride (thank goodness, since he does the laundry), but I can’t help but cringe (I do the clothes shopping). Heaven help me.
But oh man, do I ever love those little buggers.

The first couple days of K & O’s school year, both Braydon and I wanted to be there to watch them get on the school bus. So, Meera had to come along too (since we couldn’t very well leave her alone at the house!). The school bus pick-up spot is at the end of our neighborhood road. And our mornings are often frantic (we try desperately to keep a sense of calm and ease in them, but we tend to fail miserably at that). You can imagine the drill. Every minute counts. Early on we learned the hard way that driving to the bus stop (as opposed to walking) is clearly the way to go… it saves us a good solid 10 minutes in the a.m. And believe me, we need every one of those 10 minutes. So we quickly abandoned our lovely notion of a nice leisurely morning walk and resigned ourselves to ridiculously pathetic routine of getting into the car and driving the 1 minute to the end of the road. Well, the first couple days somehow morphed into the first couple months, and here we are: all five of us going to catch the school bus every morning. Meera will not have it any other way. She insists on going with the boys to get the school bus everyday. Truth be told, Braydon and I both love this little ritual that has developed, and neither of us want to miss out on the school bus pick-up either. So we all pile into the front seat and go out there each day. I have no idea how long it will last, but for now, it is what it is: a major part of our family’s daily routine. Today it was rainy and I grabbed the camera as we were –in typical fashion– rushing frantically out the door.

We have a rich, full life. And on so many levels it is an intense life. Braydon and I are up at 6am and we are going, going, going until we drop into our bed, exhausted, around midnight. The sleep that we get is usually interrupted-sleep, with Meera’s continued insistence on a bottle in the night (and our absolute insistence on not doing what we’d need to do to break this habit), Owen’s regular appearance in our bed, Kyle’s early-rising, and our crazy cat’s determination to wake us up to go outside each and every single night. This all amounts to very little sleep. Our days are jam-packed with our work (we both work really hard at work), our kids (we both work really hard at parenting), our ‘second shift’ (we both work really hard at managing the household: cooking, cleaning, lunch-packing, laundry, home projects, errands, the list is endless as anyone who manages an active home/family well knows), our ‘third shift’ (we both work, on most nights, from about 9pm-11 or 12pm). What little is left is devoted to our semi-pathetic social life and this little bitty blog and whatever volunteer projects we can cram in (lately, a pretty big project we’re both working on with our boys’ school). Our days are long and involved. We feel it. Our kids feel it. It is a crazy pace that we keep. We have come to understand ourselves as needing breaks to bond. We need to be alone, just the five of us. We need to be away, from the craziness and intensity that is our regular life. We need to be adventurous, to remind ourselves of who we really are — outside of the ‘normalcy’ (as wacky as our ‘normal’ often is) and the grinding routine that is at home. We need to explore, to see first-hand how big the whole world really is. We need to have fun, together, experiencing things as a unit, and re-grouping. And, perhaps most important of all, Braydon and I need these getaways for rejuvenation, each of us independently, and both of us together as a partnership. We need it to keep going. We need it in order to recuperate from time-to-time. And we need to have solid chunks of uninterrupted quality time with our kids. Time with no school and no childcare and no birthday parties to attend or errands to run. We have made our travels a very top priority in our family life. Not because we’re into collecting experiences, but rather because we need breaks in the pressure in order to keep thriving. This is a formula that we know now. We’re investing heavily in it. And we’re heavily invested in continuing it as long as humanly possible. Going into this Chesapeake Bay trip we knew what we needed to get out of it. And driving home, we knew it was everything that we had hoped it would be. We came back refreshed and renewed and energized. And, most importantly, we came back re-cemented as a solid-rock family.

I’ve known Jessica since 2006, when she came to campus for a weekend as a prospective student (being recruited by Lehigh). She was in a seminar that I led for prospective students, and I can still remember her coming up to me afterward. We talked for awhile. The following fall when I walked into Intro to Soc on the first day of class, I was surprised that there she was, sitting right up front— In a sea of over 200 faces she stood out in the crowd because I remembered her as that talented bright kid who had been in that seminar the previous spring. Quickly she became my unofficial advisee. She was a stand-out student, a great young woman, and I had an extra special love for her once I found out that she’s Haitian. Right away (and I admit here, this was in large part for selfish reasons!), I got her an on-campus job working in the Lehigh Daycare (where Kyle and Owen were in childcare at the time). She was a huge asset to the Childcare Center, and all the kids there loved her immediately, but K & O adored her, and they had quite a bond. She still works there to this day. In the spring of 2007, when we took Kyle and Owen out of that daycare and enrolled them in our Waldorf school, I made a conscientious effort to keep the boys in touch with Jessica. She has babysat for Kyle and Owen (and now Meera too) throughout the past four years, sometimes at our house, and sometimes on campus. Lately she’s been doing a lot of babysitting for us at home in the evenings when Braydon and I need to be at meetings. The boys have always called her “Jessica Stomping Dance” because she –in addition to everything else she does (like being heavily involved in the African-Caribbean Cultural Club)– has been a member (currently the Captain) of the Lehigh Step Dance Team. (The boys have seen a bunch of their performances at Lehigh, and they also performed at their 3rd Birthday Party, etc., etc., etc.) Just in the past couple of weeks I’ve noticed that they’ve started to call her by her full/’real’ name, using her last name instead of saying “Stomping Dance” afterward. It is one of those cute things that I’ll miss about their Little Boyhood— the cute names they’ve had for people in their life– those names that are slowly but surely disappearing as they approach Boyhood and leave Little Boyhood. Jessica was here last night babysitting while Braydon and I were attending two different meetings. I snapped the photo above just before I headed out, as the three of them were hanging out in the playroom together (Meera was already in bed). Jessica has been such a blessing to our family and I am so grateful that we have had the opportunity to embrace her her into our life. She’s a Senior now, and will graduate this spring, so we’re going to try to savor these last few months with her around.

Please read this post on our friend Corey’s blog and spread the word however you are able. We know this little boy, and he has been heavy on our hearts for many months now. We will rejoice gladly if the Waters can find him the right, loving, compassionate family that he (and they) so desperately need. Please help. Thank you.

I am crying, standing at the kitchen window, looking out into the yard at Meera in her pink baby swing with Margie watching her, swinging her and raising her hands up in a sprinkle of fingers to entertain the baby; I know she is singing. Heather is standing there crying with me, we’ve just dropped the boys off at the bus stop, they’re off to school.  We’ve been up for a couple hours, we’re about to go to work.

Meera had her bottle at 2 AM.  I am stressed out about cash flow for the company and am awake for 2 hours, but Meera sucks down her bottle and I feel her breathing ease and she’s asleep in my lap; I put her back in the crib, she rolls over on her side, content, sleeping. I remind myself to be with the baby, not with work, this time is precious.  I go back to bed, Heather reminds me to relax and let myself sleep. Owen wakes up with a nightmare and he finishes the night in bed with us.  Kyle is up early as always, excited to get to school, he comes in dressed and ready, it’s 6 AM.

Heather and I have a glass of wine, talk about the day, try to get centered.  We can’t figure this life out, as much as we try.  Our children are slipping by so quickly, they are growing with out any regard for our desire to slow down.  I see them so clearly, every little bit, but then the moment is gone. But I fell like I am missing them every minute of the day. Heather is missing them every minute of the day. Is this just how it is to be a parent, or is it something else?

We have a rich life, full of meaning, intimacy and love. I know we are beyond lucky, beyond privileged that I can even think about these things. I look out at the people in the world doing good works, struggling, filled with desire, filled with angst, fear and hope. Of all the many things we are concerned with, right now, this feels the most pressing in some ways. In some ways not, but on my heart, is is the most pressing.

We are looking for an answer I think. Or we’re looking for some kind of grace. Or maybe, we don’t even know what we’re looking for yet.