Braydon

We went to the Lehigh football game yesterday with our friends Julie and Jonathan (their son is K&O’s best friend Jackson and their baby son, Joey, is K&O’s wishful thinking brother) and had a great time. It was a gorgeous day, everyone was relaxed and it couldn’t have gone better. We hung out at the end of the field on a large slope and the boys all played while we hung out and watched (kinda) the game. Hamburgers, chicken fingers ice cream and root beer floats were much enjoyed.

I have some strong feeling about music, but try very hard to not drill the boys hard on songs or look closely for tell-tale signs of musical inclination. However, I am not too good at trying; when we play Rhapsody in Blue in the car, the boys can now pick out the piano, the violins, the trumpet and their favorite – the clarinet. It might just be they have memorized where I call out – “trumpet”, but it’s hard not to read into a bit.

I do have the sense that both boys have a special relationship with music, each in their own way. Owen tends to really enjoy it and it it seems to quiet him (if the music is quiet); Kyle tends to obsess about it. Kyle was particularly into the marching band at the game; it was definitely the highlight for him. We went early and watched them parade around the tailgating parking lot. Owen followed them along (it seemed that he was pretending to be one of the marching band), several times I had to pull him out of the way of on-coming trombones, piccolos and clarinets (‘watch out, marching band coming!); he pulled away and kept marching. Kyle, on the other hand, held Mama’s hand – he couldn’t be bothered with watching where he was going, ‘just let me watch and listen!’

This morning while Heather was buying Kyle the Big Elmo, I was going to the Lowe’s to get cold-weather stuff for the house. Owen was with me in the white car and we were listening to music. It always strikes me how when they hear a new piece of music, it’s the first time for them to hear it. In this case we were listening to Gorecki’s Totus Tuus and I realized it was his first real choral piece – that is pretty amazing.

While listening, it would get loud and quiet. When it got quiet, Owen would say – “Papi, hear it? Loud Papi” – he wanted me to turn it up. After a few times of getting loud and quiet, he started to say “Music BIG loud and quiet Papi!’.

Then after one section, Owen said “Papi… feel it?”

Finally it’s Friday after a long week. In the academic calendar there is an inverse relationship to the amount energy people have with the level of intensity of things over time. In otherwords, here in our house, as we near the end of the semester, everyone is tired and hanging in there, but it’s nuts.

For Heather it’s really tough and exhausting; for the supporters in her life, it’s just tough. But I want to say this: Despite the daily grind, I find comfort in my kids and my wife. That comfort is remebering to be human, a good person and be connected. Many days, when the stress is so high and things are moving too fast, it’s hard to see that, but I get that comfort none-the-less. I am so privledged to have it. Regardless of how flat out we are, K&O and Heather don’t accept anything less than full engagement, and I so deeply appreciate that.

My goal is to go to bed every night feeling close to and bonded with mt family. So far so good. Not 100%, but we’re a happy family, so I think it’s ok.

A guy I know was saying how hard it is now that he has two kids in diapers at the same time – a really little one and bigger one.

We can commiserate, but our diaper management procedure goes something more like this: “Papi – it’s a biiiiiiiiiiig green pooooopie!” (delight in his voice) – his brother chimes in: “See it Papi?!?! See it!!!” and proceeds to attempt to climb up the side of the dresser to the top where we have the changing table while the other one starts kicking and from time to time hits the poopie diaper. Repeat for other boy.

Or another favorite – us: “Do you want to put your diaper on, on the floor or on the changing table” (it’s not worth it to fight this one). His response: “On the bed!!!” Repeat for other boy.

Another one of our norms (well, mine anyway, Heather is better about this than I am) is when Owen kicks me during diaper changes. If I am alone, this inevitably leads to Kyle crying since it takes me about 5 times as long to change Owens diaper when he’s kicking and I can’t get him up there to see the big green (or blue, or yellow, or red, or orange) poopie.

Occassionally we have a diaper failure. That typically means that quality control on the diaper went arwy, and diaper has ripped a little and the gel packs inside have come out – leading to a very wet bed and boy. And honey bunny, pillow, blankets etc.

And for the first time, yesterday, I entirely forgot to put a new diaper on Kyle before bed. That one is not diaper failure, that’s parent failure. Poor guy. He was so wet and cold, I feel so bad about it. Heather ran a bath for him and he got warmed up and clean.

Owen had to join him in the bath of course.

We play this game in the car when we get to our neighborhood: We point to each house and say – “is that our house?” and Kyle or Owen answer “nooooo!?!?” When we finally get to our house they say “our house!”. I am sure lots of parents do similar things, after all, we want our boys to know which is their home.

We also do it with driveways when we take walks. “That’s not our driveway…” (which really means, ‘don’t go walking in there, stay here with me’). It’s morphed into everything – that’s not our dog, this is my mama-papi, is that our car, etc. It must also be some developmental stage, since they seem to have nailed the concept of “mine” (although they don’t quite have sharing yet, but they’re not too bad about it).

We were driving home from the pharmacy after picking up antibiotics on Tuesday and before we arrived at out neighborhood Owen started with “Papi – that’s not our house” for pretty much every house we passed. That’s a lot of houses and he insisted I answer “that’s right Owen, that’s not our house” for each one. When we got to our house he was thrilled, kicking and thrashing in his seat (see note below about being ‘sick’…) “our house! our house!”

And the thing that really zings me is that they get to say “our” – after all, “ours” means so much in so many ways.

Not being a twin myself, I can’t really imagine what it’s like to have to share everything. Right now the boys have very little that is not interchangeable. Actually, it might only be their beds that are really their own. And their shoes (since Owen is a size 12 and Kyle is a size 11). And their lovely lion and honey bunny. But that’s about it.

To top it off, while it’s obvious to anyone who looks for 1/2 a second that these boys are very close and love each other dearly, they almost never get a break from their twin. So, tonight, Kyle is sick – he has an ear infection – poor guy (and poor us) – and went to bed before Owen.

I guess if there is a perk to your brother having an ear infection it would be getting a moment to yourself with a good book. Same can not be said for said parents….

Which of course means – ‘candy num nums’ for breakfast !!!

Well, we all go a little far sometimes. In our work, in our obsessions, in our family life.

Every morning and afternoon Kyle and Owen insist on seeing ‘Papi’s Chain Saw’ [ain-yaw]. Every morning and every afternoon. Which really means we first look at a little electric chainsaw, then the gas chain saw Don gave me for Chirstmas, then we look at the weedeater, then the leaf blower, then the old lawnmower (Sheesh, I can’t believe we have all this stuff). And they have to touch each one in succession and pretend the motor is running – vroom, vroom! So, I thought – hey, they would get such a kick out of it if I started up the weedeater – they love when we start the cars engines.

The boys stood about 3 feet away, I pulled the starting rope, again, again and it started. Kyle was very curious as the motor jumped to life (interesting since he was very worried about the neighbor’s chain saw when a tree fell down in his yard); Owen immediately started crying. ‘No, no, no Papi!’ he called out. He quickly ramped up to full panic. I immediatey stopped the motor and picked him up. Held him; he was so scared and crying. Kyle reached down and made motor noises – vroom, vroom! I held Owen until he calmed down. We had to replay the whole thing in detail (without starting the motor), until everything made sense and was ok. Then we went and played a little golf in the front yard (with the golf tee of course). We’ve been talking about the Big Green Chain Saw since (it’s not even green).

We’re a very enthusiastic family and get a little carried away sometimes.