After two years of strumming, the boys are now movin’ on up— their Papi has seen it fit to graduate them to using guitar picks when playing guitar! The picks are optional, and sometimes they use them and sometimes they don’t. But it is clear just from observing their stance and their renewed-guitar-playing gusto that using the picks to play guitar is a BIG deal to them.
Just a sprinkling of snow and ice (I grew up in rural New Hampshire… in my book, anything less than a serious N’oreaster does not legitimately qualify for a school delay), but here we are in Pennsylvania smack dab between NYC and Philly and a wee bit of the white stuff gives these folks cause for alarm. The phone rang at 6:00 am — a two hour school delay. Great. This was just about the last thing I needed. With about a zillion things left on my current To Do list (otherwise known as the ‘Create Christmas 2008 for the Johnson-McCormick Family’ list), and Meera coming down with a cold (thanks to Kyle who has a bad cold and who can’t seem to stop sneezing on her and smearing her with snotty nose kisses all of his waking hours), and with Braydon needing to leave the house at 7am for a work meeting, and a hundred errands to run and things to accomplish within the next 72 hours, a
snow delay was just about enough to put me over the edge. If only I had time to go over the edge. I mean, really now, the boys are only
in school for 4.5 hours each day to begin with??!! Two hours of that precious time taken away from me just like that? What about my wrapping-palooza-2008 plans (that have already been delayed for various reasons for the past three straight days)??? Anyway, once I got over my initial shock and disgust I hunkered down to grin and bear it. And once I saw the boys in their snow gear I just couldn’t bear to be Grinchy about any of it a minute longer. The ice made a magical mystical land out of our yard and K & O couldn’t have enjoyed it any more than they did. It turned out to be a crazy whirlwind of a day. Ending with the house in more disarray than it has been for a long time and with poor Little Miss sick as a dog and zero items crossed off my To Do list and take-out pizza for supper. But nevertheless, it sure is beginning to look —
and feel — a lot like Christmas.
The boys are extremely interested in the Christmas Story. Kyle is particularly obsessed in his usual theological way; he wants to understand everything. The most difficult question I’ve fielded so far is: "What happened before Jesus was born?"
But there is something just so sweet about both their excitement about the Christmas Story. I don’t mean Christmas the fun and exciting Santa holiday, I mean the Christmas story itself. They seem to get it, they seem to revel in it, it feels like it has meaning for them.
And that is beautiful.
I found Heather narrating the birth of Jesus to our boys to the other day. The images tell it better than any words.
About halfway through the day today I suddenly heard Meera saying “da da da da da.” As clear as can be. I turned and looked right at her and said back, “da da da da da.” And she looked me right in the eyes and said, “da da da da da.” She’s been babbling forever, and is chatty at times (usually only when at home, when the house is relatively quiet — which usually means when her brothers aren’t around), but this was the first real strong, clear “baby talk” from our girl. For the rest of the day she practiced her “da’s.” We heard it off and on this afternoon and this evening. And tonight we listened to the baby monitor as she “da da da da da”‘d herself to sleep. She has a really cute and sweet little voice!
(as dictated by Owen & Kyle ~~ click to enlarge)
Yesterday was a huge day. We went to Winter Fair at the boys’ school — which was just as magical and amazing as last year (I wrote about it last year in this post). We left early to hurry home to host, what is, for Kyle and Owen, truly, The Event of the Season. Our 2nd annual Pennsylvania-Area Haiti-Adoptive-Families Christmas Party. As I’ve been uploading the photos, I’ve been sitting here at my computer trying hard to think of how to write about it in a way that would do it justice. I was at a loss. Then I just went back and read my post from last year’s “Haiti Christmas Party” (as K & O call it), and I can’t think of any way to say it better than I did there. So, all I’ve gotta say is: DITTO to that post. This year we had 57 people, 37 of which were kids. There was a moment when we had a big group of them in the playroom all singing Jingle Bells. It was crazy, but it was also beautiful on so many levels. What an incredibly, incredibly good time was had. I feel like it is really Christmas now.
(O & K, unwinding from the party, watching Curious George after everyone left)
Someday we’ll all gather together, drinking eggnog and nibbling on gingerbread cookies, with Christmas music playing, bonding together as we happily perform the yearly ritual of putting up our beloved Christmas tree. We’ll oooh and ahhh together over all of our sentimental ornaments. We’ll reminisce about Christmases past and dream together about Christmases future. When the tree is up and the empty ornament boxes are back in the basement we’ll sit quietly together in the glow of the lights, admiring our handiwork, and enjoying the moment. Until then…
Back to reality…
With two crazy four year olds and a six month old…
We consider it a major achievement that the tree is up.
We’ll leave it at that.
I want to try to write this post without getting overly emotional or melodramatic about it. So, I’m going to try to keep it brief and simple. But the topic is far from brief. And far from simple. And this isn’t easy. Meera is now wearing a lot of Kyle and Owen’s old baby clothes. All their old baby clothes that I’ve stored away for the past four years. At six months old, Meera weighs at least five pounds more than either Kyle or Owen did at eight months. The clothes fit her differently than they fit them. They look entirely different on her than they did on them. When worn by Meera instead of the boys, the images that these clothes project and the body these clothes protect are completely, completely converse. But they are the same clothes. And seeing her in them brings so many emotions to the surface. So many memories come flooding back. Many of these items of clothing bring back specific moments in time and specific experiences that we had in our first weeks home with K & O. Some of those moments and experiences were joyous, some were heart-wrenching, some still sit in my core as life-altering for all involved. My memories are like snapshots of time, like little tid-bits of something precious that is in a million pieces in my mind. Bringing the boys home, trying to heal them as best we could, and creating our (then new) family life happened with those clothes on our boys. I snuggled and held them and tried to understand them for hours on end as they wore those clothes. So some of them I couldn’t bear to have anyone else but my boys wear (the first outfits we dressed them in when we arrived to the hotel in Haiti; the outfits they wore on the flights home). Some I have given away to friends or the thrift store. But a whole dresser-full are now being worn by Meera. To see her in them is such stark contrast. The most striking is simply that she is so healthy (on every level), and they were so deeply not. My precious boys needed so much. Meera needs so little. I worried so about my bambinos. Meera Grace requires so little worry. Meera was born into an already-strong attachment relationship, she’s got not a care in the world on her little mind, she’s 100% on track for a healthy happy life, etc., etc., etc. See…. it is almost impossible for me to articulate. This is why I have been avoiding writing about subjects related to this kind of stuff— because it is so hard to do. At the same time, I want to get it down, because I don’t want to forget that I went through this. This time right now — as Meera enters into the approximate age at which we adopted Kyle and Owen — is just a fleeting moment in time. It will go as quickly as it has come. And I know these raw emotions will drift and dissolve. So, I want to remember this. I want to remember that I felt like crying a lot as I see, feel, smell Meera in these little outfits that are, still, to me, “the boys clothes.” I want to remember that my heart was full and aching and heavy and light all at the same time. I want to remember all the innocence — the innocence of chubby happy Meera who has everything on par with the innocence of two tiny Haitian orphans who had nothing. I want to remember the pain and sorrow and grieving and the purest joy I’ve ever known. Some people might say, ‘oh, get over yourself! they’re just clothes!’ But to me, they are so much more. And right now, it all means something.
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