While Heather napped a little on Mother’s Day afternoon, the boys had a little kite-flying fun in the front yard. Â After that we played whiffle ball (which means I pitched the ball to them for about 45 minutes).
*****Contest is on until Baby Sister’s arrival!*****Latest blog meter stats tell us that at this point we have between 450-500 readers per day (who would have ever thunk that?!?!). Anyhoo, what this tells us is that there are a lot of you out there who are reading. Click on ‘comments’ to play folks! We may never have another contest again! It is time to come out of the woodwork!**************P.S. There was a clue in our post from May 1…
The kids got to wear scrubs, etc., but Owen did not want anything covering his “I’m Going To Be A Big Brother!” t-shirt. (!) Kyle was thrilled (and took it very seriously) to dress like a “real doctor!”
*
In one of the labor/delivery rooms Nurse Barb used a special doll with a baby in its belly to demonstrate the whole process. K & O knew all about this already, but still they were absolutely enthralled with the whole thing.
*
Kyle was so incredibly excited while we were on the tour of the hospital. He would go listen to Nurse Barb for awhile and then come back to find Braydon and I — jumping/prancing/grinning-ear-to-ear — just so excited he was about to bust at the seams.
*
The boys’ favorite part was when they got to look through the windows into the nursery to see the “real just born babies!” They were so taken with this. They could have stayed there forever.
*
They could not get enough of looking at the babies. We had to literally pull them away from the windows when it was time to go.
*
This morning when Kyle woke up he came stumbling into our bedroom as he always does. He climbed into bed and the first thing he said was, “Mommy, are you ready for the baby to come out?” A few minutes later, this was the conversation~~ (note for new blog readers: June is K & O’s imaginary friend)~~
Kyle: Mommy, I am excited about Baby Sister. But June is not excited. She’s feeling mad.
Heather: Oh! Why is June mad?
K: Because Kyle and Owen and Papi and Mommy are going to feed our baby. But not June. She can’t feed her. So she’s mad.
H: Oh, she’s mad about that? Is she feeling jealous?
K: Yes. But June has her own baby.
H: Oh! What’s June’s baby’s name?
K: Her name is ‘Baby Sister’
H: Oh!
K: She is inside June’s belly. Right Owen?
O: That’s right!
K: And she will be born very soon. So, she’ll have her own baby and we will have our own baby.We’re getting very close to the due date (6 days away), and I feel like it could be any minute now. I caught a cold from the boys this week, so I’m feeling under the weather with sore throat, runny nose, low-energy, etc. I am hoping to get rid of this cold fast so that it will be gone before I go into labor. But now that K & O’s birthday has come and gone they are all set for their sister’s arrival. In late December when we told them they were going to be big brothers May seemed soooooooooo far away!!! And, here we are.
It’s the final countdown – one week to go until Baby Sister is due! Doesn’t Heather look AWESOME?!?!? I can’t believe how amazing my wife is. I know men often say this, but wow – I am really in awe of her. Not only has she taken incredible care of herself and our baby, but she puts on a happy, energetic face for the boys everyday, she creates wonderful birthday parties, she maintains her enormous career, keeps our social life intact, plans and cooks for all of us. She is an amazing wife, she powers through pain, discomfort, sleeplessness (and there is not a whole lot of sleeping going on around here at the moment) and she looks beautiful. (and truthfully, I am quite sure I don’t know everything she does.)
Incredible.
May 8, 2008: They were up at 5:50 a.m., beyond excited about finding their end-of-the-bed-presents — the sure sign that today is their “actual birthday”, the sure sign that they are “really 4!!!” They wanted to open their presents together so they brought Kyle’s into Owen’s room. What was inside??? Yes! Skateboards and rollerskates — exactly what they had been hoping for! Could two 4 year old boys be any happier??? Happy Birthday K & O!
I cannot get over it that they are turning 4!?! These pictures are from May 8, 2005 — their first birthday.
On their first birthday the boys had been home just over three months. In those short three months they had gained many pounds, gotten many teeth, and grown many inches. They had become healthy and were well on their way to a full physical recovery. They were also making huge strides developmentally, emotionally, and psychologically. They still weren’t ready for a houseful of people and/or any kind of ‘real’ birthday party… they were just barely starting to come out of their shells and blossom. But we knew in our hearts that they were going to thrive. The signs were all there already. We felt so lucky that their first birthday was their first birthday home. We were so grateful to have been able to bring them home so young. We also felt lots of deep emotions about that day they turned one. I cried often — deep mournful crying — around that time. I mourned for what they hadn’t had on the day of their birth. I mourned for what that day must have been like for them, as tiny newborn infants. I mourned for all that was lost, never to be able to be regained. And I mourned for their birthmother… the thoughts would flood my mind… what must it have been like to give birth on that day in Cite Soleil, Haiti? The blazing hot sun and the dirty dusty smokey filthy hazy painfulness of it all? They were born at a missionary clinic in Cite Soleil — how did she get there? she had never had medical care, so what a surprise it must have been to birth twins? and what was it like then — to know in her heart that they were not to be hers to raise? We can’t assume anything about her emotions or thoughts; we know enough about the situation in Haiti to know not to assume. But I can’t help but wonder. And I wonder most about my babies… what happens when that happens to an infant? A precious newborn soul. I give thanks they were twins, they had each other. But to start your life that way — to have your birth day be that day. What does it all mean? That year they turned one I agonized over all this. And I was so deeply grateful, too, that they had been born. That they had survived. That they were mine. By the time their actual birthday came I was emotionally drained from churning and churning over these sorts of things (and what I’ve written here is just the very tip of the iceberg). But I was also in the midst of an intense phase with Kyle and Owen. As their mother my goal was to ‘go back’ and ‘re-do’ as much of their infancy as I possibly could with them. Knowing that I could never truly go back, nor truly re-do, I was driven to do the best I could nonetheless. I insisted that they be held as much as humanly possible and that the house be as soothing as we could possibly make it. We’d rock them for hours, we’d hold their hands down so that we could bottle feed them (in the orphanage they had been taught to feed themselves and had been doing so since around age 4 months… so they’d fight us in the beginning not wanting to rely on us for feedings), we’d coo to them like they were newborns, we’d force them to have eye-contact despite their many attempts to not, we’d run to them at every tiny whimper 24×7, we’d protect them as if they were just hours old. We felt fortunate — around May 8, 2005 we knew in our hearts that it was working. Our boys had sparkles in their eyes. They were engaged in the world. They were enjoying life. They were alive. Their first birthday was on a Sunday. We had them baptized that day. The ceremony was special and beautiful for us. It was also Mother’s Day. I felt that it was a profound thing: to have their first birthday, their baptisms, and my first Mother’s Day all on the exact same day. It felt charmed somehow. It felt like the weights were being lifted, that we were coming into the light. It felt like an incredible miracle — a fresh new start in life for two precious and beautiful and fragile souls. Like many adoptive mom’s, I continue to have mixed emotions around Kyle and Owen’s birthday. It brings to the surface many thoughts and feelings that seem to forever be somewhat raw. I don’t fight it because I think it is good for those things to always remain a little bit at the surface and a little bit raw. It doesn’t dominate me, but it is part of me. It is part of being mother to Kyle and Owen. It just means that we are real. The history is real. The present is real. And the future — whatever it may hold — is real. Three years ago, when they turned one, I could not have imagined the boys that they would be today. I feel blessed beyond belief for what they were and what they have become. And I anticipate with open arms what the future has in store.
This is the second year in a row that Zoe has sent K & O a special ‘virtual’ b-day message– click here for last year’s. I love little rituals and traditions like this. K & O are very much anticipating May 8 – tomorrow – one more sleep – their “actual birthday.” The only really big tradition we have for their actual birthday is the ‘end of the bed presents’ (when they wake up in the morning they’ll find special presents from Mommy & Papi waiting at the end of their beds). This is a tradition from my family too — I have always had an ‘end of the bed present’ waiting for me when I wake up on my birthday, for as long as I can remember. K & O are hoping that it is “a skateboard and rollerskates”… this is all they’ve asked for and they’ve been asking for it for their birthday for many months now. We shall see if that is waiting at the end of the bed tomorrow morning!!! 😉
This morning, as usual, the boys were cuddling in bed with us just after they woke up. Totally out of the blue Kyle says to me, “Mommy, when I am a grown up man you will sleep with me in my bed — just like you sleep with Papi!” Then Owen chimed in, “And when I am a grown up man Papi will sleep with me in my bed!” Braydon and I were trying not to laugh. I said, “Well maybe you guys will want to find your own people to sleep with when you are grown up men?! I think you’ll want to find your own woman or your own man to sleep in your beds with you!!” Kyle says, “No, mommy, not another woman, just you — when I am a grown up man you will sleep in my bed!” And Owen says, “Yup, that’s right — when I am a grown up man Papi will sleep in my bed! Not another man, just Papi!”
Recent comments