Bek’s comment on my last post reminded me of something I had apparently blocked out that happened on Sunday afternoon (the day before what happened on Monday afternoon… believe me, I could have this whole blog be devoted to stories like these, but I don’t necessarily want all these details to be remembered, and more importantly– I don’t want anyone to get the idea that we allow this stuff to take up any significant bulk of space in our life. We choose to focus on the positive for lots of really important reasons. So this little ‘series’ of stories is just that– a little series– and I refuse to let these things bog us, or our blog, down. Having said that, I’m on a roll here… so here goes with another little story from the day before yesterday).
We were at Lowe’s to buy birdseed and light bulbs and a couple of other things. Our trips to Lowe’s with the boys always involve their required stop in the lawnmower(summer)/snowblower(winter) section. It just so happens that Lowe’s was in the midst of their seasonal products turnover so K & O hit the jackpot– lawnmowers and snowblowers AND a bunch of big strong male Lowe’s employees driving those lift-machine-things back-and-forth from the stockroom to the lawnmower/snowblower area to bring out deck furniture and grills and other heavy stuff like that! K & O were in Lowe’s Heaven. They were both “riding” together on one riding lawnmower, sharing the seat, watching the action. From time to time the lift-machine-things would be away in the stockroom for a few minutes in a row and K & O would jump off their lawnmower to look down the aisle for it to come back. As soon as they’d see it they’d run like crazy to jump back onto their lawnmower-seat-safety-zone to watch the guys unload the heavy stuff. Braydon and I were about 3 feet from the lawnmower. We knew they were loving this, and we were in no rush, so we were letting them play it out. I was exhausted (remember, I’m 5 months pregnant!), so I was sitting down on a pile of wood (there was nowhere else to sit!) right next to the lawnmower. Braydon was standing right next to me. We were watching the boys, we were smiling that cheesy-parental-smiley-smile in our joy in watching their joy, and from time to time we were laughing at them (like when they’d make their super loud crazy engine sounds pretending to “START THE MOTOR!!!”). Strangely enough for a Sunday afternoon, we had virtually the entire store to ourselves. Nobody was around but us four. And the Lowe’s worker guys were all getting a big kick out of playing lift-machine-thing-driver-Superstars to K & O. Suddenly, out of nowhere a white woman appears. She’s clearly a customer. She’s been shopping in some nearby aisle but is now walking toward us with a very concerned look on her face. I notice her right away. I can see she’s looking at the boys, then she’s looking right at me (we’re making eye contact). She looks at the boys, then at me again. She does this a couple more times as she’s walking toward us. She walks right up to Owen and says, “Little boy, are you lost?” He looks up at her confused. She says it again, “Little boy, are you lost???” He doesn’t respond. He has a dazed look on his face. He turns to look up at me. I speak up as quickly as I can, looking over his head to the lady, “He’s with us!” She looks at me (for about the fifth time) and says, “I thought he was lost.” “No,” I said, “he’s our’s, he’s with us.” What I wish she had said was, “Oh, I am so sorry!!!” If she had I would have said, “No problem.” But instead she said, “Oh, I just saw him here and was worried he might be lost!” She turned and walked away and I let her walk off with the awkward silence.
It seems that ever since I started going to the grocery store with K & O (which was, basically, very soon after they came home from Haiti), there is always a story to tell about each and every trip we make. For some reason it is in the grocery store that we have our most interesting (read between the lines) experiences. Today was no exception. Today, in addition to all the normal mundane stuff that occurs when you bring two three year old boys to the grocery store with you, not just one but two interesting things happened!
Setting the scene– Huge grocery store. The boys were in the kind of cart where in between the actual food bin part of the cart and the part that you push, there is a small bench that fits two kids. K & O are sitting squeezed together and with me pushing the cart their heads were just below my head. These stories are true stories.
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Story 1
About mid-way through the trip, at the end of one of the middle aisles, I was concentrating on trying to search an upper shelf for a specific thing on my list. I was lost in the task, not really focused on anything except trying to find this thing as quick as possible. My concentration is broken when I hear, “Hey!” Then again, “Hey?!” I look up. About halfway down the aisle is a well dressed middle aged white woman, standing with no cart or basket or anything in her hands. There are several people in between us, but she’s looking directly at me saying loudly, “Hey?!!” — apparently trying to get my attention. She’s got everybody else’s attention in the aisle, including K & O’s. I look at her (my head just above K & O’s) with a startled look of ‘Are you talking to me?’ on my face. She says (loud enough for me to hear, with half a long aisle and several other shoppers separating us), “Are those your kids?” I totally hear her, but do what I always do in these situations… I act like I can’t hear her in order to buy myself some time to think quick (remember, in addition to the audience of other shoppers, my most important audience — K & O — are right there just inches away from my mouth). She belts it out louder, “Are THOSE your kids?” I nod as proudly and confidently as I can given that I’m totally nervous about what is about to unfold. She starts walking toward me very quickly and aggressively, weaving in and out of people (who are all staring at me and her) as she approaches. I conscientiously lean my body and head in tight with K & O’s. As she gets within a few steps of me she suddenly stops. Looks me right in the eye. Point blank says, “Are they YOUR CHILDREN????” I say, “Yes.” She says, “I thought I was hearing them call you ‘mom’? Are they your kids?” I say, “Yes, they are my kids.” She says, “Like, you had them???” I do what I always do in such moments (I’m pretty sure I know exactly what she’s asking but I want her to be the one to feel like an idiot, not me, and definitely not K & O), I ask with a look of sincere confusion on my face, “What do you mean?” She says, “YOU had THEM?” I said, “I did not give birth to them, if that’s what you mean. I adopted them, they are my kids, they were adopted.” She looks at me in total shock. “Oh,” she says, “I couldn’t figure it out. I kept hearing them call you ‘mom’ and I just couldn’t figure it out.” I stand there silently. K & O are looking straight at her. Everyone around us now starts to pretend to be shopping in the aisle again. She says, “I know about bi-racial kids, but I’ve never seen kids that dark come out of a person as white as you.” I smiled as sweet-fake as I possibly could and said, “Oh.” She says, “I mean, they are really dark. What do they call that? Pigment? They have very dark pigment. And you’re so white. I couldn’t figure out how they were your kids.” I looked at her and said, “They are my kids.” And that was that. We kept on moving (and when I got home and was unpacking the bags I realized that I had forgotten the item I had been looking for when that whole interaction began).
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Story 2
Totally other kind of ‘story’… So, we’re toward the end of the trip. The boys have been behaving very well, all things considered. I’ve been very focused on getting out as quickly as possible so I haven’t really been watching too closely what they’re doing since they’re not seeming to cause any problems. We’re in the bread and dairy aisle, the widest aisle. It is crowded with people and carts. I sort of anchor our cart toward the middle of the aisle and from there I start quickly gathering each item we need and then placing it in the cart. I’m going back and forth, back and forth. I start to notice some people snickering, some people openly laughing out loud, some people giving each other looks of disgust. I get nervous it is something regarding my boys. A random shopper walks by me and says, “They’re twins?” I say, “Yes.” He says flatly, “Wow.” Another random shopper nearby says cheerily, “I had three boys who almost sent me to the insane asylum, but I’d take three boys of different ages over two twin boys any day!!!” I laugh. She says, “I’m not kidding!” From the cheese section I bend around another customer to try to peer down the aisle to check on K & O. They are sitting on the cart bench, with their bodies turned so that they are face to face. At first I think they are cutely kissing. But no. To my horror I can clearly see that they have their mouths wide open and they are french kissing. People are staring. Some people have even stopped dead in their tracks to stare. I run over to them and start pushing the cart forward. “Guys! Please! No tongues!!!” That gets a big rise out of them. They start laughing and doing it more. As I move as quickly as possible through the rest of the dairy aisle I periodically look down to see them giggling, french kissing, and licking each other all over their faces. “Guys! Guys! Please!!” I say. “What mommy? We like it!!!” they say in unison. “Who wants a cookie?!!!!!!” I say as I frantically break open a package of fig newtons from our cart.
We spent the weekend with our friend Patricia, who came to visit us from Boston. Patricia is an old friend from our Boston graduate school days. She and I were in the same PhD program years back. We’ve had some good times studying Schutz, The Frankfurt School, etc. for our comprehensive exams together (??!!?!). We’ve had some good times going through the PhD-hoops-plus-20-something-angst together (??!!?!). Those are bonding times!!! But in all seriousness, she got real close to Braydon too, and together with a ton of Boston friends we’ve all had some really good times together — many of them over dinner in various Boston apartments or over drinks in various Boston bars (margaritas and queso dip at The Border Cafe immediately come to mind)! We were with each other when we were really growing up. But now we see her rarely. However, she’s one of the best kinds of old friends — you start right back up where you left off (depsite not having seen each other for ages), and things are relaxed as can be. Owen and Kyle love her, and all five of us had a good time together for a weekend of doing nothing but everything. A highlight was going to Cosi for lunch and then having s’mores for dessert… with K & O as the “Cheffers” (some kind of twisted twinspeak verbal combo of “cooker” and “chef”). Patricia also got to see plenty of baseball action and Diego videos! ;0 She took a bunch of cute photos– many of the photos on this post were taken by her. Last night while I was getting Owen ready for bed he said, “Mommy, I’m so sad.” I said, “Why are you sad?” He said, “Because Patricia left us.” So sad to have her go, but so fun to have had her here!!! Thank you for coming Patricia!!!!!!
Right now, K & O seem to have two –and only two– major concerns about Baby Sister. But they are serious, grave concerns. They are:
1) That I will “pee pee on her when she is getting born”
2) That I will “let her come out before she is ready to get born”
Yesterday, in the bathroom of the grocery store, both of these concerns were at monumental levels. The three of us (K, O, H) were in a single stall together. K & O peed, then it was my turn. As is the usual routine, I sat there peeing as K & O both stood, less then a foot away, all serious looks on their faces, observing me pee (their fascination that “girls pee sitting down” continues in full force). Suddenly, Kyle got a look of utter panic on his face: “DON’T LET BABY SISTER COME OUT MOMMY!!! SHE’S NOT READY TO GET BORN YET! SHE’S TOO LITTLE! DON’T LET HER OUT!!!!!!!!!” Then Owen was struck with panic too: “DON’T PEE ON HER! MOMMY, DO NOT PEE PEE ON HER!!!!!!!” I said, “I won’t guys, I won’t pee on her, and I won’t let her come out, don’t worry.” But by now the panic was intense. They continued: “Don’t pee on her! Don’t let her out! MOMMY!!! Be CAREFUL!!!!!!!” I was saying, “Don’t worry guys! Don’t worry! I’m the mommy, it is my job to take care of her, don’t worry!” Their voices became increasingly raised to the point that both of them were so loud that they surely couldn’t hear anything I was saying to try to calm them down. Their attitude can only be described as an entirely-concerned-big-brothers… and totally 100% protective— to the Nth degree. In that moment, neither of them could have cared less about me. It was all about Baby Sister. I can only imagine what the other ladies outside our stall (using/waiting for the restroom) were thinking!!*@!?!!! And I can only imagine what poor ‘Baby Sister’ will be going through when she’s, oh, about 14, and they’re, oh, about 18?!!!!!!!!*!@!?!!!!!!!!
“Papi” is away for “two sleeps” on a “work trip” where he is “talking to the man” but “soon he’ll come back” and then he will “absolutely” and “definitely” be ready to “play airplanes” and “be the control tower” (all K & O speak; all quotes from today). Braydono– here are some photos I took for you this afternoon/evening because I know you, therefore, I know you’ll be checking your laptop in your hotel room tonight. 😉
P.S. Mark this date in history– the boys were better than they’ve ever been in the grocery store this afternoon, it was actually a pleasure to go food shopping with them today!! Who would have ever thunk it?!?!!!!!
B– here are O & K in our bathtub;
they spent over an hour in our tub and then shower.
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After bath snack (while I got their supper ready), watching the “new” Diego video you got from NetFlix.
Note: their “snack” was an entire 12 oz (1 full pound!) package of strawberries and an entire 4.4 oz package of blueberries (they ate the entire two packages) and that was after they shared a banana and before they ate their entire dinners. ?!
FYI: The “Otter” video is a huge, huge hit.
And the fact I let them watch a video on a “school day” was a huge, huge hit too! 😉
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Can’t help but throw this one in too–
They wanted me to be the Control Tower. I tried. But they told me that they “like the way Papi does it”!!! LOL!!!
I’m sure you’re just really missing the planes/masking tape runway… right?! ;0
Even though it is only “two sleeps” we miss you!
Owen’s Belly Button–
Click here for previous post about Owen’s Umbilical Hernia. Never has he ever once said or done anything to indicate that he has any self-consciousness whatsoever about it… until last night. At the dinner table last night, truly out of nowhere, completely out of the blue, Owen says (with seriousness and a tone of real sadness), “Mommy, why I don’t have an ‘innie’ belly button? Why I have an ‘outie’? I don’t want a big outie, I want to have an innie.” My mind started racing the second I heard ‘innie’ because I knew what he was going to be getting at before he even finished his first sentence. The default answer that immediately shot through my head was to tell him “Because that’s how God made you! And you’re perfect just the way you are!” or some rubbish like that. But, 1) it is a lie– that is not how “God” made him– it is the result of human hands, a poorly tied umbilical at birth, a pretty extreme umbilical hernia, and early starvation so that the hernia could not and will not ever be able to totally heal… and 2) to tell him he’s ‘perfect just the way he is’ would sort of be problematic when, sometime relatively soon, we take him for an operation to correct his umbilical hernia and give him an ‘innie’… I tried to think quick. I said: “Owen, you don’t want the outie belly button?” He said, “No, I don’t want it, I want to have an innie just like Kyle and just like you and just like Papi.” I said, “O.k.! Guess what? We’re going to go to a special doctor at a hospital who will fix your belly button and make it an innie!” He seemed satisfied with that. Now I’ve got it on my to-do list for today to start the process to set that up. The surgeon we saw about it when the boys first came home said that he wanted to do the surgery at age four. Braydon and I had already been talking about trying to get the operation set up early, hopefully for this winter, so that we can have it out of the way before the baby is due. Now Owen’s given me a push to make it happen. But I find it just so interesting that now suddenly Owen has noticed it and is self-conscious of it. Something must have happened at school yesterday or something, but I have no idea what.
Sibling Love–
[Quick note about Baby Sister’s name– we’re not making the name public so on the blog we’re writing ‘Baby Sister’ even when K or O actually say ‘Baby ___’. They call her by her name almost 100% of the time.] Last night right before bed, the boys were on Braydon’s lap in Kyle’s room, just like every night, and Braydon had just finished reading them books. I walked over, just like every night, to say prayers with them. Before I sat down –with my belly just at their face level– I pulled my shirt up so that K & O could kiss the belly and say ‘night night’ to Baby Sister (they’ve been doing this since we told them there is a baby in there). They kiss the belly and whisper things (that Braydon and I usually can’t make out) to Baby Sister. They were doing this whole routine last night when out of the blue Kyle says very clearly: “Night Nights. I love you Baby Sister.” Then Owen said it too: “I love you Baby Sister.” We have never prompted them to say ‘I love you’ to the baby; we’ve never even insinuated that they should feel ‘love’ for this abstract soon-to-be member of our family; and we’ve never talked about feeling love ourselves for the baby. It was totally sweet and cute, but also totally surprising to hear it. Braydon and I were totally taken aback by it. I find it so fascinating that siblings can start to develop a true bond and an organic love for each other even before they meet and/or even before one is born. There is no doubt that K & O feel love for their Baby Sister, despite the fact that she’s still so abstract to them and they’ve never known another sibling but each other/their twin. And the other part that is so amazing is the miracle of adoption— the fact that Baby Sister won’t be a biological sibling to them, but this has absolutely no significance whatsoever (at least not now) for K & O.
Yesterday Kyle was walking around the playroom carrying the poor cat around and holding the poor thing waaaaaaay toooooo tight. Our beloved 13-year-old cat Cooper has become pathetically tolerant of K & O’s antics. He can usually escape when he really wants to so I more-or-less stay out of it. However, this time I was really starting to get concerned when –from the kitchen where I was– I heard Cooper yelp out a desperate sounding sound unlike any sound I’ve ever heard before. I shouted in to Kyle, “O.k., Kyle, that’s enough, put Cooper down now.” He ignored me. “Kyle! Put Cooper down!” Totally blatantly ignoring me. “KYLE! PUT THE CAT DOWN RIGHT NOW!” And then. This: Kyle, semi-sheepishly and semi-attitudinally (some people would call this passive-aggressively), still holding the cat, calls back (just loud enough so I can hear it) — “I’m not listening to you Mommy.” Then dead silence in the house. Owen was in the playroom but ran fast as lightening to come see my reaction in the kitchen. He peered around the kitchen counter with a look of sheer anticipatory curiosity on his face. “GO TO YOUR ROOM NOW!” I yelled to Kyle (halfway for the sheer disobedience of Kyle, halfway for the wide-eyed audience of Owen). Kyle dropped the cat quick as a wink and ran up the stairs to his room. Owen, still peering around the counter, now with a look of deep satisfaction on his face, says, “Kyle’s in big trouble! Big time out!” Then, all dramatically angelic and sticky sweet (as if he’s concerned about Kyle) Owen says, “Why mommy?” With the most stern look of ‘I’m not buying it’ I could muster on my face, I flatly said, “You know why Owen.” Then he jumps out from behind the counter and says, all confident and serious, “Oh! Yes! I do know why! Because he talked back to Mommy!” “Yes, that’s right,” I said. Three minutes later I told Kyle he could come back down. He did the obligatory apology: “Mommy, I’m sorry I talked back to you.” Then I did the obligatory, “O.k., don’t do that again, o.k., big hug.” And literally within about 5 seconds both boys were happily playing with airplanes as if nothing had happened. They were on the floor, just on the other side of the kitchen counter, definitely within easy earshot of me but –from a 3-year-old’s perspective– light year’s away from me since they couldn’t actually see me with the counter between us. And this is what I hear:
Owen: Kyle, why you worried about Mommy?
Kyle: I’m not worried.
O: Oh.
K: I’m not worried, Owen, I’m mad.
O: Oh! You’re mad?!
K: I’m mad at Mommy. I’m super mad Owen.
O: Oh!
K: Mommy is not nice. Mommy is NOT NICE. Mommy is not nice. Right Owen?
O: Oh, right. That’s right Kyle.
K: Mommy said hurtful words.
O: Oh. Why she say hurtful words?
K: She said, ‘GO TO YOUR ROOM!’ That’s hurtful words to me.
O: Oh. That is not nice saying hurtful words. But I’m not mad Kyle. I’m not.
K: Oh.
O: O.k. Kyle?
K: Oh, o.k.! O.k.!
O: Oh look Kyle, there’s Cooper!!! Come on! We need to catch him!!!!!!!!!!
K: Yes!!!!!!!!!!!! Run fast Owen! Run fast!!!!!!!!!!
* * *
And, speaking of my darling little angel boys… A couple of days ago, this happened. The boys were playing, doing whatever, and suddenly it got way too quiet. When that happens it makes Braydon and I very nervous. I called out, “Guys? Kyle and Owen? Where are you? What are you doing?” Silence. “Guys?!?!” Silence. “Kyle and Owen!?!!!” Kyle, from the playroom, says, “We’re in here. Doing a project. With tape.” Then Owen appears in the kitchen, looking up at me like this:
Since I’ve received so many inquiries about it (!!!), I thought I should be sure to make it perfectly clear: Baby Sister’s name is not going to be June! 😉
The River Valley Waldorf School’s Winter Break is over, and today is the boys’ first day back to school. Owen was ambivalent about going back to school, but Kyle was very excited about it. They were both, however, very excited to wear their “I’m going to be a Big Brother” shirts to school today. These are now their favorite clothing items of choice. They’d wear them 24×7 if they could. Kyle, especially, just couldn’t wait to get dressed this morning. From the time he woke up until Braydon drove off with them 10 minutes ago, Kyle kept saying to me, “Mommy, I can’t wait to go to school!” We couldn’t tell how much of his excitement was about school vs. how much of his excitement was about the shirt. About 1/2 hour before the boys had to head out Kyle started saying “I don’t want to wear my coat today.” He’s never done this before. It is supposed to be in the 50s today, but still… he has to wear his coat. I kept saying, “Well, you have to wear it.” He’d say, “But why??? I don’t want to wear my coat. Please no coat?” Finally it dawned on me… I said, “Ky Ky, do you want no coat because you want to walk through the whole school to your classroom so that everyone can see your shirt?!” Huge grin on his face, he shouted “YES! YES! Please? So please?!” Braydon agreed that he would carry Kyle’s coat for him so that Kyle could walk into school loud-and-proud with his big-announcement-shirt. From then on Kyle was dancing all around the house singing “I love school, I love baby sister, I love school, I love baby sister, I can’t wait for school, I can’t wait for baby sister, baby sister is coming after my birthday.” At one point he interrupted this song and dance to say, “Hey, I have an idea! When it is my birthday, I can share my birthday presents with my baby sister!!!” This, for Kyle, who is the ultimate-lover-of-birthday-and-supreme-lover-of-presents, was kind of huge. Braydon and I looked at each other in total shock. “No, sweetie,” I said, “when it is your birthday your presents are going to be just for you.” He lit up with delight, “O.k.!” He said. “I have an even better idea! How about Baby Sister can have her own birthday??!!!!” I said, “Yes! She’ll have her own birthday!” Then he continued on with the very animated song and dance until it was time to go. Owen, of course, jumped right on the no-coat-boat with his brother and wanted nothing to do with wearing anything that might cover up his special shirt. I can only imagine the stories Braydon will be telling when he gets back from dropping them off!
Today we went to Lehigh for a basketball game. Lehigh was playing Princeton, and ended up winning by a landslide. I have a couple of students who are basketball players, but one in particular — #10 — is a student I’m pretty close to, have had for several courses, and also just happens to be a Basketball Star. K & O had met him before, and really liked him, so they were especially excited to see him as “a player on the team.” Lehigh Athletics is really great for family-friendly sports events. They had set up a huge moonbounce right near the court, and this was of course a highlight of the day for K & O. They spent a lot of time jumping in it. Braydon whispered to me at one point, “It would be worth coming just for this!” He’s right– K & O can burn off quite a bit of energy in a moonbounce. Since it is Winter Break at Lehigh very few students are on campus so the arena was not as crazy as usual (no wild drunken fanatic fans, no shirtless fraternity brothers with their chests painted with “Princeton Sucks,” and… very nice for me… not one student approached us the entire game). The boys ate popsicles and ate popcorn and watched the game while actually sitting in their seats for a long stretch of time (a first!!!). Owen was super cute yelling at the top of his lungs “GO NUMBER TEN!!” and “SHOOT THE BALL!!!!” My student, #10, even looked over a few times– much to Owen’s delight. After the game #10 was signing autographs and Owen climbed the court rail to try to be as “high up” (i.e., tall) as his hero. After the game the boys ran around the court with a whole slew of other little kids. Kyle got to shoot a few baskets and came very close to making one– which very much impressed some of the older kids. Once again I’m reminded of what great family perks come with my job. The boys are already getting exposure to so many things… and they feel right at home on a college campus (an elite college campus at that). It makes me wonder about if/where they’ll go to college someday and how things will all play out for them over the next twenty years.
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