Yesterday we went to Joy Lin’s 5th Birthday Party. We love Joy Lin. In my opinion (as a mother of two boys longing lately to add a little sister to the mix), Joy Lin’s the coolest kind of little girl there is: sweet and cute and considerate and also a rough and tumble tomboy at heart. Joy has almost as much energy as Kyle and Owen — so even though there is a two year age difference, the three of them get along brilliantly. The birthday party was at Bounce U (click here). We hadn’t been there before. It is a massive play space with tons and tons of huge blown up jumping/sliding/climbing/bouncing contraptions. The minute we walked in I said to our friends Lisa and Chris (Joy’s parents) “Is this a party for Joy Lin or for Kyle and Owen???!” (it was in indoor air-conditioned version of heaven for K & O). They loved it. In fact, Kyle said to me about halfway through, “Mama, I want mine birthday party to be at Bounce U when I will be five! I want mine birthday party to be right here!” There were a lot of kids at the birthday party, but at one point I found K, O, and Joy sliding together over and over and over down a little slide:
By far the boys’ favorite thing at Bounce U, though, was the “BIG HUGE SLIDE!!!” They seriously went down this thing at least 20 times in a row…
It looked … so fun! And it was!
After all the sliding and jumping and bouncing it was time for cake and ice cream. They brought out a big liter of Coke. All the kids were having it. We couldn’t bear to keep it from just our two. So… K & O had Coca Cola for the very first time!!! This is
newsworthy stuff; Kyle liked it; but for Owen, especially, this was a
big deal. He did not touch his cake or ice cream. He just savored that Coke. And then he sweet talked the Bounce U staff into giving him a second helping. In this photo he is holding his precious Coke and saying to us, “Here is my
beer. It is
just like beer. Just. Like.
Beer.”
And here is Owen, about 30 minutes later in the car heading home, passed out from his “beer”/post-Coke-sugar-crash:
On the ride home Kyle talked on and on about how he wants his birthday party to be at Bounce U. He also talked at length about the fact that “inside his present will be a trombone.” He also wanted to be clear that “Joy Lin will be there at his birthday party.” Happy Birthday Joy Lin!
When they’re good they’re very, very good and when they’re bad they’re horrid. So far my biggest challenge as a mother has been keeping my cool in moments when I’m seriously mad/frustrated with my children. I know all kids test their parents’ patience. But I swear, Kyle and Owen are — in some ways — more challenging than most… because: #1) they are conspiring twins who just feed off of each other in good times and in bad, and #2) they each have more energy and physical brute strength than the average human being [let alone the average 3 year old] and TOGETHER their level of energy and physicality is enough to exhaust anyone’s capacities [just ask anyone who has ever had to care for them for more than a couple of hours]. These boys know how to push my buttons. They know how to work together to seriously piss me off. They know how to ramp up my blood pressure through the roof in zero seconds flat. But I’m a pretty laid back mother. In some bizarre way (not sure what this actually says about me…) I can totally get into the mindset of a three year old. I totally “get it” a lot of the time… so, all things considered, I am probably able laugh at their antics a lot more than most people would. There are things that these two do that make me really fuming angry. And things that they do that just make me laugh. Luckily for all of us we’re finally reaching a point now where differentiating between the two modes of misbehavior-and-mama-madness (“madness” as in fuming angry vs. “madness” as in flippin’ CRAZY) has gotten to be pretty simple. Yesterday I took it upon myself to try to consciously note in my own mind a couple of the things that occured in each of the two catergories.
Things That Made Me Really Fuming Angry Yesterday:
- K & O’s friend Ben Uhrig and my friend Stacey Uhrig (click here) came over to our house for the morning. Shockingly, all three boys played very nicely more-or-less-by-themselves while Stacey and I talked all morning. It was great! After lunch, when it was time for Stacey and Ben to go home, Owen — in a very rare twist of character (it was actually the first time that I ever remember) — absolutely refused to kiss/hug them goodbye. I take human niceness and basic social respect very seriously around here. My boys know to say goodbye when a visitor is leaving our house. Even after some prompting and probing Owen flat out refused. He sat himself down on the floor, would not even look at Ben or Stacey, and fussed. Ben’s feelings were hurt. Stacey was surprised to see Owen acting this way. And I was really fuming angry. I told him to “go to his room” and he stormed up the stairs and slammed his door. A few minutes later, after Stacey and Ben had driven out of the driveway, Owen fell apart in hysterics when he realized they weren’t coming back and he had lost his chance to say goodbye. In a full blown meltdown he cried: “I’m so mad at myself!” My own anger toward him immediately dissolved at that point, of course, but really — that kind of thing — acting like a little bugger who doesn’t have the heart to say goodbye like all the rest of us… that kind of thing seriously pisses me off. Yes, yes, yes, of course I know it is normal for a three year old. Still. It makes me mad.
- Yesterday afternoon the boys were getting ready to go golfing (i.e., go to the driving range) with Braydon. Kyle loves to go. He was all wound up about it. He was jumping up and down like a crazy person. He ran in an hysteric state and slammed his body into Owen’s, kissing Owen on the head. Owen shoved him off and said, “No Kyle, no thank you!” Kyle said, “Owen I was kissing you Owen!” And Owen said, “No thank you Kyle!” Kyle tried to kiss him again and Owen tried to escape. It is a huge no-no in our house to do something after someone say’s no (“‘No’ means no, boys, ‘no’ means no!”) I intervened: “Kyle, Owen said no. He doesn’t want you to kiss him right now.” “But I waaaaaaaaaant to kiss him” fussed Kyle in a whiney whiney voice (uh, I cannot stand whining). “KYLE,” I said, “do not kiss him, and do not fuss!” He stomped his foot and screamed “BUT I NEED TO FUSS!” Then he took off after his brother, yelled: “I NEED TO BE RUDE AT YOU!” and then grabbed hold of three of Owen’s dreadlocks and pulled them so hard that Owen’s whole body fell off balance and he landed on the floor. Owen wasn’t hurt. But he was pissed. And so was I. “TIME OUT KYLE! GO TO YOUR ROOM!” Yes, yes, yes, of course I know it is normal for a three year old. Still. It makes me mad.
Things That Did Not Make Me Really Fuming Angry Yesterday:
- Yesterday morning the boys were happily playing with play dough at the kitchen table. We have tons of play dough toys and they’ll sit for long stretches of time (long stretch of time for K & O to sit = 10-15 minutes max) playing with play dough. They seemed content. I said, “I’m going to be back in 2 minutes! I just need to check my email real quick!” and left them alone in the kitchen to go to my computer. When I returned 2 minutes later, this is what I found:
- While we were waiting for Stacey and Ben to arrive the boys were playing in the garage/driveway while I emptied the dishwasher. The kitchen door was open and I could hear them playing happily out there. I kept hearing something about “the tea”/”let’s pretend we’re having teas!” Etc. I figured they were pretending something about making tea/pouring tea/drinking tea/etc. Then they started yelling in for me: “MAMA! Come see us! We have tea in our hair! We have tea!!! We have tea! leafs! Come see our HAIRS!!!” I went out there thinking “tea” and “tea leaves.” Honestly, “golf tee” and “tree leaves” had never even entered my mind. This is what I found:
We have been talking a lot about the concept of memories around here lately. The boys love the classic children’s game Memory and when they match the game pieces correctly (which is almost always) they love exclaiming “I remembered!” and hearing us cheer “You have such a good memory!” They love hearing stories of our family adventures over and over and over and saying, “Do you remember that?” They often bring up experiences and events from the recent past and say “Do you remember when we ____?!” (for example, “Mama, Do you remember when we went to the ocean?! We did that yesterday! Do you remember?”)
Today just after their naps Kyle, Owen, and I were lying together in Owen’s bed. The boys were cuddly and still just waking up. Kyle and Owen’s bodies were all entwined together –arms and legs wrapped all around one another, torsos touching– and when they are so intimately physical with each other like this I’m often reminded of how special it must be to experience life with a twin. As we were lying there our lazy summer afternoon conversation turned to one of their current favorite subjects: talking about when they were babies. Owen said, “When I was a little tiny baby I was in the orphanage.” Kyle chimed in, “Me too!” We talked a bit about when they were babies in Haiti. I was telling them about how they shared a crib in the orphanage and never slept a night apart until they came home to our own house. We were talking and it was a slow, easy, quiet kind of talking. No real point to the conversation. No real destination that any of us seemed to be trying to get to. No agenda, just wandering. The kind of conversation you really only have when you’re lying in bed with someone having just woken up. Then Kyle very calmly but deliberately said something ~~ and suddenly the moment felt stunning and profound for me:
Owen was lying between Kyle and I, and Kyle purposefully lifted up his head to have eye contact with me. He looked right at me and completely out of the blue he said: “Mommy, when you were coming to get me, I heard you coming. In the orphanage. I heard you when you were coming to get me.”
It felt like time stood still for that second — like he was telling me something really, really important to him. To me it felt like he was choosing to share something special with me. Intellectually I know that it is probably impossible that a three year old child could remember an experience from when he was an eight month old baby. However, given the intensity of the experience, the huge life-changing character of it, the trauma-and-relief of that single turning-point moment in his life, the extreme nature of that moment… maybe it is possible that he indeed does have the memory? There was something about the way he said it, something about the way he shared the memory with me, that made me feel deep, deep inside that he was telling the truth — that he really actually does remember hearing us when we were coming to get him on January 31, 2005 in Haiti.
When we went to the orphanage to get the boys Kyle was in a side room lying on a bed mattress completely and utterly alone. It is very possible (probably likely) that even as an eight-month-old baby he had sensed all day that it was a different kind of day. The nannies had cleaned him and braided his hair and dressed him in a full set of clothes (all of those things were unusual for a typical day). Rock (the orphanage director) had left and surely everyone was in a flurry of excitement knowing that he was on his way to the airport to pick up someone’s adoptive parents. And surely the children in the orphanage were all revved up — it isn’t every day that someone gets taken home, never to return. As I think more about it, I actually believe what my three year old boy told me this afternoon. I’m sure as a baby he knew the day was something out of the ordinary. And then he heard the commotion in the main room of Braydon and I arriving. And then, just a couple of minutes later, Rock entered that side room, and picked him up, and then without any hesitation Rock placed a-tiny-hungry-baby-Kyle into Braydon’s arms. And Kyle’s life was changed forever. I think that today Kyle shared a memory that is profound: “Mommy, when you were coming to get me I heard you coming. In the orphanage. I heard you when you were coming to get me.”
“You did?” I said. “Yes, I did. I heard you coming.” said Kyle. “I believe you,” I said, “thank you Kyle, thank you for telling me that you remember that.” He laid his head back down next to Owen’s and said, “O.k. mommy.” And the conversation drifted onward.
Today we all played hooky and had A quintessential Day At The Beach. Complete with stop for ice cream on the way home (K & O still choose milkshakes over ice cream in a cone or cup… am I the only one who thinks that a bit strange for two three year olds???). Anyway, it was a really wonderful summer family day. Not a cloud in the sky. And great fun was had by all. Owen was basically on Cloud 9 from the second he stepped foot on the sand. He owned the beach. Kyle, however, had fits and starts of enthusiasm the entire day. He informed us over and over again that he likes “Virgin Gorda beach better” and that “Virgin Gorda beach is his favorite — not Jersey Shore Beach” and he was totally obsessed with the lifeguards and made it known that he “does not like lifeguards.” I totally get the Virgin Gorda part. But the lifeguards part?? Anyway, for as much as he made clear his strong preference for “Virgin Gorda beach” he spent plenty of the day enjoying the “Jersey Shore Beach” for what it’s worth. Today was a splendid, splendid day and we’re all going to bed feeling sun-drenched and family-bonded.
I like to think that even if I was raising white children I’d be making a concientious effort to find books for them with black characters in the stories and images of black people on the pages. However, I surely would not be going so far out of my way to try to buy up every children’s book I possibly can that seems to me to specifically and proactively work to instill self-confidence in black children. Right now, in this stage of their lives, one of our major goals in raising our boys is the fostering and development of strong, in-tact self-images. Self-confidence is a primary goal for us at this point in our parenting of Kyle and Owen. That is just one of the reasons that we have so many books for them with positive black imagery and text. Currently one of their absolute favorite books (Kyle, in particular) is Shades of Black: A Celebration of Our Children by Sandra Pinkney with photographs by Myles Pinkney. When I first bought it I thought it was so beautiful that it really should be a coffee table book! And I thought the text was actually too simplistic. But I was wrong. This book is a beloved, constantly requested, must-read daily for us lately (over the course of today, for example, K and/or O requested that I read this book to them no less than 5 times). Kyle actually has memorized the book (as he has with almost all of their books) and over the past few days I’ve caught him reciting parts of it aloud in spurts throughout the day. One line, in particular, Kyle is reciting over and over and over and over: “I am black, I am unique.” If you’re raising young black children right now, I highly recommend this book! And for anyone who has kids with dreadlocks… there is even a beautiful photo of a young girl with dreadlocks ~~~ and you know how rare that is to find in a children’s book!!!!!!! (every time we get to that page K & O happily point to the girl’s hair and say “Dreadlocks! Just like mine hair!!”) For a great place to buy it, click here.
It is wrong to try to make claims about other people’s feelings. Even if those other people are people who just turned three two months ago. And even if you are those people’s mother. But I have to say, that if Kyle and Owen could articulate it, I believe they’d say that in their opinion today was a Perfect Day. Not the perfect day (I do believe that there are several versions of a perfect day for them)… but definitely a perfect day. I think they feel that way. I think they express that through their behavior and attitude — even if they can’t verbally communicate it. Today was the first day of a week with me playing stay-at-home-mom since Alex is on vacation. Believe me, they’ll be THRILLED to see Alex by Thursday of next week!!!!!!!! They’ll go screaming and running with complete delight the second she arrives at the door!!! They’ll be happy-beyond-belief to finally get a break from me! Seriously. I’m not at all kidding. However, like probably most kids of working moms, Kyle and Owen love having mom-at-home time too. And these times are very special for our family. The boys had a leisurely morning around the house and never got out of their pajamas until 10:30 (when they changed into their bathing suits). They got to do lots of their favorite activities at home today: beading (!!), play-dough, tons of swimming, and “cooking” (i.e., cutting up fruit for a fruit salad and then mixing it up). They both got rocked to sleep by their mama for their afternoon naps. We went to pick up Jessica Waters from her Engineering Day Camp (great excitement for K & O!!!), Jessica came home and played with us for awhile, and later in the day… major highlight: the Waters Family came over to swim. To cap it all off the boys got to have one of their absolute favorite dinners tonight: The two of them completely polished off an entire box of Annie’s Macaroni and Cheese (click) loaded up with tons of peas mixed into it (yup, it is true: that is one of their all-time-favorite foods in the whole whole whole wide world — they literally light up and start squirming with glee when they see those organic white cheddar shells and green baby peas mixed all up together sitting in the bowl). Anyway, all in all, it was a Perfect Day for K & O.
The start of the day involved something never-previously-experienced in the Johnson-McCormick Family home. The boys were standing up on their stools in the kitchen ready to make a yogurt smoothie in the blender. They were waiting for me to collect the ingredients so we could begin. I noticed them kissing on the stools (for the past few days they’ve been back in a TOTAL lovey-dovey kissing phase where they kiss each other randomly numerous times throughout the day). All of a sudden Kyle said, “Mama, take our picture with the camera! Take our picture kissing!” Owen said, “Yes! Mommy! Get the camera! Take our picture kissing!!!” Never before have either of them ever requested we take a picture of anything. I grabbed the camera and obliged their request.
This afternoon we were playing at the pool. I was in the pool holding my arms out for Owen to jump to me from the edge. He likes to dive and jump and cannonball by himself and definately does not need me there (and rarely wants me there) to jump to… however… this afternoon he said: “Mommy, I will jump to you and you will catch me!” I said, “O.k.!” He stood on the edge of the pool, directly facing me in the water, with his beautiful little arms outstretched, full eye contact with me. I said, “I will catch you and then I will hug you!” He said, “Yes Mommy! I need love.”
Kyle & Owen after a visit from MorMor (i.e., after MorMor left us with literally dozens of loads of clean and folded laundry), March 2006.
Through the blogosphere, via email, from far far away (at home in New Hampshire), MorMor has requested a post on the blog! This is a first for the Johnson-McCormick Family Blog! A Guest Blogger From A Distance! Here’s MorMor’s blog post for today:
How many mother-in-laws have gotten the following phone call?….
I answer the phone in NH
Janet: Hello
Braydon: Oh my gosh, the washer and dryer came today and I just have to say thank you for shaming me into buying new ones.
Janet: They came today?
Braydon: I just put in at least 20 towels from the washer into the dryer. It’s so quiet. Now I’m putting “all” the boys clothes in the washer right now. Oh my gosh it’s so quiet, listen can you hear it? No you can’t because it’s so quiet. I should have done this a long time ago. Holy crap this is amazing!!!
Janet: laughing hysterically, Oh my gosh Braydon, you are so funny!
PS The washer they have had for the last 10 years was an apartment size for one or two people. Braydon, who is responsible for all the cleaning and laundry in the house, was stuffing so much into the washer that the clothes never got to agitate and even with a dryer sheet in the dryer (which rumbled, and I mean so loud that we couldn’t do laundry when the boys were asleep) the clothes always smelled bad. Last week when I was there it took 3 loads to do the boys laundry basket (Braydon would have considered it one load). The next day Braydon was cuddling one of the boys, I can’t remember who, and he says to me “the clothes smell so good”. At that point another discussion was had about the new large capacity, low water washers and dryers. Right then and there he went online and ordered them!!!
Kyle and Owen know this… your Papi is my laundry hero!
I just have to post an addendum to my Love Thursday photo post from this week (click here). I had purposefully just left it as a photo alone with no text. But for whatever crazy reason(s) it has been nagging at me and pestering me every day since, and I feel like I need to write something to explain that moment in that picture.
Here’s the thing—- blogs are like photo albums in many ways. In our blogs we create the imagery and story that we want to convey to ourselves and others. We choose what goes in, how things are spun, and what is left out. I don’t focus much, for example, on the times I lose my temper at K & O or the times I cry on Braydon’s shoulder out of sheer exhaustion or the times I want to just explode in frustration at x, y, or z. I don’t write much about the boys’ bad behavior or my to-do-lists that just keep getting longer or the fights Braydon and I have over any number of things. Those things are part of our life. For sure. The reason I don’t focus on them in the blog has nothing to do with trying to present a glossy “picture perfect” version of our life. The reason is I don’t focus on them in the blog is simply this: I am a person who has always seen the glass as half full. Or, as my dad explains it: I am a person who always “makes lemonade out of lemons.” In terms of this blog as an historical ‘document’ for my boys… well, I figure that they’ll remember well enough all the bad parts about our life — all the times I lost it on them, all the times they saw me cry to their papi, all the times that I did __whatever__ ‘wrong’ and it stuck deep with them. As a mother I try to do the very best I can knowing full well that it will never be good enough, and knowing full well that some things that I can’t possibly predict will surely come back to haunt me when my boys are going through teen angst or going through twenties therapy or, God willing, going through their own raising-of-their-children. But still, it is very easy for me to sincerely feel that life is, indeed, good. That comes naturally for me. And it is genuinely an organic way of being for me to focus on the positive.
When you, as a blog reader, look at that photo from Thursday (here), you will see whatever you see. I can’t control your reactions to the photo — even if I do write in text. But I do want to write briefly what I see in that photo when I look in it… mostly for the sake of Kyle and Owen if they ever happen to read this later in their lives. I want them to know honesty.
When I look at that photo I see the sheer intense love of a mother-child bond. I see myself holding my precious baby boy. I see a perfect corn-rowed child in a cozy winter sweater, whole-body-relaxed in the arms of the only mama he’s ever known. I see calm. I see contentment. I see love. I see myself, a mother who can’t help but smile. And I see myself, a mother with complete determination glowing out of my icy blue eyes. I also see that moment as I remember it… We had just come home from Doylestown where we had been before a judge in a formal Bucks County courtroom. Braydon and I had taken the day off from work, we had all dressed up, we had brought the camera, we were ecstatic to finally be taking the last step of a long and painful and — at times — truly torturous adoption process. It was the day of our final court hearing. This court hearing would officially proclaim Kyle and Owen legally adopted by us under U.S. law. A huge day in the life of any adoptive family. We had gone to the court, tried to keep the boys quiet through the proceedings, and waited on the edge of our seats for this whole entire paper-chase-red-tape-home-study-adoption-agency-check-writing-immigration-visas-fingerprinting-heart-wrenching-up-all-night-with-anxiety-trip-to-Haiti-re-adoption-U.S.-citizenship-doctor’s-visits-transition-attachment-social-security-fill-out-the-forms-never-ending-phone-calls ORDEAL to be done for once and for all. Then the judge denied our adoption. His ruling was not what we had expected: he ruled that we were not their parents under U.S. law. “Well, who’s children are they if they aren’t ours?” we asked ourselves. Under Haitian law they were already our children. But in our own country they were officially nobody’s. Yet again, our adoption had not gone according to plan– yet again, another bump in the road. Yet again, our hearts and spirits were shaken. The problem that the judge had found (a technicality that even our lawyer — someone who had practiced adoption law for over a decade — told us was “ridiculous”) was resolved and a couple of months later we were officially declared a legal family. But that moment in the picture — that moment we had come in the door, my baby sleepy from our car ride home from the court house, my husband capturing it with the camera lens — that moment is much more complex than it may first appear. Still, however, it is the honest truth — when I look at this photo what I see is the sheer intense love of a mother-child bond. I see myself holding my precious baby boy. I see a pefect corn-rowed child in a cozy winter sweater, whole-body-relaxed in the arms of the only mama he’s ever known. I see calm. I see contentment. I see love. I see myself, a mother who can’t help but smile. And I see myself, a mother with complete determination glowing out of my icy blue eyes.
It feels like summer is in full swing now. The boys basically wake up, eat breakfast, and then head for the pool. It would be hard to pry them away from the pool — but we don’t even try. This weekend I taught Owen the phrase “Now this is the life!” Every now and then if he’s in the midst of lovin’ life at the pool he’ll casually say, “Mommy, this is the life!” Kyle barely ever utters a word these days since he’s literally under water more than he’s above.
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