Owen & Kyle get care packages from their Mormor quite often! Every single time it is a truly exciting and awe-inspiring experience for them — the thrill of it doesn’t seem to wear off, ever, no matter how many packages come, no matter what is in the package (cookies? YAY! YAY! toys? YAY! YAY! clothes? YAY! YAY!). Mormor can do no wrong: all things good come from Mormor (she could send a box filled with crumpled newspaper and they’d be absolutely thrilled). Yesterday a package was waiting when they got home from daycare! Oh happy day! Oh happy day! Guess what was inside? It couldn’t be better: 2 new motor-noise-making toys! A book that makes motor noises and a wood block toy that makes motor noises (note: how ironic is THAT?! read Braydon’s post from yesterday). K & O were enthralled with them both. After reading Braydon’s post you’ll have an idea of just how enthralled they really were. “THANK YOU MORMOR” they said many many many many times over the course of last evening. Oh, how they love Mormor.
It is 7:08 am and the boys are still sleeping. They are usually up sometime between 6:30 and 7:00. This is the first morning in a couple of weeks that Braydon and I have both managed to be up, showered, bags-packed-for-work, coffee made, washing-machine-and-dryer running, everything-ready-to-start-the-day before the boys wake up. This is our goal for every morning, but so often K or O or both beat us to it. It feels good to be one step ahead of them since so often we’re trailing in the dust behind them!
TGIF!
Right now the boys are obsessed with motors. All things motors, and everything seems to have a motor. Even Owen has a motor – ‘papi, watch me, my motor’ and he points to his bum and makes a motor noise and takes off running. Going a step further, they are obsessed with the lawn mower, the car motor, the weedeater and the chain saw. Every day they want to see the motors in both cars. ‘papi – white car motor?’ I hear when I get back from work. ‘Don’t touch it – it’s hooooot! [sounds like huuuuut]’ I pick them up (all 70+ pounds together) and show them the motor. They can both consistently point to the “motor”, the “air filter” and the “battery”…not that they have any idea what any of those are, but they can do it!. And they can point to the muffler on the cars, on the weedeater and the chainsaw.
I could easily be one of the people to who says “well, they’re boys, of course they love motors!”, and wouldn’t that be so easy. Maybe there is some predisposition to liking motors. But I seriously doubt that embedded in the psyche are the instructions for “locate battery in 2004 Acura and 2000 Volvo, note that they are both next to air-filter, but not the air-filter”. Or that they come pre-programmed with “Make really loud motor noises when looking at machinery – oh and by the way – that’s a piece of machinery.
They might come pre-programmed with things like: “Papi looks at motors, I love my papi and am interested in what he’s interested in. He talks about cars and trucks and lawn mowers all the time, it must be interesting. I’m hardly a developmental psychologist, but I assume that it’s true that I am having a strong influence on them in a wide variety of things that they do – related to motors and otherwise.
Which of course for me begs the question: Will boys be boys? I know we are trying really hard to make them boys (it appears it’s working based on the picture below). But I really really really want them to be good boys. Nice and respectful, thoughtful, generous and super confident boys. That might be harder to accomplish than interesting them in all things motors.
But maybe when I catch Kyle looking in the mirror with his skull cap on dancing and singing “I’m gonna catch you” by Laurie Berkner, it might be working. Or when Owen gives me and Heather a kiss before we leave for daycare we’re on the right track. Or when they offer their lollipop to someone, or when when Kyle gives Owen his lovey lion when Owen is crying – maybe so.
I got this photo this morning from my phone – that’s Kyle bombing down the drive way on the ‘blue’ truck (that also apparently has a motor) and Owen patiently waiting his turn.
I don’t know why it is, maybe the change of seasons, maybe because our next door neighbors are in India to bring their newly adopted children home right now, maybe the fact that last October we hit our 8 month mark of our adoption (8 months in the orphanage, 8 months out = a major milestone for an adoptive family)…. I don’t know why, but I’ve got Haiti on my mind even more than usual these past couple of weeks.
Here is the blog of a U.S. missionary family in Haiti right now. I absolutely love this blog. It helps me keep things in perspective — the *complete* complexity of Haiti juxtaposed with the lives of so many of us here in the U.S. Check it out if you’re interested:
http://livesayhaiti.blogspot.com/
You really haven’t made brownies, until you’ve made brownies with twin two-year-old boys! It was a rainy day, we couldn’t play outside after work/daycare… “good mothers” bake with their kids on such occassions, right? I tried it. It will be a WHILE before I try that again. And that was even using a boxed mix (do “good mothers” use boxed mixes?). My quest for “good mother” status seems endlessly fruitless.
By this morning, they were all clean and shiny again, and wearing their brand new fall shoes for the first time. I took a photo to show how well they clean up! Notice I cropped the photo so you can’t see that the kitchen is still a wreck! 
Kyle and Owen love the bath. Can you tell from the pictures!? Their favorite things to do in the bath are as follows (in order of their preference):
- splash like madmen
- “make coffee” — i.e., fill a cup with bath water and say, “here mommy, here’s your coffee!”/”here, papi, coffee for you! careful papi, it’s hot!!!”
- “make yogurt smoothie in the blender” — i.e., put a cup filled with bath water on the soap-holder-wall-unit-thingy and make very, very loud blender-motor noises for a very, very long time and say, “here mommy, yogurt smoothie!”/”here, papi, yogurt smoothie for you! it’s cold!!!”
- pour bath water over each other’s heads and their own heads
- play with bars of soap saying “it’s slippery” and “don’t eat it” (while putting the soap in their mouths to taste it on the sly, dropping them, and then searching for them on the bottom of the tub saying “where is is is is is is is is it?”)
- pretend the rubber duckies are swimming, diving, jumping, splashing, etc., etc., etc.
Bathtime is fun fun fun for the whole family! đ
Itâs safe to say that for everyone, some days are better than others. The two days of this past weekend were great for our family; particularly Saturday. Little Gym was great, there were Frisbees for the first time (K&O throw those at home already so it was a riot to watch them launch them across the room). And Charlie and Sandy had a party next door to celebrate their heading to India to complete the adoption. Our family loves social events â all four of us. The weather was gorgeous â a little crisp, a little frost, light wind and sunny afternoons â perfect fall family days.
But maybe it was that Kyle is getting over a cold and was coughing all night, or that Owen woke up needing help with his pacifier several times, or that Heather woke up with terrible stomach pains and was up from 3AM until we got up. Or maybe those things added up – with normal Monday distress over getting back to a normal week – got us off to a difficult start.
Heather and I got up before the boys (to shower and get ready); I made coffee and moved the car seats from the courtesy loaner car to the âBlack Carâ. I heard Owen and Kyle walk from their room to our room â they were up. When I went upstairs, Heather was sitting on the bathroom floor, half-ready with both boys on her lap in their pjâs with all stuffed animals, pacifiers and thumb sucking present. They just needed a little snuggle with their Mommie. We got them dressed, downstairs, warm milk for both boys (ânot cold Papi, just warmâ) and shoes on to go to daycare. Owen had his normal transition troubles before we got in the car – he’s going through a bit of a phase with that. What do you expect, he’s 2 1/2!
Heather and I typically call each other after daycare drop off to talk about how it went.
Owen had brought a book with him â âBlack All Aroundâ itâs one of their favorites right now. When they went into the preschool room he held it up to show everyone â so proud, but folks and kids were busy and they werenât really paying attention. When they got back to the toddler room, he figured he would try it again and enthusiastically held it up to show everyone. Heather highlighted it with âOwen brought a book in to show everyone!â but it was time for breakfast and they would look at it later. Itâs totally understandable, but deflating none-the-less. Poor guy.
They got into their chairs, got their bibs on and were served breakfast (itâs really a great situation when you think consider it). But Kyle looked up at Heather and quietly said âI want Honey Bunny, Mama.â Heather gently told him HB was in the car and that he could have it after day care. âPlease, Mama, I want Honey Bunny.â She said, HBâs twin is up in his cubby, did he want him? He did and she got down the HB that he uses to nap with at daycare. He held Honey Bunny up to his face and sucked his thumb while breakfast was served. âMama, whereâs Sheep?â Sheep is in the car, you can have him after day care baby. There is no twin sheep at daycare. There is Lovey Lionâs twin, but Lovey Lion is Owenâs. Heather left to go to work. I know after a few minutes they got into the day and everything was fine, but itâs just very hard sometimes.
Of course, when I got home everything was fine. Heather, Kyle and Owen were there playing outside in the yard. They came running up the driveway when they saw ‘the white car’ and both boys insisted on driving down the cul-de-sac with me – too funny. Owen likes to grab the steering wheel while sitting in my lap. When I try to correct before we drive into a neighbor’s yard and I am informed ‘NO PAPI!’ and he cranks the wheel the otherway. All in all he’s not a bad driver, look out NASCAR… in 20 years. After driving, Kyle needs to go see Papi’s lawnmower (in the garden shed along with the chainsaw and weedeater – they mimic the sounds of each).
So what started off rough ended right. That is of course what happens with you’re in love with your family.
And one last thing: a picture from going to the park last week. They just can’t get enough of throwing rocks in the little river.
Today our next door neighbors, Charlie and Sandy, left for India to complete their adoption and bring their two children home. After 18 months of waiting, they are finally going to get their kids. I am over-identifying with them and can’t stop thinking about them all day long today! I’m thinking of how I felt on the day we went to get Kyle and Owen. How it felt to be on that airplane to Port au Prince. How it felt to be on the cusp of becoming a mother. They will be gone for three weeks, and then we’ll get to meet their children for their homecoming. Kyle and Owen are not going to know what to do when they realize that Sandy is going to be a Mama of her own- with her own kids! They absolutely adore her and will be so jealous to see her hold another baby! At a party for Charlie and Sandy on Saturday night we began trying to explain this to Kyle and Owen. Trying to explain –in a way a 2-year-old might understand– that Charlie and Sandy were going to go away on a big trip for their “ADOPTION!” And that Sandy was going to be “another baby’s mama.” Kyle and Owen have heard all about their own adoption their whole life… we talk about their adoption and about Haiti daily… but it is hard to know how much they actually understand. Last night as I was tucking Kyle into bed and talking about what was going to happen the next day (as we do every night… “tomorrow is a new day, tomorrow you’ll go to daycare, tomorrow Mama will pick you up, etc…”), he brought it up. He said, “Mama, Sandy on a big airplane! up in the sky!” I said, “Yes, baby, they’re going for their adoption! They’re going to India to get their babies.” And Kyle said, clear as day, and with complete seriousness and sincerity: “Yeah, Mama, it’s Sandy’s turn now.”
Sandy says bye bye to Kyle
Sandy says bye bye to Owen
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