Heather is out of town at a conference this weekend and I am home with everyone. Although we work hard to have an equal relationship, sadly, it’s not. The home stuff is tipped very much, if not fully on to Heather’s plate (and the financial management on mine) We can talk all day long (and do and have and will) about how this happens, why it is, why and how it’s wrong and what we can and can’t do about it. And in the course of that, the kids have to be fed, bathed, clothed, planned for, disciplined and all the other myriad things that have to be done.
All this is to say, that it’s a bigger deal for our family when Heather travels than when I travel. In many ways.
But we are doing well here. We had a great day and while it’s clear all three kids and the husband are missing mommy/Heather, we had fun, got along great and even managed to fit in a trip to get ice cream.
Unfortunately, my camera acumen suffered tremendously today, and all I captured was this…
Coming down the slide from the Castle Playground in Doylestown today. The boys found some other boys to play tag with, Meera played hide and seek with me (and for some unknown reason, while running around inside the castle playground, insisted on calling me “daddy”, which was kinda funny and odd), while I somehow managed to fit myself through the maze inside this structure, which is really a ton of fun.
Tomorrow is bike riding and grocery store, which is sure to be interesting. I have forgotten (or maybe I never really knew) what it’s like to be fully responsible for these three and it’s tough. But it’s also really great and satisfying. Granted, I don’t have to worry about planning anything, so that makes it a whole world easier, and it’s only of the weekend, and it makes me realize more of what Heather is contending with on a daily basis (and by extension many career mothers I believe) and I still appreciate a sense of feeling like a more empowered parent, which is good.
Please don’t rain tomorrow….
Kyle, Owen, and Meera’s Great-Great-Grandfather Builds the Original Dock at The Cottage
A gentle breeze over the water, cool and fresh; the sound of laughter. Cottage screen-door slap-cracks against the jamb, down old stone steps, one, two, feet in splash, brisk, but not bad. Better to fly off the end of the dock, slight jolt; swim to first rock, then second. Catch the laughter before it drifts away.
Just the quiet boat rocking when the motor is cut; hints of being vulnerable in the face of such a lake. The water is wide, deep and clear, the bottom is down there somewhere, a little scary. Head-first in, over the side. Heads bobbing up. Over the side, again. Can the boys really be only seven? Can she really be only three? Towel off, quick, it’s cold in the breeze. We don’t drift too far in the wind; the motor starts without any problem.
Casting far out, but if you look close, the fish are under the dock. Hold still, it’s about to bite. Do we keep it and eat it; it’s big? Throw it back. Tears to let it go, but happy to free it too. Ten more fish caught, all released. We try to figure out how long a fish memory is – will we catch the same ones next year?
Catching the Mountain Washington DC. Mini-golf, go karts, Weirs. It’s a high fly ball to center field; sun drenched from the day. Sitting on laps for a first-ever night game on TV. It’s a loss for the Red Sox, but a win for us all.
Lunch, dinner, lobsters and sweet corn. Wine, water, juice. Sustenance, a break from the daily grind of food prep for Heather. Bacon and pan-friend english muffins for breakfast. S’mores at night, ice cream in Wolfeboro across the lake. Coffee whenever. Grace.
There were recent updates, but it’s still the cottage. There is a dishwasher now, and even a washer in the basement. The stone fireplace is marked 1941, handcrafted like the one outside. Like the foundation of the cottage.
The evolution of many years, and generations of hands, but it still feels the same. Fun, lightness. Grounding, healing. A wholeness we struggle to maintain in our daily lives. A reminder of how we love, of how we live. Of how lucky we are. Lift the porch windows, let the breeze in. Gratitude.
The work goes on; on the backs of work done before us. The work of ensuring that places of healing continue to be a strong presence in our lives. Reminders of who we want to be when the rest falls away.
Today we listed 40 things we love about Braydon/Papi. We could have easily listed 400.
To all our dear readers: We’ll be MIA from the blogosphere for the next 10 days. Catch ya later, the J-Ms
First baseball, then soccer. Next up: basketball! Today is Kyle and Owen’s last day of Lehigh’s week long, intensive, summer basketball camp for boys. Do you see the photo above? I took it yesterday when I picked them up from basketball camp. It is a photo of two boys IN HEAVEN.
This was Kyle and Owen’s first exposure to playing real basketball. They had played around with shooting hoops, we had gone to Lehigh basketball games, and of course they idolize their babysitter Zahir (who sometimes plays basketball with them in our driveway or on campus). But K & O had never actually officially played the game before this week. After 7 hour days of nothing but basketball, basketball, and more basketball, it is safe to say that these boys are now fully basketball immersed. And loving it. Loving it to the point that…
…this is big…
…I am willing to go on record here and now to say this: If I had to put a wager on it today, forced to guess which sport these two boys will really hone in on, my guess would be basketball. Owen especially. I think he’s found his game. And I don’t say that lightly. That is huge. Because once they decide what they want, these boys do it. Believe me. So, I – for one – am going to be carefully and as nonchalantly as possible keeping my eyes on my two boys on the basketball court.
Each day I went a few minutes early to watch them play before pick-up. They amaze me. They are scrappy. They are eager. They are fast. They are like miniature basketball stars. I don’t know how they picked up so much so fast, but they did. They shoot. Swoosh. They are fun to watch.
Yesterday when I went to pick them up, Kyle said to me, “Mommy, who is LeBron James?” I said, “I am pretty sure he’s a really famous professional basketball player.” He said, “Oh.” Then he ran off to fill up his gatorade bottle. A while later he said, “Mommy, you know what? You know what they call us at basketball camp? They call me and Owen ‘The Twin LeBron James’” “Oh.” I said, and kept my thoughts to myself.
This is a great game for them. It is about as fast-paced as it gets. And that works well for my bottomless-pit-of-energy, non-stop, can’t-wear-them-out boys. And it should not go unnoted how much more racially diverse basketball is compared to other big-time sports. Specifically, a lot of black kids play basketball—and Kyle and Owen notice—and Kyle and Owen love that. They loved it that the majority of their coaches this week were young black men (they expressed this clearly and often). And they loved feeling great about themselves as black boys on the b-ball court. One of their new Basketball Camp friends, who is black, came up to me yesterday and asked me what I use on K & O’s hair to make it smell so good— he wanted me to tell his mom what it was and where to buy it!— this is a great example of little things that make a big difference in the daily life and self-confidence of black kids adopted into white families living in predominantly white communities; this stuff matters.).
My boys have loved every dimension of this week of basketball heaven. And I’ve loved watching them love it. You heard it here first: this mixture (K & O + basketball) is one to watch.
K & O heading off for first day of basketball camp…
…and they’re off!
…and at it!
…and loving it!
As I said in this post (click), this is K & O’s Summer of Sports. And geeeez are we ever immersed in sports this summer. The floodgates have opened and we’re just swimming in sports! (no pun intended.) For the past six weeks Kyle and Owen have been fully participating (and I mean eagerly, incredibly-enthusiastically, whole-heartedly, blood-sweat-and-tears fully participating) in our local summer soccer league. They lucked out with getting great coaches and great teammates. They also lucked out with great weather (although it has been very hot for the past six weeks, they only had one game canceled due to rain).
For these past six weeks, every Monday and Wednesday night, the Johnson-McCormick Party of Five has descended upon the soccer fields for the boys’ games. (In this league they practice for 15 minutes and then play for 45 minutes, twice per week; awesome set up for little kids who just want to play play play soccer soccer soccer!). Mommy has cheered her heart out, Papi has soaked up every summer-loving-second, Meera has chewed gum (her special treat on soccer nights for putting up with all this madness: gum), and Kyle and Owen have played their hearts out. We set out upon this whole thing thinking that Braydon and I would take turns taking the boys to soccer and getting Meera to bed, but the whole family ended up loving the whole dang thing so much that we all attended every single game.
It was so fun. For all of us.
The “Orange Lava” (as the boys’ team named themselves), turned out to be a really good soccer team! They were undefeated this season! And Kyle and Owen (no surprise here), turned out to be really good soccer players! There was only one game in which Kyle did not score— he scored at least one goal (usually two or three) in every single game except that one. Owen didn’t score in the first three games, but scored at least on goal in every game from that point on. Owen also turned out to be a really good goalie! Between Kyle, Owen, and their new BFF Caleb (new friend they met through this soccer; the three of them instantly became three peas in a pod; and they were a force to be reckoned with on the soccer field, leading their team through their undefeated season), the Orange Lava pretty much totally dominated every single team that they encountered; most nights the score averaged around 5 to 1, with Orange Lava just crushing the other team.
Kyle and Owen loved every single minute of Summer Soccer. I held out week after week, resisting signing them up for Fall Soccer, despite their coaches’ and other parents’ urgings to me to sign them up. It just feels like such a big commitment to agree to this kind of schedule when school is in session. But, like I predicted in the earlier post, now that this ball is rolling there is no stopping it. (no pun intended.) Ultimately I ended up signing them up for Fall Soccer (of course)… so we’ll get the rest of August “off” and then we’ll be back at it on the soccer fields (Mommy cheering my heart out, Papi soaking up every fall-loving-second, Meera chewing gum, Kyle and Owen playing their hearts out) for September and October. I have a feeling we’ll quite possibly be “back to the soccer fields” every fall for at least the next ten years or so.
The end of the season came with trophies for the players of The Orange Lava. For the record: these are K & O’s first ever trophies. You would have thought you had just given them a check for a million bucks each, the way they reacted upon receiving these new-most-valuable-possessions. Seriously, they (especially Kyle) were so thrilled to get a trophy. They now have them proudly displayed on a special shelf in their bedroom where Meera can’t reach them.
Also for the record I should note a couple of cute/funny/interesting things. The boys were, sadly/pathetically/disturbingly what clearly appeared to be two of only way too few non-white players in the league. But notably, rather than attempt to shrink into the crowd of whiteness, they instead made themselves stand out even further by insisting on wearing matching orange headbands to each and every game. The “headbands” were actually pieces of fabric cut out from the sleeve of their coaches’ soccer t-shirts (the pieces of fabric were going to be thrown away, but K & O grabbed them for headbands instead, and then proceeded to very proudly wear them for the entire season). They rocked the look so profoundly that, from what it appears, anyone and everyone who saw them seemed to think they were even more cool/awesome/super-starrish than ever. Interesting stuff. Very interesting stuff.
Also: for the first couple of games their coaches could not, for the life of them, tell them apart. It was creating some serious complications on and off the field. I took it upon myself to write “K” and “O” on the backs of their shirts in permanent marker. That solved that problem. With the “K” and “O” shirts, the confusion was gone, and it was smooth sailing for the rest of the season.
Never a dull moment, on or off the field, that is for sure. Summer soccer is done, but this story is surely not over. We have got some serious sports-loving athletes on our hands with these two boys. What will come of it? We’re counting our blessings that we get to watch and see.
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