We’re over extended, stressed and tired; any of you who have read the blog know this. And for all the rewarding aspects of our life, we just have a lot going on – sometimes too much.
Heather is constantly stressed out about food – making dinner, shopping, planning, breakfast, lunch. She works so hard to have healthy meals for our family and our boys. She makes every effort, every day to expand their horizons with food.
I just try – mostly unsuccessfully – to keep the laundry up-to-date.
So, it’s Saturday night – we’ve had a great day out and about and it’s a beautiful night. We’re going to unwind and reconnect by watching a movie. Heather a little apologetically says to me: “I thought we’d have Caesar salad for dinner – is that ok?” I say sure – thinking that we have some romaine and a bottle of Caesar dressing.
But then she says: “Would you like blackened shrimp on that?” And I cock an eyebrow, look over and she is getting out shrimp to make (blacken them herself). I notice that she has just made a whole batch of homemade croutons. And then I realize she is also making the dressing from scratch.
And I realize that I am absolutely the luckiest and most appreciative man on Earth.
And I realize, that although I live with her and know her better than anyone, I just have no idea how she does it all.
Today we met up in Doylestown for a Starbucks & Playground playdate/date with our new friends Shelli and Lori and their daughter Zoe (
click here for their blog). We met them at the Easter Egg Hunt (
click here), and over the past couple weeks we’ve been setting up plans to get together. This kind of thing always feels a little strange in the beginning… Braydon and I always joke with each other that it is like “couple’s dating!”… but with these new friends it took no time for us to feel like long-lost-known-each-other-forever-kind-of-friends. Indeed, Kyle and Owen did act like they have known Shelli and Lori their whole lives… hugging and kissing them hello and goodbye and Owen even riding on Shelli’s shoulders for our walk through Doylestown. And even though she’s actually only about six months younger, K & O treated Zoe like she was their precious baby sister… sharing their chocolate milk with her, rubbing her adorable hair (see photo #2 above!), “doubles swinging” with her, etc., etc., etc. Seriously, as of today, all kids everywhere should take notice now— I wouldn’t want to mess with Zoe if I were you… you’ll have Kyle and Owen to contend with!!!!!!!! LOL! It was a beautiful day, and the sunset tonight is spectacular, and amidst all our excitement about the trees and flowers being in full bloom, we are really most excited about a new friendship blooming.
If you look closely you can spot Kyle, Owen, and Zoe
Three swings swinging
Zoe & Kyle double swing
Zoe
Kyle
Owen
There is a whole back-story to this Kyle-Owen-Garbage-Truck-Trash-Guys thing… click here and here. Kyle and Owen do, indeed, have an unusual love of the garbage truck… and their relationship with our trash-collector-guys is probably even more unusual. Friday is trash day. It was a beautiful spring morning, the boys got to wear their new spring jackets for the first time (thank you Grandpa Robert and Miss Carol!!!), they were in even-more-great-than-usual-moods… it was the perfect backdrop for Trash Truck Day. And they were waaaaay into it today. The pictures tell the story.
They use the red wagon to bring trash to the end of the driveway.
And then they wait. Before long… the trash truck arrives!!!
Big waves “hello” all around!
They put the trash into the truck (and have a nice chat or two while they’re at it)…
And then before waving goodbye, they take some time to admire the wheels (they went on to admire the bumpers, the muffler, the inside of the cab, the steering wheel, the horn…)…
Once the truck is gone from sight, then it is back down the driveway in the red wagon…
… “super fast!”…
… park the wagon in the garage and take a spin on the “helicopter”… and the day begins!
Some people have confessed to me that they are “addicts” of the Johnson-McCormick blog. They tell me that they check our blog daily — sometimes multiple times a day — to see the latest going’s-on’s with our little life. I totally understand blog addiction because…. confession: I am a blog addict too! — I am an addict of the Livesay Haiti Blog. I have mentioned this blog before (click here and here). Today when I checked in on the Livesay blog their most recent post left me with tears running down my cheeks. I was sitting in my office in between meetings and yet I didn’t even care if anybody saw that my mascara was dripping down to my chin… because… sometimes other people’s suffering just hits so hard that I don’t even care if my colleagues see me cry. Today Troy’s post on the Livesay blog hit me like that. I think it was because the subject of the post was mothers and babies and… in particular… it focused on a set of twins. I can’t help but think about my baby boys… and I can’t help but think about “what if?”… As adoptive parents it is a normal defense mechanism to try to self-protect by pushing those ‘what if’ questions to the margins of our minds — for some of us it is simply unbearable to let them seep in too often — but sometimes I, for one, can’t help it. And I actually think it is a good thing to let the ‘what if’s’ sink way down deep sometimes. The Livesay post today did that — it sunk way down deep (click here for the post). One of the reasons I love the Livesay blog is because for me it is a good, much-needed, grounding, daily reality check.
Kyle, Spring 2005
No explanation necessary! Happy Love Thursday everyone!
Last night we took the boys to a Lehigh University Orchestra rehearsal. (click here) Wow! They loved it! This was their first time seeing a real-life, full-blown syphony orchesta in action. The best part was that as the students were entereing the auditorium to set up for their rehearsal, they were each carrying/pushing/pulling their instruments. The boys got to hear/see/touch a real bassoon! a real trombone! and… hightlight: they got to actually play two real timpani drums!
So – everyone talks about “Finding Nemo“. Kids love it, they wear T shirts and have stuffed animals. Our kids had never seen it and didn’t know what it was. So, I thought – why not – let’s give it a try -and I got it from Netflix.
I watched it a little to make sure it was ok. And I tried to watch it as through K&O’s eyes. But you can never really see it through someone elses‘ eyes.
So we’re sitting there watching Nemo. It starts off with the mommy and papi clown fish living on the edge of the reef with all their hundreds of baby eggs (and one of which they name Nemo). Then a barracuda comes along, kills the mother and eats all but one of the eggs (Nemo). Sheesh! Of course they don’t show it, but ugh!
Cut to the next scene and 1st grader Nemo is going off to the first day of school. Where he is promptly kidnapped by a Scuba diver and taken from his papi. The “Finding Nemo” part ensues.
Yes, yes, I know, it’s a nice story about growing up and learning and loving, etc. But sheesh – how do I explain this to my almost three year old adopted twin boys?
So – I skipped over the missing mommy part, the Scuba diver part, the chasing Nemo part and the school part and it came out something like this:
Owen: “Papi. That papi fish so sad? Why he so sad?”
Papi: “Well…. he only has one baby and he wants two babies. Just like Papi has two babies. I am so happy I have two babies. And that papi fish wants two babies just like me.”
Owen: “You’re so happy you have two babies?”
Papi: “Yes, I am so happy I have two babies.”
KYLE QUOTES
Kyle Quote 1: This afternoon, in the car, on the way home after work/daycare Kyle says “Mommy, are you so happy you have two babies?” “Yes!” I said. And Kyle said, “I’m so happy you have two babies too!”
Kyle Quote 2: We have been spending a lot of time around here talking about the boys’ much-anticipated upcoming birthday party. Kyle, in particular, talks a ton about his birthday “coming soon.” He does, in fact, talk about it incessantly. The VIP guest list, the “candle cake,” the balloons, etc… these are all things Kyle talks endlessly about. Interestingly, however, he has never yet mentioned even once anything about presents. I think this is cool. But at the same time, now that the date is actually right around the corner, I figured I should try to get a sense of what my boy might want for a birthday present. Today I broached the topic for the first time. I have ideas in my mind, of course, about what I want to get the boys for their birthday present(s)… after all, you only turn three once!!! But I thought I should see what Kyle had in his own mind regarding presents. Little did I expect what was revealed. Here is what happened in the midst of one of his rambles about his birthday…
Heather: Kyle, baby, do you think there will be presents at your birthday?
Kyle: Yes. Yes, there will be presents. One for me, and one for Owen. We have to open them.
Heather: Oh! Yes! And what do you think is going to be inside the present for Kyle?
Kyle: There is a present inside.
Heather: Yes! What is the present going to be?
Kyle: It is a trombone for Kyle. And a big bassoon for Owen.
…… eeks!!!!!!!!!!!??!!!!! ………
OWEN PHOTOS
Owen Photo 1:
Owen Photo 2:
There is a photo of Kyle and Owen in the May 2007 issue of Working Mother magazine! I actually really like this magazine, so I’m happy to have them in there. They are on page 60, the opening page of a big article on international adoption. We knew it was coming because the editors of the magazine had contacted us out of the blue a couple of months ago to ask our permission to use the photo of the boys. They had found the photo in another magazine and wanted to use it — the photo they had found was a photo of K & O that we had submitted for the “Family Album” section of Adoptive Families magazine. I was getting so sick of never seeing any black kids featured in Adoptive Families, and was really happy when they notified me that our photo of K & O was chosen for their December 2005 issue. The same photo is now in this month’s issue of Working Mother. It is kind of bizarre to get a magazine in the mail and open it to see your own kids on the page! But the coolest part of this Working Mother “appearance” is that right next to the boys’ photo is a little image of a HAITIAN FLAG!!! (see bottom left hand corner, below) I love it that on the opening pages of their article on international adoption there is a photo of two Haitian kids (mine!), and a HAITIAN FLAG!!! 
This is the fourth time a photo of Kyle and/or Owen has been in a magazine. The third time was when
Twins magazine published a photo of the boys in their January/February 2007 issue. Again, I was getting so gosh darn sick of never seeing any black kids in
Twins — so I wrote a letter to the editor complaining. They ended up publishing the letter along with a photo of K & O.
Twins magazine’s actual response to my complaint, though, really bothered me and I decided to no longer subscribe to their pathetically-lily-white mag (the whole magazine is pretty pathetic, actually, but the lily-whiteness of it is what totally pushes me over the edge). We have since cancelled our subscription. The fourth time a photo of the boys appeared in a magazine was definitely the best… One of our absolute favorite magazines is
Caribbean Travel and Life. This past summer I entered my first photo contest —
Caribbean Travel and Life magazine’s 2006 Photo Contest. I submitted a photo of Kyle that I took while we were on vacation in the Turks & Caicos islands. I was totally shocked when I ended up winning 3rd place for the category of “people”! The photo was published in the October issue of
Caribbean Travel and Life and is also on their website (if you want to see the “winning” photo of Kyle,
click here, double click on “winners,” and then click on “#10 on the bottom of the box).
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