I know I’m biased, but really—I cannot imagine anyone looking cuter than Kyle does with his two front teeth missing! Everyday I squeeze that face of his to mine, just hoping that those top teeth don’t grow in any too soon!
P.S. Yes, the boys each have a couple of cowrie shells in their hair. (many of you have asked/commented) They did a huge segment on hair at their school recently. Their teacher brilliantly used it as part of their school’s very active and progressive anti-bias curriculum. (yes, big posts about the school stuff soon to come) One piece involved a day when the teacher put cowrie shells in the hair of anyone in the class who wanted them. K & O wanted them, of course! They’ve been in ever since. Very hip and cute… and K & O can tell you a lot about the history, significance, meaning, beliefs about, and value of, cowrie shells!
Friday night was huge. Huge! Pathetically, we had not had a babysitter since May (when our beloved Jessica graduated from Lehigh and left us for the bigger world of “real life”). Which, translated, means that Braydon and I had not had a date night since May (pathetic!). We’ve had daytime “dates,” but hadn’t gone out at night in way too long. Around Christmastime the fabulous Zahir (who, by the way, graduated from Lehigh in May, but is now a grad student in… none other than… sociology!) asked if he could babysit. (Note to anyone who is capable of babysitting: if you want to really make someone’s day/week/month/year… ask them if you can babysit for their kids and just watch their face light up!!!). I felt like the heavens were opening up and this huge gift was being bestowed upon me! And so, of course I jumped at it, we lined it up right away, and the date was set. Friday was the night. Zahir and Tricia came to babysit and the three bambinos were over the moon! Braydon and I had a great night out (dinner and a movie! it had been waaaaaaaay tooooooooo loooooooooong since we’d done that!), and the threesome had one of the most spectacular nights of their lives (no joke). Zahir is a real life superstar superhero to the boys, and Meera thought she had died and gone to heaven with the arrival of Tricia at our house (Tricia is a basketball superstar herself, now coaching at Lehigh, but who also has long blond hair and no problem chatting about princesses or braiding Meera’s hair to match her doll’s). They ate macaroni and cheese, ran around like maniacs for hours, and K & O slept in their sleeping bags on the floor of Meera’s room that night – a “sleepover!” All reports from all five involved in the Friday Night Extravaganza were that things had gone stupendously well. We (all seven of us) cannot wait for the next date night! Hip hip hooray for Zahir and Tricia! Fabulousness all around!
P.S. Can you imagine having NCAA sports superstars (not just one, but two) as childhood babysitters?? Sometimes I just think about these lives my kids are living and I marvel at it. Just makes me wonder: what on earth ever will become of them? And how in the world will they look back at all this?
I could write a novel about today… seriously… but I’m too exhausted to even figure out a clever way to write this blog post. I surely will not be able to do this day justice, but hopefully this will jog my memory enough in the future so that the whole thing will come flooding right back to me. At this point it is hard to fathom that I’ll ever not remember every vivid detail. Seriously. It was one heck of a day.
It started with the dreaded 5:30 a.m. wake-up call: “School Cancelled.” Braydon looked out the window and clicked on the news: “Wintery Mix.” The t.v. stayed on, listing all the cancellations, while we all fell into a haze of semi-sleep and semi-Sesame-Street-viewing. Margie called at 7:30 to inform us that she was not willing to come given the weather conditions. (Today was supposed to be Margie’s first day back.) O.k. This scenario is not always entirely bad, except that today was the first day of spring semester classes at Lehigh. And, of course, Lehigh is never closed. And so, no matter what, I absolutely had to be there for the first day of class. And, at the same time, Braydon absolutely had to be in New Jersey for a big work event that he absolutely could not miss. Every dual-career-couple-without-extended-family-anywhere-in-their-vicinity has been there: that loathsome, dreaded, nightmare of a place: The Snow Day With No Coverage. You look at each other in sheer panic, and you just know that no matter what, it is going to be oneheck of a day.
I took one for the team today. I mean, I seriously took a huge one for the team today. I swallowed hard, took a deep breath, and said the words I never in a million years would have ever thought I’d hear myself say: “I’m going to have to take them to class with me.”
I deserve some sort of prize for even offering up this crazily-selfless-and-above-and-beyond-the-call-of-duty-of-a-possibility. But then, folks, I actually ended up doing it: I took all three of my kids to class with me on the first day of class. I deserve some sort of medal, or trophy, or ten pomegranate martinis, or some kind of spectacular prize for having done this. Seriously. Is there anyone out there who gets what I’m saying??? I TOOK THEM TO CLASS WITH ME ON THE FIRST DAY OF CLASS.
First, I loaded them into the car and set out on the icy, slushy, half-plowed, half-salted roads. It was, indeed, a “wintery mix” – snow/rain/sleet/hail/freezing-rain all coming down at once. The roads were a mess. I was white knuckled as I drove 20 miles per hour the entire way with “Toddler Tunes” blaring in the backseat.
We got there and I trekked them across campus, slip-sliding away in the icy mess, to find the building. And then we entered, all four of us, into the classroom… to 30 sets of undergraduate eyes staring up at me in total disbelief. Yes, today I was that professor: the one who brought her kids to class on the first day of class.
And you know what happened? My three bambinos – two of which I don’t trust fully anywhere anytime for all the obvious reasons, and the third of which WHO IS ONLY TWO YEARS OLD – my three bambinos did their mama proud. They were shockingly, unbelievably, glistening-gold-absolutely-perfectly-PERFECT the entire 1-hour-and-fifteen-minute class. I kept waiting for disaster to hit. And it never did. They sat there quietly and completely non-disruptively the entire time. I was shocked. And of course the students loved having them there.
When we left class I was ecstatic. I mean, ecstatic. I could not believe how well they had done. It was also noon, and they were very hungry, and sheets of sleet were falling from the sky, and they said: “Mama, can we please eat lunch on campus?”… and at that moment, honestly, I probably would have done absolutely anything they had asked. And so, against my better judgment I went out on a limb and I said: “Sure!” And I took them where they wanted to go (K & O had eaten there once before): The Faculty Dining Room. Call me crazy. It was a crazy idea: me, alone, with all three of the, in The Faculty Dining Room.
And you know what happened? My three bambinos – two of which I don’t trust fully anywhere anytime for all the obvious reasons, and the third of which WHO IS ONLY TWO YEARS OLD (yes, I know I already said that, but it needs to be repeated) – they once again made their mama proud. They were on their best behavior, charming all the waitresses, and pulling out all the shots to be uber-polite and well-mannered. Again, I was shocked (and ecstatic). They also ate a ton (I mean, a ton), and had the time of their lives. They couldn’t stop talking about how it was all “so fancy” that “even Fancy Nancy would love this place!” (and she would… it is super-duper-old-school-fancy).
Toward the end of the lunch, while the three of them feasted on huge platefuls of coconut-cream-cake and chocolate pie, I sat there practically in a state of shock over how all of this had been going, and this was my one and only thought: ‘After all these years of the constant-daily-vigilant-all-over-them-tight-reigned-exhausting-discipline that is required of raising rambunctious-off-the-charts-energetic-spirited–twin-boys… (not to mention the day-to-day-hard-work-of-caring-for-a-two-year-old)… after all this… today, right then and there, I could see, feel, hear (and practically taste and smell) it paying off. Paying off in a big, big way. Because, as it turns out, when push came to shove, when they needed to, they did right by me. And that, my friends, is enough to make this mama uber-proud (and shocked, yes! but also uber-proud).
After lunch we trekked it back across campus to our car. They wanted to stomp through the icy snow this time, avoiding the pathways, and I didn’t even care. Fine! No problem! They could do anything!
We got back in the car for the icy drive home. We stopped at the video store on the way— they could pick anything they wanted to rent— it was their prize for a job well done (and mine— I needed that video-induced-downtime). They chose Cinderella. No problem. I paid the $1 for the 48 hour rental, and didn’t even make any remarks about the ridiculousness that is the Disney Princesses. I just let them love that I was renting it for them. And they were thrilled, and thrilled with themselves. And then we were back in the car again, driving 20 miles per hour the entire time home, but this time I could appreciate the unbelievable beauty of the crystallized trees.
MLK should be a big deal for everyone in the US; it most definitely is for us. It’s also a big deal at the boys’ school – we’re going to an all school assembly today in celebration and we’re really excited about it.
I am very happy to start the new year with this swap menu! I made this combination of dishes twice over the holidays, once for my father and once for my brother-in-law and his wife. Both times, all three items a big hit…with kids and adult alike. Hope the J-M’s will find it as enjoyable!
Here’s what I made:
– Salmon with Coconut Sauce
– Green Beans in Fresh Tomato Sauce
– Indianized Mushroom Wild Rice Pilaf
The salmon recipe is from Bal Arneson, who is the Spice Goddess on the Cooking Channel. I usually don’t enjoy salmon made with a lot of spices but Bal’s got it spot-on…the right spices, the right blend, the right amount…the coconut sauce is just heavenly and goes so well with the salmon.
I also made the green beans using another one of Bal’s recipe. This time the modification was to eliminate the paneer, only because I didn’t have any. And I made a desi (i.e., Indian) version of wild rice pilaf. Basically, I cooked the wild rice using a bit more water (1/4 cup more than the 2 1/2 cups called for). While it was cooking, I sauteed onions, garlic and mushrooms with some ground cumin, dried fenugreek leaves, salt and pepper. Once the rice was almost done I tossed in the sauteed mushroom mixture and let the rice finish cooking.
In the past couple of weeks, as I’ve been semi-“off”-from work (i.e., Winter Break between semesters), and totally-Nanny-less (i.e., with Meera 24×7), I’ve been doing some much needed catching-up with friends. It has been sooooo gooooood. In the craze of our dual-career-&-three-kids life the thing that unfortunately, and so sadly, often falls through the cracks is our social life. One of the many splendid things that Meera and I got the chance to do was to drive over to NJ for a morning and lunch at the Uhrig’s house (Our good friends the Uhrigs have made many appearances on our blog— here, here, and here, for just a few.). The dads were working, the big boys were all at school, and so we were able to indulge in the sweet, sweet calm-and-stillness-and-room-for-plenty-of-mommy-to-mommy-conversation that is a Meera-&-Tae-playdate. Oh my, the loveliness! Stacey made the most deliciously fabulous lunch for us and I was completely smitten with every bite of it. It warmed me heart and soul to have my friend make this special lunch for me. I decided right then and there, and told Stacey so, that I was going to get all of her recipes and make this lovely lunch for dinner for the Swap. And that is exactly what I did.
Here it all is, directly from the source, the fabulous Stacey Uhrig:
In bowl, mix drained tuna with chopped black olives, chopped shallots, juice of one lemon (add zest if you want a fuller flavor), and enough olive oil to make it the consistency you like. I tend to like it very lemony….Season with salt and pepper! I didn’t give measurements bc I kind of eye ball it….add as much or as little as you like…make it your own! Toast up your favorite roll (I happened to use a multi-grain baguette), slather on your favorite pesto (I had a store bought one in my house, but its awesome with home made as well)…top it with the tuna and voila! Bon Appétit!
Zoe and Lori came over for brunch today (we missed you Shelli!!!). The Petsch~&~J-M families’ friendship goes way back. I just typed “Zoe” into our blog’s search box (on the right side-bar), and up popped a whole slew of memories of some of the fun times we’ve had with the Petsch Crew over the past four years. Obviously we don’t post about everything that we do on the weekends (not even close), and don’t post about every get-together with friends (not even close), but we post about these things often enough that we can see the basic trajectory of some of our family friendships, and it is pretty heart-warming to see. Anyway… back to this morning… we had such a nice time, as always. The kids went nuts playing in a frenzy of non-stop energy, we all had mimosas (what is brunch without mimosas???… kids’ made with sparkling grape juice; parents’ made with the real deal bubbly grape juice), we ate bagels and fruit salad, drank coffee, discovered that Owen and Zoe both like lox, discovered that the parents all have some sort of deep love for coconut macaroons (we ate way too many of them), and generally had a fabulous time. Basically, a perfect Saturday morning.
This photo looks like what it is: an unedited, quick candid snapshot, with no photographic or compositional quality whatsoever. Still, I can’t help it, I’m their mother: I love it. Someone once told me that when dealing with young children you can’t look for days or even hours of “smooth/easy/good/pleasant”/however-you-define-the-GOOD. Instead, you have to hope for a moment, or a few, each day to truly be present in— a moment, or a few, when you truly can see and feel the truly good happening. When I heard this it resonated with me immediately. I actually think it can be said about dealing with any age children – or people of all ages for that matter – and I try to be mindful of that as much as I possibly can be. I know it is true, for example, in working with college-aged students. And I know it is true, for example, in living out a marriage. And so, I don’t necessarily see the world through rose-colored-glasses, rather, I work hard to not expect things to be wonderful all the time, and instead, I try to string together the good moments that fall amongst all the rest of the relatively mundane (and/or difficult and challenging) times, and cling to them. Easier said than done. But I’m learning to be better at it all the time. This blog helps. At the dinner table I grabbed the camera because this was a moment to cling to.
One year ago today, January 12, 2010, my sons’ birthmother died. We don’t know the details. We only know the words we were told: that when that catastrophic magnitude 7.0 earthquake ripped apart Haiti, demolishing much of Port au Prince, Kyle and Owen’s birthmother “didn’t make it.”
She was one of an estimated 230,000 people who died that day. We’ve all heard the numbers— three million Haitians affected; one million made homeless; 300,000 injured; 280,000 homes and buildings collapsed. Tent cities still brimming with countless people living the unthinkable. For those of us who are not on the ground in Haiti, these numbers seem surreal. Having been to Haiti to adopt Kyle and Owen, these numbers seem especially surreal… it is hard to imagine that place any more distraught and distressed than it had already been. The aftershocks of it ripple far and wide. And the numbers don’t do it justice.
Like most of the other parents of Haitian adoptees that we know, in the weeks that followed the earthquake I was glued to CNN, Facebook, and Twitter. Because of our connection to Haiti we were tied into a complex web of social networks that gave a glimpse of what was happening in Kyle and Owen’s birthplace. The pain and suffering witnessed, second-hand, was almost more than the soul could bear. And we were not even there. As a result of that, coupled with a fierce desire to protect the boys’ privacy, when I found out that their birthmother had died, I was adamant that we keep it to ourselves. It seemed wrong, on so many levels, to talk about it publicly (my worst fear was overly exposing our children, and the potential for our story to be sensationalized; at the time, news outlets were grasping for human interest stories with Haitian-Americans and adoptive families). And so, over and over and over again, I refused to comment to the media, refused to do interviews with radio and television shows, refused to be the focus of newspaper stories, and refused to write about the full scope of the truth of our family’s own aftershocks on our blog. I still believe in my heart that was the right thing to do. And yet, it did what so often happens with monstrous catastrophes—it kept the private shocks and aftershocks just that—private.
This summer, five months after we told Kyle and Owen that their birthmother had died in the earthquake, they told me –on our way to our annual Haitian Adoptive Families Reunion— that they wanted people to know their birthmother was in heaven. They also told me that they wanted me to tell people about it, not them. They didn’t want to carry the burden of explaining it, but they didn’t want to carry the burden of people not knowing either. And so, we took all cues from them, and slowly began telling our own Haiti Earthquake Story more openly.
It seems like a day ago, and at the same time like a decade ago, (but not one year ago), that I told Kyle and Owen that a massive earthquake had struck their island. Snuggled up with them, in the warmth of my bed, with the morning light streaming through the windows, it was one of those profound moments in life where –cliché but true— time seems to stand still. I can remember so vividly their huge brown eyes staring right into mine with a million questions on both sides, and yet it also feels like a blurry hazy semi-memory. I’m glad that I wrote about it on the blog (here), because otherwise I surely would have forgotten the details. It was only because Owen was so insistent in the days that followed that I finally gave in to his urging and decided to try to find out if he and Kyle’s birthmother was o.k.
I put the word out to a trusted source in Haiti, the director of Kyle and Owen’s orphanage, telling him that that we wanted to search. All that any of us knew was that she had been living in Cite Soleil, the same place where she had birthed, in inhumanely gruesome conditions, the unbelievably healthy infants that would become my twin boys. No complex computer systems humming, no official documentation of the dead, no funerals or even proper disposal of human bodies that once gave life to others, no justice. None of that, but an on-the-ground spreading-of-word that rivals none. And it did not take long for us to hear the news. In a strange twist of fate – just another in a long series of impossible-seeming experiences that have taken place in the past six years of parenting our sons – I received the email on my iPhone while we were in New York City celebrating our 5th Adoption Day. While Haiti was suffering to the depths of which I cannot even fathom, we were on our way to see The Lion King on Broadway. I remember reading the email: “She didn’t make it.” She had died in the earthquake. I remember the feeling in my chest, like I couldn’t get a breath. I remember whispering the news in Braydon’s ear, and I remember our eyes locking in, trying to grasp the full meaning of this aftershock on our lives.
Kyle and Owen are, as much as anyone can be at age six, at peace with their birthmother’s death. That is a gift for which we are eternally grateful. We took the time we needed to figure out how to best approach it with them; we told them in a way that conveyed dignity, faith, and ever-lasting love; we’ve processed it with them for the past year; and we’ve struggled with them, wrestling with what it all means, and working through the ripple effects of the aftershocks. But ultimately it is to Kyle and Owen’s credit, and theirs alone, that they’ve weathered yet another storm – this one an earth-shaking, ground-quaking, heart-stopping one. They have, once again, amazed us with their resiliency. While this resiliency never ceases to surprise me, there is also a part of me that thinks, “of course they have handled this so well, they are Haitian through and through“… they are part of a people-hood, a Diaspora, a heritage, a legacy of sheer brilliant stunning resiliency. If there could only be one word to describe the Haitian people, including my two sons, it would be resilient.
Sitting in our house, I am watching Kyle and Owen spin their globe on its axis, around and around, as fast as they can. In typical fashion, they are screaming out loud and jumping up and down as they do it, as if it is the most exciting thing in the world. With the landscape of the earth mapped out in bright colors, Haiti seems so close. And then I look outside the window, to our snow-covered yard, with its swing-set and sandbox and swimming-pool-closed-for-winter, and Haiti seems so far away.
A year later, my heart still aches for my sons, their family of origin, the island nation and people of their roots. A year later, thinking about that earthquake still results in a lump in my throat that makes it hard to swallow. Even as they play happily on the floor right now, just a few feet from me, racing remote-control cars, I never forget from where they have come.
For a family like ours, Haiti is never far from our thoughts or hearts. For us, it is impossible to not remember. We feel the aftershocks everyday. Not just from the earthquake, but from the entire history, trauma, tragedy, and resiliency that is Haiti. I rarely ask for much on this blog, but today I ask you, if you are reading, to please REMEMBER HAITI. And if you can, please HELP HAITI. There are so many ways you can give. If you are looking for a trustworthy organization to which to send a financial contribution of any amount, please consider Heartline, Real Hope for Haiti, or Meds & Food for Kids Haiti.
On the one-year anniversary of the Haiti Earthquake we woke up to a 5:30 a.m. phone call that school was cancelled. A Snow Day for Kyle and Owen. When I heard the snow was coming I hoped that school would be cancelled. I feel better keeping my boys close today. I pulled out my usual mug (we have a set of these; we use them everyday), made coffee, and looked out the kitchen window at the winter wonderland. There is a lot to do, and three kids to keep busy, but today I am not entirely here, because all I can think of is Haiti… and this:
The 
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