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Our boys have different personalities. But they also share many interests, one of which is buttons. By buttons, I mean things that you can push on an electronic device.

Owen gets distinct pleasure from pressing the TV on/off button – much to my dismay. He likes to do it whenever he can – including while watching TV. Kyle not so much. Kyle’s far more interested in pushing the buttons on the Microwave. Over and over and over. Sometimes it gets turned on. Sometimes there is something in it when it gets turned on. Sometimes that something is metal. Much to my dismay.

The boys like to sit on my lap at my computer and have me show them a video I’m working on (about them of course). Owen likes to try to tap the keyboard. Over and over. The video starts, stops and closes (without saving of course).

But maybe the best is that Kyle recently said (as he climbed in my chair and started pressing keys on my keyboard – which somehow immediately shut my laptop down – I just don’t know how that happened): “Not my computer. I don’t have computer [kompootor]. I ask Santa for computer, Papi?”

Now that’s a love of pushing buttons. Most of all, my heart button.

The moon over our house tonight

The boys play outside even after it gets dark. They don’t seem to care at all that it is so dark out. They don’t seem to notice that we’re the only family in the neighborhood still outside. They are totally unphased by it all.

Years ago Braydon and I started a pseudo-tradition of doing *nothing* on New Year’s Day. Back when we were in our 20s and living in Boston and had a thriving social life we’d get invited to all sorts of New Year’s Day get-togethers — mimosa parties, fancy brunches, dinner parties. Those were the days! But we always RSVP’d “no” to all those invitations in order to spend the day lounging in our apartment together, watching movies, and eating junk food. Most years we never even got out of our pajamas. We did this partly because we wanted to start the New Year in a very low-key way, just the two of us. And we did this partly because we were infamous for partying like crazy with all our pals ’till the wee hours on New Year’s Eves. Whoa– when I think back on some of those New Year’s Eve fiestas… Some of you reading this participated… So you know exactly what I’m talking about. Again – Those were the days! Well, now of course we are living a different existence — a “post-K&O” existence. And I’d happily give up all those wild and crazy nights of partying for the beautiful family life we have going now. But it did have us in a quandry: what to do on New Year’s Day? We decided to go onward with what we had going and make our lounge-all-day-watch-movies-eat-junk-food an official family tradition. We never left the house today, except for a quick run to the grocery store this morning to buy our junk-food-supplies. Turns out all four of us love our ‘new’-‘old’-tradition!

Kyle’s choice junk food’s for the day: Whole Grain Fig Newtons, Bologna & Cheese Sandwiches, Hot Fudge Sundaes w/ Peanut Butter Cup Ice Cream and Rainbow Colored Jimmies

Owen’s choice junk food’s for the day: Juicy Juice, Ritz Bitz Cheese Cracker Sandwiches, Egg Nog, Hot Fudge Sundaes w/ Peanut Butter Cup Ice Cream and Rainbow Colored Jimmies

Heather & Braydon’s choice junk food’s for the day: Potato Chips, BLTs, Espresso, Lindt Chocolate Truffles, Hot Fudge Sundaes w/ Peanut Butter Cup Ice Cream (no jimmies!)

K & O’s movies for the day: Dora the Explorer – “Penguino”/South Pole Episode, Bob the Builder’s Christmas to Remember

H & B’s movie for the day: Domino

Tomorrow reality hits and we get back into the swing of normal life. The boys have had two full weeks off from daycare (and me off from work). I think we all have mixed emotions about starting the day tomorrow. But I know we’re all looking forward to a great 2007. The boys said many times today: “Happy New Year!” and raised their sippy cups for us all to toast.

Check it out by clicking here & clicking here. Or, just read their whole blog at: http://the-uhrigs.blogspot.com/index.html

Someday I’m going to take a chunk of time to write a nice long post about our experiences and perspectives so far on the subject of Raising Black Boys. In the meantime… here is a blog post written by another white mother raising two black sons that nicely articulates some of the same thoughts we have: Click Here.

Photos from this morning…

Our daycare is closed for this week, so I’ve taken this time off from work, and for the past three days I’ve been home with the boys. I purposefully didn’t plan any outings or activities for us — thinking that after being away in New Hampshire for a week the boys could use a little low-key down-time at home. Although I’ve almost lost my mind (I’m not someone who can easily stay put in any one place for one whole day… let alone three in a row!), it was definately the right thing for K & O. Other than getting back into the swing of all things eating-and-sleeping related (they got waaaaaaaaay off track while we were away), and re-bonding as a tight little dynamic duo (they are going through an incredibly intensive phase right now with their relationship — extremely loving with each other and extraordinarily happy to play alone just the two of them, with almost zero fighting or irritability whatsoever), and of course spending gobs of time playing with all their new Christmas presents, here’s what’s comprised the bulk of our time over the past three days:

[Note: most of the time they are pretending that they are “washing trucks in the car wash”]

Waiting for Their Heroes (The Garbage Guys / Trash Truck Drivers ) to Arrive

[Note: K & O insisted on bringing the trash trucks they got from Santa to the end of the driveway. The trucks sat there for over an hour until finally the trash guys arrived to pick up our trash, then the boys did their regular thing – ran like crazy to greet the guys, clapped and cheered for them, etc…. AND… proudly held their toy trash trucks up high for the garbage collector guys to hold and admire. The guys were quite impressed with the trucks… and the four of them (2 trash guys + their 2 biggest fans) spent quite some quality time discussing the similarities between the “real garbage truck” and the “toy garbage trucks”… to see other posts where I’ve mentioned the boys’ relationship with our garbage collectors click here and here]

Seriously Discussing the Finer Details of the Inner Workings of Trucks’ “Motors”:

Putting Rocks Inside Trucks:

Putting Sand Into Trucks:

Swinging Like Little Maniacs:

[Note: most of the time they are pretending that they are “pilots driving a biiiiiig airplane”… or… their favorite… that they are “going sooooooo FAST! in a BIIIIIG TRUCK!!!!!!”]

You don’t need to spend three days isolated alone at home with them to pick up on the robust TRUCK theme!! ;0

It was a Christmas To Remember!

As I was taking my first “Christmas Vacation” photo in the Philadelphia airport on Wednesday morning I laughingly said to Braydon, “Is it ok for me to take about a million photos of these two boys over the next week?!” And he laughed back, “YES!! I bought an extra memory card for the camera!!!” An older woman in the airport overheard us and ran up to me to say: “Honey, enjoy it! And take as many photos of these adorable boys as you possibly can!!!” Then she walked off smiling. I thought to myself, “I WILL take tons of photos! I will I will! I don’t care if I go overboard with it! They’re only going to be 2 for Christmas once!” Just now as I uploaded the photos from the camera to my computer it showed that we had taken 396 photos! Here are some of our favorites.

The journey begins in the Philadelphia airport.

Owen arrives at the Manchester, New Hampshire airport.

Once at MorMor and MorFar’s house… first thing on the agenda:

A ride in MorFar’s Tractor wagon!

Three cousins throw rocks and sticks into Lake Ossipee.

My little family spending time where I grew up.

Grandparents and Grandchildren.

Beautiful Owen.

MorFar uses his chainsaw to “cut wood!”

Owen and Kyle use their chainsaws to “cut wood!”

(These toy chainsaws — identical to MorFar’s real chainsaw — were

Christmas presents for the boys from my parents… K & O *love* them and once they had received them then for the rest of our trip we rarely went for more than a few minute span without hearing these toy chainsaw motors running.)

Dinner and drinks at my sister’s beautiful home in Maine

after we all attended my niece’s Christmas Dance Recital.

Yogurt! The boys went on some sort of crazy yogurt binge over the Christmas week. (Over one 48-hour period we actually kept count — Kyle alone ate 14 yogurts in those 2 days. We didn’t even tally up how many they each ate the rest of the days.)

The extraordinary view looking out over the field behind my parents’ home.

Three cousins play trumpets! (another gift from MorMor and MorFar!)

So… Kyle and Owen got to be in the Christmas Eve Nativity Pageant even though we were just visitors (very inclusive church!). They chose to be angels and their cousin Sadie chose to be a sheep (toddler gender-bending! despite what anyone else might have thought, we were beyond thrilled with this!!!). Our two little angels absolutely stole the show from the second that “the multitude of heavenly angels” entered the stage. They were about as gosh darn cute as could possibly be, and every person in the place was ooohing and aaahing over the two of them. Then came a moment that I quite possibly will never ever forget… and the only moment that I (as well as many, many, many other audience members) have laughed so hard that I’ve cried in church… Our little angels stole Baby Jesus out of the manger and took off!… Due to some sort of Christmas Miracle Braydon had the presence of mind to capture the whole thing on film:

Here, as the bible story of the birth of Jesus is somberly read aloud in the dimly lit church, the boys realize that there is an actual baby lying in the manger (well, it was actually a doll, but it was very real looking)… you can see the look of sheer wonder (and thrill) in their eyes.

As many of you know, the boys desperately want a baby brother/sister. They ask for this almost daily. I fully believe that in this moment they truly thought that their biggest dreams had been answered on this very special Christmas Eve and that this baby could potentially be theirs! Just imagine- we’ve been making this huge deal about Christmas- finally it is clear to them– “Ah ha!!! This is why they’ve been making such a big thing of this!!!!!!” In this photo above, you can see the look of concentration on Owen’s face as he ponders how to claim this baby — “Hmmmm… How can we get it out of the manger and out of this place? I think I could just snatch it right now…” And you can see the look on Kyle’s face too as he peers up at his 3-year-old cousin — “Sadie, you’re my cousin and all, but don’t you dare even think about stopping us from taking this baby!”

And then, they make their move. Owen snatches it out of the manger, Kyle’s got his brother’s back, and the two of them take off, delighted. Sadly for them: 1) MorMor took the baby away and put it back in the manger, and 2) They realized later that the baby was just a doll. The entire Christmas Eve congregation in this quaint little New England church erupted in deep, belly-aching, tears-streaming, from-the-gut laughter. A little Christmas present for us from our two little angels!

Well, I hate to make assumptions about their own thoughts and feelings and opinions, but I think this one is pretty safe to assume… If they were able to verbalize their own highlight from Christmas 2006, I can guarantee that Kyle and Owen would say, “Motorcycles! Hands down!!!” Yup, they are spoiled rotten by their MorMor and MorFar. Yup, they got motorized VESPAS from their MorMor and MorFar. Yup, — so far so good — they truly genuinely organically appreciate their MorMor and MorFar. So, nobody is complaining. No comments necessary for these three photos taken upon unwrapping the vespas on Christmas morning.