Uncategorized

Dear Readers,
Well, I’m getting another round of hate mail (or, I guess I should say “hate comments”) on my “Adoption Stuff” post below. Often when I’m writing posts that aren’t just ‘this-is-what-we-did-today’-posts I fret in my heart as I click “publish” on Blogger… because I just know those anonymous hateful hurtful comments will probably come pouring in. Folks, I’ve gotta say: I do sometimes wonder why we make this blog public. I think about just stopping it all together. But then I think about the hundreds of people out there who have found some kind of solace/inspiration/interest in our stories –and I think about people and families who have inspired us along our own journey– and I keep plugging away. I don’t know how long we’ll keep doing it though, it is hard to stay strong to put ourselves out there like this. As for the post below…. I’m rejecting the anonymous hate mail and not publishing the anonymous hurtful comments. They are just too nasty to validate them by clicking “publish.” I just need to say, though, for the record: we know a lot about the details of our sons’ births. We do not share these details. Until K & O are old enough to handle all the information, Braydon and I will remain the only people outside of Haiti who know the whole story of our boys. Trust me when I say: our boys were not breastfed. On another note: we’re trying hard to teach our four-year-olds that age-old golden rule: do unto others as you would have done unto you. To all of you Hate Mail Writers out there– please try to remember this golden rule yourselves as you’re reading our blog.
Thanks, Heather

7:40 a.m. During breakfast the phone rings. It is MorFar and he asks right away to speak with Kyle. He’s calling to tell Kyle that the Red Sox won 4-1 against the Angels in Game 1 of the American League Division Series last night. What Kyle semi-‘gets’ is that the Red Sox won a big game. What Kyle fully-‘gets’ is that MorFar has called just for him. Thus, the absolutely precious (and priceless) lit-up look on his face and in his eyes.

We have a pretty amazing pediatrician. We credit her with medically saving Kyle and Owen. She did an incredible job working with us to get K & O on track and healthy when they first came home from Haiti. I mean, seriously incredible. Given her track record with us, we pretty much go with whatever she says/recommends/advises where our kids’ health is concerned. But I was still very skeptical when, at our last well-baby visit with Meera, she told me that her prediction was that Meera would be “ready for rice cereal as soon as she turns four months old.” I told Braydon that I wanted to wait until Meera was at least five months old, if not six months old — despite the fact that we usually don’t question Dr. Aleks. But I should have known! Dr. Aleks is always right on. A few days before Meera turned four months old she started showing obvious signs of interest in food. She started staring at me intently when I’d eat my lunch each day. I’d notice her staring at the boys when they’d eat snacks around her. And then she started reaching for our food when we’d be eating around her. A couple of days ago I was eating yogurt and she was grasping for it. I let her get a tiny smidge of a taste of it in her mouth (a speck of yogurt that I let her suck off my finger). She loved it and couldn’t stop grabbing toward my spoon to try to get more into her mouth. She’s also just recently started resisting sitting in her black Bjorn chair at our mealtimes. She’d fuss until Braydon and I would hold her on our lap… and then be totally content. She clearly just wanted to be right at the table with the rest of us. So, we set up one of the boys’ old hook-on chairs (we never used high chairs for them when they were babies, just these chairs — thanks to the awesome advice of our friend Robin). K & O are thrilled to have Meera right with us at the table now. And, I bought some rice cereal and we made big plans for last night to be “Meera’s First Food!!!!” (this was a big huge deal for K & O). They couldn’t wait for the grand event– the feeding of “baby rice” to “Baby Meera.” She was quite ambivalent about ‘baby rice.’ And she did not like K & O sticking the spoon into her mouth (I didn’t get photos of that because I was too busy trouble-shooting to be photo-shooting). But it was a lot of fun for Braydon to try to feed her some. Tonight I tried my hand at it. Very little (if any) was actually swallowed on either night, but still… a huge step forward for our baby girl. Bittersweet… as all of these sorts of steps are.

Kyle & Owen’s “nanny” Alex has been babysitting for us regularly for over two years. She’s amazing in a million different ways. October 17 – 19 Alex will be walking 60 miles over 3 days to help raise money for the Susan G. Komen For the Cure Breast Cancer 3-Day! She’s still got to raise some money to walk. If you haven’t yet given money toward the fight against cancer this year, will you please consider supporting Alex?
CLICK HERE!

Trampoline boys jumping from Braydon Johnson-McCormick on Vimeo.

You have one thumb in your mouth,
the other hand pressed firm upon my face.
I talk about your day,
and in the nite lite watch,
as your eye lids get heavy,
and then drop.
The world gets smaller,
and I feel your breath
in and out on my neck.
And as I whisper my love letter into your ear,
the lullabye rolls in
like a deep wave onto the sand of sleep.
In the small world of your room,
on the sandy shore of your sleep,
You drift off.
And as you drift off
it is as if
all of your tantrums and outbursts
and frenzied nonstop movement
it is as if
all of your questions and answers
and full-hearted laughing and crying
it is as if
all of your pushing and shoving
and four-year-old brawn
Just
Melt
Away.
And tomorrow is a new day.

Our baby girl is 4 months old today. These are some photos from the past month. She is the most precious thing imaginable. Her personality and temperament are off the charts awesome. She sleeps 13 hours a night consistently (with only one bottle at around 3:30am, after which she promptly falls right back to sleep). She wakes up cheery and chatty and smiley and squealing. She goes to sleep on her own most of the time. She adores her brothers. She smiles all the time. She goes with the flow. She only cries when she’s overtired, which is rarely. She loves her little baby toys. She loves baths, getting her face washed, and getting her diaper changed. She loves the car, the stroller, the bjorn carrier, her playmat, and still loves her black bjorn chair. She laughs and giggles. She’s ticklish on her feet and neck. She loves to be cuddled. She lets anybody hold her. She is happy anywhere as long as she’s got her peeps with her… and we’re (K, O, Mama, Papi, or some combination of them) always with her. This baby is a dream baby. We know the other side (K & O were…. um…. let’s just say… quite challenging as babies——– and who are we kidding?!?! they’re still challenging us daily!!!!!!!). But this one, this little Meera Grace, this one is a cake walk. A dreamy girly chubby drooly bundle of angel baby. She is sweetness personified. We’ll see whatever the future holds. Right now, we’re savoring every second.

I am aware that our blog often (not always, but often) comes across as presenting our family/life as all glossy and happy-happy and smileys and rainbows. The honest to God truth of it is, I feel that we have an incredibly charmed life. Yes, we work wicked hard (don’t know why that ‘wicked’ thing seems appropriate here, but somehow it does). Yes, we have our tantrums and meltdowns and fussy-phases just like everyone else (or, I guess, I assume everyone else does?!). Yes, it all feels like it just sucks sometimes. We of course have our failures, we have rejections, we have setbacks, we lose, we flop, we feel like total rejects, our kids act up and drive us crazy and make us wonder how on earth we’ll get through the next twenty years…. yes, of course. But from my perspective, those things are just to be expected — part of the complexity of richly layered living. We have not had major catastrophic losses. We have never had devastating health problems. We have not had to deal with life-altering tragedy or crisis. Braydon and I are soulmates who found each other early. And we’re very driven people who are determined to make our life wonderful. We have a daily commitment to making it work. We found two twin boys who are the perfectly right match to be our children. We have a baby who is –to us– like an angel. From our vantage point, it really is just about as good as it can get. We wouldn’t want everything to be smooth around every edge. We wouldn’t want the road to have no curves. We wouldn’t want the dullness of too much peace and quiet. Our days are full (overflowing). Our life is crazy (truly). We feel extraordinarily blessed. We give and give and give, in all sorts of directions. And we receive and receive and receive, in so many many ways. We see our glass as more-than-half-full. And we’re unapologetic about that. Because, from where we stand (and we believe we’ve seen enough of the world to know…), it is. We also know enough about the world to know this: we are privileged. And therefor: we’re not whiners, we’re not complainers, and we don’t have a lot of tolerance for privileged people who are. So, I’m not going to whine here. And I’m not going to complain. But, man, do we miss MorMor. She left on Friday. Our weekend was about as splendid as any weekend could be (we had so much fun having a family weekend with lots of home time and lots of outings just the five of us)… but we miss her when she’s gone. Oh, do we miss her. We miss so many things. Just two of them are baseball and apple pie. As cheesy as it sounds, it is for real. She plays baseball with the boys for hours on end in the driveway. She makes apple pie with them/for us. She grounds us with her steady presence. And then, just as quick as she comes, she’s gone. And we’re back to the five of us again. We’re a happy five-some. Our glass is more-than-half-full, even without her. But, oh, how we miss her when she’s gone.

O.k., so I don’t know about other Waldorf schools, but ours is definitely not “mainstream.” I’m not going to get into it here, but suffice it to say that it is about as not mainstream as you can get. One of the many things that has come to seem normal to us, but is — alas — actually quite bizarre at first glance is the fact that most of the children bring their lunch to school in baskets. From an outsider’s perspective it appears very odd– the sight of all these children, grades pre-K through 8, walking into school each morning carrying baskets. Very few backpacks, very few lunch boxes, very few school bags… but lots and lots and lots of baskets. Anyhoo… K & O have never brought baskets to school. From the start I thought it would be absolutely crazy to give them their lunches in baskets — because I know my boys and I knew they’d swing them around and lose all their lunch stuff. And they didn’t seem to notice (or if they did, they sure didn’t care) that most other children were carrying baskets while they weren’t. But that was when they were 3. Now they’re 4. And kindergarteners. And what a difference a year makes!! By the end of the first week of school Kyle was asking for a “lunch basket.” Then, of course, Owen jumped on the bandwagon and started nagging me for a “lunch basket” too. I asked why they wanted this. They said (of course!), “because everyone else has lunch baskets!” I said, “well don’t you want to be different from everyone else?” and they looked at me like I was crazy and said (of course!), “NO!!!” Well, coincidentally, my mom is a Shaker Basket Maker. I asked her to bring some basket stuff with her when she came for this visit. So, sure enough, yesterday afternoon, the boys made their very own “lunch baskets” with MorMor. And this morning they could not wait to go to school with their lunches in their baskets. In the car, before pulling out of the garage, they even asked me to “take a picture” of them with their baskets. It was a huge deal to them to have their lunch baskets today. You wouldn’t believe how excited these two boys can get over things like this. Kyle, literally, hasn’t stopped talking about his basket for the past 24 hours. So, now, K & O have had another wish come true: Waldorf Lunch Baskets. And MorMor can add this to her long list of crazy/interesting/bizarre/or, in her words–“unique”– things that have gone on around here during this visit. 😉

Sunday was an absolutely beautiful day. We went to Peace Valley with MorMor and Neptune– MorMor’s new 10-week-old Golden Retriever. The boys rode their scooters, the babies (Meera and Neptune) took turns riding in the stroller (!!!!!!!! WHAT A RIOT!!!!!!!!!!!!), and the rest of us walked.

One of our neighbors gave us their trampoline! This is a perfect addition to our backyard– not that anything can tire out K & O, but jumping jumping jumping definitely can’t hurt. (And although we know it is an impossible task, we’ll never stop trying to get all of their energy out). We moved it over to our yard bright and early Saturday morning. The boys (including Braydon) have been jumping on it virtually non-stop ever since.