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It’s a special opportunity to celebrate Heather in all her wonderful roles; as wife, as a friend, as a daughter, soul mate, mentor and mother. She illuminates all our lives in amazing ways and connects to us like no one else. She is a treasure and I know I am not alone in thinking of her that way.

But it’s not just her roles in our lives that we celebrate: it’s also the center of her being. The who she is part. The person she is part. The brilliant, funny, loving, energetic, thoughtful, soulful, generous, fighter and giver that she is part. The person who was the youngest tenure track hire at Lehigh. The person who was All State in Field Hockey. The person who did the wonderful prints on our walls, expressing amazing things. The person who married me and adopted twin Haitian boys who nearly match her in energy.

I am so happy she is 35. She is not of course (she told me this morning). But, I like and love her more and more each year that passes; she is just getting better and better.

K (behind) and O (front) in the swimming pool this evening

We have two children. Both are what child psychologists label “Spirited.” Anyone who knows even a little about child psychology can see the “Spirited” nature of Kyle and Owen a mile away. Owen is an extremely Spirited child — he falls on the far extreme end of the spectrum. Kyle is just plain spirited — a textbook case. Both are hard to handle. Together they are (to put it nicely) “two handfuls.” If you’ve seen them in real life you know what I’m talking about. They are in constant motion, they are loud, they are brazen, they are FULL OF IT all day every day. They test your patience, they let you know what they want, and they are (as someone said to me today) “hard to contain” (uh, yeah, in more ways than one!!!). I try to embrace this about my boys. I tell people they are “full of it! full of spirit!” Luckily for them (or unluckily as the case may be), I, as their mother, can relate to Kyle and Owen’s spirited persona’s. I am pretty sure that I too was a spirited child, and now– as an adult– I am quite aware that I am a spirited adult. Spirited people can drive other people absolutely crazy with their boundless energy, their will power, their persistence, their intensity. Spirited people are extremely frustrating to handle as children and extremely frustrating to deal with as adults. They push the limits, they push people’s buttons, they push the boundaries of everything/everyone/every situation all the time. Spirited people are also incredible to witness as they often are the ones to forge new directions and expand horizons. Most great rebels (both horrible criminals and great luminaries) are/were spirited people. Right now I’m reading (for the second time in the past 2 years) a terrific book about raising spirited children. I’m going to post more about that in a couple of weeks. But one thing this book talks about is how much spirited children love water. It is one of the very few things that brings out the best in them and at the same time soothes them. This part of the book is amazing me now, as I read it again for the second time, just as much as it amazed me the first time I read it. Because long before we ever identified K & O as “Spirited” we noticed their complete utter total infatuation with water. Faucets, sinks, hoses, puddles, baths, pools, ponds, lakes, rivers, oceans, boats, bridges, swimming, diving, jumping, floating… Kyle and Owen LOVE water. This weekend we spent most of our time at our swimming pool. Today, after spending the morning at the Uhrig’s new house and having lunch with them, we spent some time hanging out by the Delaware River (a 5-10 minute drive from our house). To put it mildly, a Water Weekend = a Happy Weekend for K & O. Here are some photos from this weekend.

One of our regular readers is “Malia’s Mama” (click here to see her blog). I have become fast friends with her through the blogosphere. It is a crazy, crazy, small, small world, but we have a sort of incredible story — 1.5 years ago I made a photo/scrap book thing that “tells”/documents the story of our family’s adoption. I had randomly found a poem on the internet that I adored, and one of the things I put in the book was the poem. Also, right here on this blog, on our Adoption Day this year, I posted the same poem (check it out by clicking here). So, fast forward to a few weeks ago –> I start noticing this woman- “Malia’s Mama” regularly posting these really interesting comments on our blog. She’s clearly knowledgeable about Haiti, and her comments strike me as unusual (in a good way). We start emailing. We become, like I said, fast friends through the blogosphere. Eventually she shares a couple of her pieces of writing with me. And… one of them is… none other than… the One Child poem that I had put in our photo book and on our blog. O.k., is that crazy, crazy, small, small world or what??? Anyway… I really appreciate “Malia’s Mama’s” poem(s) and her comments on our blog. After I saw her comment on today’s post (click here for that post), a thought that I’ve had many, many times once again got stuck in my head. This evening I keep thinking this thought that I think a lot:
You can take the boy out of Haiti, but you can’t take the Haiti out of the boy.

Today Braydon turns 36!!!