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Yesterday it rained. Which was perfect, because we needed a beach-less day to run all sorts of errands. We went into town (Beaufort) to get everything done. We are not a family who likes errands or shopping at all. So, to make it worth our while, we made sure to fit a trip to the movie theater in for a rainy day matinee. We saw Monsters University. It was absolutely HYSTERICAL beyond hysterical to watch this movie as a family of five who lives on a university campus. The bambinos got almost every joke. Like, they seriously got the jokes. College-related-jokes that were obviously geared to the older bracket of the audience. They know so much more about college life than most kids their age. We laughed and laughed (them laughing at the movie, Braydon and me laughing at the movie, Braydon and me laughing at them laughing at the movie). We all loved it. (And we were all happy to be going home to “our” beach house instead of our on-campus-home tonight! LOL! It is nice to get a break from university life.)
Leaving the theater there was a photo op with a Monsters University “ID” that they had affixed to the door. I’m sure that many kids like having their photo taken in the “ID,” but it would probably be the adult viewers that would really get a kick out of it. Most younger kids would probably not even understand fully what a college ID is all about. The bambinos, however, fully got it. They thought it was hysterical. They do, after all, have actual university IDS, and use them daily (they need them even just for swipe access to enter the building we live in). We made sure to get all three of them photographed with Monsters University IDs. Probably very few people understand just how funny/unique/hysterical this all is…. probably only other families who are living (or have lived) on university campuses with younger children. The whole afternoon — the movie, the IDs, the conversations in the backseat of the car afterward — the whole thing was SUCH A RIOT! Now our kids have 2 university IDS! Lehigh U and Monsters U. Too funny!
P.S. in Meera’s photo ID you can sorta see that her right eye is a bit swollen and squinty and red. One of our “errands” today was to go to an Urgent Care clinic to have it looked at (in this picture it doesn’t look too bad because the medicine was already starting to work– but she woke up yesterday with a completely swollen, almost-swollen-shut, right eye). She had a mosquito bite on her eye, which apparently caused some sort of crazy swelling reaction. The poor thing just got over her hives (allergic reaction to something, unknown — FYI: don’t worry, we never gave her the prescribed steroid meds, she got over it entirely on her own with a little help from Zyrtec), and then had to have this happen. She has handled it all like a champ, but we are watching it closely. She’s on Zytec again, and it is working wonders quickly! She’s been prescribed steroids again, but we’re hoping she’ll once again kick this thing without us having to give them to her.
Since arriving in South Carolina, Kyle and Owen have quickly become fixated on mastering the art of skimboarding. This is a new thing for them. As is typical for K & O, they will do it and do it and do it until they’ve totally conquered it. They are nothing if not doggone determined. They have a long-time wish to try surfing… and we’ve told them that skimboarding is the step between boogie boarding and surfing. This just fuels their flames even more. Of course, in classic K & O style, they’re already getting it down after just 24 hours.
They are FUN to watch as they work and work and work at it! (Note: as soon as big waves are in sight, though, they quickly abandon the skimboards for their good old, wave riding, boogie boards. I’m sure if we lived in Hawaii they’d be amazing surfers.)
Road Trip to the South.
When we agreed to live on campus, it was with the understanding that we’d leave for the bulk of the summer. So, last summer, before we had even moved into our new home at Lehigh, we had put down a deposit to rent a beach house in the South Carolina Lowcountry for 5.5 weeks.
The house is in Harbor Island, South Carolina. About 20 minutes outside of Beaufort. Between Charleston and Savannah. Braydon and I love this part of the country. Over the years our kids have been learning to love it too.
Believe it or not, one of the things we love about this place is the road trip to it.
As the road stretches further and further away from home, we become more and more removed from our daily routines, our habitual concerns, our day-in-day-out grind. As we move further and further south, we are forced to slow down and lose — a bit — our “Northern” (fast-paced, hurry-hurry-hurry, maximize every-single-second) ways. It is good for us.
This time the road trip was long. As it turns out, the planning, preparing, and packing for a 5.5 week trip for a family of 5 is pretty huge (we’ve never done anything like this before; we hadn’t quite anticipated just how much would have to go into it). The boys had just finished two weeks of sports camps (basketball, then baseball). Meera was at her wits’ end with a steady string of babysitters and life on campus. We were already exhausted and “done” before we even started.
We set out Friday afternoon. Quickly to hit massive bumper-to-bumer traffic interspersed with torrential rain. It forced us — even quicker than usual — to slow down and part ways with our habitual behaviors.
We were rewarded with a beautiful rainbow along the highway at sunset on Friday night.
We drove for over 6 hours, and spent the night in a hotel in Virginia. There’s lots of yuck on a family road trip (as anyone whose ever done it knows). I try to focus on the sweet moments that speckle the whole experience–
We woke up to bright skies, highways clear of traffic, and three kids who love to travel more than anything else in the world. (iPods, iPads, DVDs, and — once we get deep into the mid-Atlantic — Krispy Kremes tend to help!)
Braydon and I savor the hours of being trapped in a car together. We listen to an audio book together. And we look for our classic roadside milestones. Of course, this one is the biggest of all — the sure sign we’re officially “in the south” ~
That day we saw another roadside rainbow!
And then, the big pay-off. The views from the car window that say one thing so loudly and so quietly at the same time: We are in the Lowcountry. Beauty.
The bambinos just had to see the beach right away. Who could blame them? We made it just in time to have a slice of light left of the day. We got straight out of the car, after many, many hours of driving, to this:
We arrived to beauty beyond measure. Out on the low-tide-beach, we were flanked on one side with our 3rd rainbow of the trip, and on the other side the sunset.
This was the middle:
Then there was this:
And then we called it a night.
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We woke up on Sunday to this:
And this:
And then this:
We have lots of goals for our time here this summer. But none of those goals involve accomplishing anything or checking anything off a list. We’re here to slow it down. To slow it way, way down. I’ll be blogging from Harbor Island, South Carolina for the next few weeks. Happy Summer!
This summer is going to be great. My baseball team won the championship! Me and my brother went to Lehigh basketball camp it was heaven to us. This week me and my brother are going to Lehigh baseball camp while my sister is at home with a babysitter. My family is going to South Carolina for 5.5 weeks. We are going to harbor island and we are going to Charleston for sticky fingers with mormor and morfar our grandparents then we will come back to the beach house. The next morning and every morning we are going to the beach in the golf cart. At the beach we are going to boogie board and building sand castles and maybe surfing.
CJ was picked #10 in the 2013 NBA Draft tonight.
It was the first time that any of the J-Ms had ever watched the draft. The anticipation and excitement was very, very high. And the thrill when his name was called was pretty awesome. If you had told me ten years ago that I’d be watching the 2013 NBA Draft, on the edge of my seat, excited beyond belief, I would have told you that you were absolutely nuts. But kids change us (our own kids, and our “kids”/students/etc.). We are transformed by them as much as they are transformed by us.
It was a good night to be a J-M bambino! Sometimes it is pretty cool to be a professor’s kid! (Not most of the time… but sometimes.)
If I posted about basketball as often as it dominates our life, I’d be posting about basketball almost every day. But, because this is not a basketball blog, I tend to avoid posting about the subject. The last times I really gave basketball any devoted blog time was last July (post is here), and then a short post in August (post is here). Here I’ll try to convey, in one fell swoop, the past 9 months worth of basketball in our family life.
It might be a slight exaggeration to say that basketball dominates our life. It would only not be 100% true in the sense that — especially in the spring and early summer — baseball is huge too. But to say that K & O play basketball all the time is not really an untrue statement. We have an over-the-door hoop in the hall of our dorm. From the minute they wake up, until the minute they crawl into bed, it is where K & O spend the bulk of their free time. And when I say, “the bulk,” I mean probably — no exaggeration — at least 75% of the time (Braydon confirms this estimation to be an accurate one in his opinion).
It is intense bball. Sometimes (when the students are here) guys will join in with them. But usually, it is just the two of them. Going at it. In a big way. I have never seen them not sweating like crazy by the end of one of their little sessions. Often these ‘sessions’ involve — at some point — screaming, tackling, full-on-duking-it-out over some rule or regulation that one or the other has bent or broken (they make up all sorts of games and the rules are impossible for anyone but them to follow, let alone referee, so they are entirely on their own to work it all out). So far, no blood has been shed, but it has come very close many times.These bitter battles last approximately 2-5 minutes, and then it is on with the game.
It is shooting, jumping, blocking, slamming, non-stop hard-core hall ball. It never gets old (for them). But the constant incessant non-stop sound of dribbling, slamming, dunking, and swishing reverberating through the dorm day and night can often feel like it is slowly (or quickly) driving the rest of us crazy. Luckily for us all, during the regular academic year, we have to follow the dorm quiet hour rules — which means that K & O can not play basketball in the hallway before 10am — THANK GOD.
Living on campus has taken their love of basketball to a whole new level. If it were up to them we’d go to every single Lehigh basketball game — home or away — all season long. We take them to as many as we can. They love it love it love it love it love it.
I wonder sometimes what impact all this is having on them. These guys, who K & O greatly look up to and aspire to, are so within reach for K & O. While many young kids are sports fanatics, K & O have real college players right in their own little world. These guys are not untouchable to K & O. And K & O see them as real. They know them. In a way that most kids do not. And these guys (for the most part) embrace K & O. It is not at all uncommon to find K & O spending real time — outside of basketball — with the Lehigh players. It is not at all uncommon for them to be eating together in the dining hall, or hanging out tossing a frisbee on some lawn, or chit-chatting anywhere and everywhere that they might run into them on campus (including, sometimes, when K & O have the chance to attend Mommy’s classes). While on one level, K & O idolize these basketball players, they also see them as regular people too. This will be especially profound, I think, when tomorrow night K & O watch the NBA Draft on tv, and see a guy who they really actually know (a guy who was Mommy’s student) go pro. {If you don’t know about CJ McCollum, just google him to see.} What does it do to boys like K & O to watch someone they know become an NBA player? I have no idea. I suppose only time will tell.
As much as they love the hall ball, they’ll play on any court they possibly can, whenever they can, too. And living on campus, they have lots of options. They’ll play in the rain…
They’ll play in the snow…
And when they can’t be outside (because it is way too far below freezing), they’ll take any opportunity they can to play inside.
This year — the year they were 8 — was the year that basketball really exploded for them. Along with that came a newfound interest in basketball attire, Nike Elite socks, and — especially — basketball shoes. Our boys who never cared one bit about what they wore, now care. They want all sports attire all the time. Preferably basketball attire. The brighter the better.
They played again this year for their school’s basketball team. I wrote about that a little bit last September (post is here). The school has an official team for 3rd graders and higher, and a separate sports program for the younger kids. They had to bend the rules a little bit for K & O (the head of the program for younger kids said they were too good to play after kindergarten), and they started on the team in 1st grade. This year, as 2nd graders, they played again as real contributors.
Despite being much, much smaller than most all of the other players they played with and against, our boys proudly held their own against the competition. “Playing up” is an understatement here. But they did good.
Their team, once again this year, lost every single game that they played. But they had a ton of fun. And K & O have definitely had the privilege of learning at a young age how to lose, and lose gracefully.
Their coach from last year (a guy whose expertise with sports we greatly respect and trust) advised us that K & O need to be playing in an elite basketball program as soon as possible. We looked into it. Our local AAU program expressed interest in K & O and invited them try-out. They had a team for the youngest players (boys just slightly older than K & O were this year) and they thought K & O might be contenders to play on it. We went to the try-outs, and it was a mind-blowing experience for us all. We had never seen first-hand such an elite level of play, coaching, and training for kids. It was a 2-hour workout on a school night. We got a babysitter for Meera. We took it very seriously, and Kyle and Owen *LOVED* it. At the end of the session, the director of the program invited us to have K & O join. He was very clear: they are looking for three things — natural talent/athleticism, coach-ability/intelligence, and genuine passion for the sport. K & O were hitting on all three cylinders, at a very young age. Braydon and I thought long and hard about it. I did a lot of research and poured my heart out to some trustworthy sources (including coaches — and importantly — coaches-who-are-moms — at Lehigh). For about a week I grappled intensely with the decision. The kicker was that K & O would have to specialize– they’d have to basically devote themselves to basketball, and only basketball, starting now. Little League would be automatically ruled out for the spring, and the AAU program would mean heavy travel for us on many weekends. Kyle could have gone either way with it. Owen was chomping at the bit to sign up immediately for the AAU program. Ultimately, Braydon and I decided (after losing much sleep) that we had to make an executive decision to not do it. We felt strongly that they are too young to specialize, we did not want them to give up baseball, and we felt like it would be too much too soon to jump in 100% to one single sport. Now, looking back on it, it seems so obvious that we made the right decision. But at the time it felt like a grueling decision. Braydon and I are not well equipped to make determinations about the sports trajectories of such young and gifted athletes. We are new to this world and the learning curve is big.
Once basketball season ended they moved quickly onto baseball. (Our Little League experience deserves its own long post.) But basketball remains fully in tact as their primary love. At least for now.
Often after baseball practice, or between innings when watching a Red Sox game on tv, or upon coming inside from playing baseball together out in the yard, they’d move seamlessly to their beloved hall ball (note the gloves and bat on the floor in the photo above). One of the amazing things about having a twin is that you always have a built-in playmate who is your same age, same size, and same level of skill. Pretty amazing. (And pretty effective at a spiraling-never-ending-ratcheting-up-of-competitive-play.)
And then, of course, there is their “Heaven on Earth Week” (aka Basketball Camp) to round out the year. It was last week. There is really nothing much that they love more than that camp — the chance to play basketball all day long for an entire week with other boys and men who can understand and appreciate and relate to their love of the sport (people who are unlike the other three members of their family).
While I’ll never fully understand their adoration of bball, I try to be as respectful of it as possible. I’m trying hard to be the best mother I can be to these boys. Their athleticism is a challenge (a good challenge, one I embrace, but still– a challenge).
At the end of the day, though, one thing I can say for sure is this: I’m learning to love — and I mean, LOVE — watching them play. There is really nothing much that I love more than watching them play. Even when it does drive me absolutely crazy…. the sound at ridiculous decibels… the intensity reaching a fever pitch… the never-ending-inflow-of-sweat-drenched-clothing… the dribbling and slamming reverberating everywhere… at 7am, 7pm, and every time in between.
Who knows what the future holds? We sure don’t. But I’m so honored and privileged to be on the sidelines for these two.
These two dudes had their first visit to the eye doctor today. They got the works, including eye dilation (they thought the post-dilation-shades were super funky and way cool). Turns out they both have 20/20 vision!
Big happenings here!
We’ve been letting the boys’ locs grow for the past two years, with only very minor trims here and there. Today we did a drastic loc-cut. This had been coming for a long time. Although the locs started as my thing (when I first started K & Os locs they were 20 months old), over time they have become K & O’s thing. They were very hesitant about cutting them. But they were also getting so hot, so heavy, and so in their faces (especially during sports). Slowly but surely over the past few weeks K & O both became convinced that cutting them was for the best. Today was the big day.
It turns out they are so happy with their loc-cuts! (And I am too!) Their hair looks so healthy and their short locs are so strong (which will be great for sand, sun, and chlorine this summer!). It was a good decision. But a dramatic change!
BEFORE:
AFTER:
This week was K & O’s annual “Heaven on Earth Week” (their own title for Lehigh Basketball Camp). This was their third year of doing this camp, and it is truly one of the best weeks of their year. It is right up there — NO JOKE — with Christmas week and their birthday week. I am not even kidding.
100 basketball-loving-boys, a slew of idols coaches, a TON of sweat, and nothing-but-pure-basketball 8:30-3:30 Monday-Friday. This is Kyle and Owen’s idea of heaven. On Tuesday Kyle announced: “Instead of school all year and basketball camp for one week, I wish that it was basketball camp all year, and school for one week.”
I, however, don’t think I could handle that. I simply could not possibly handle the food production that would require.
As this past week progressed, I found myself shocked and awed by the sheer consumption of food they had going on. And believe me, at this point it takes a LOT to shock and awe me where my boys’ food consumption is concerned. I have blogged often about this subject over the years– the sheer volume of food these two put down. But during the week of basketball camp Heaven on Earth their food consumption jumps to a whole new level. (They are hustle hustle hustle non-stop on the court — in fact, Owen won the “Mr. Hustle” award this year for the second year in a row; can you just imagine how many calories they are burning each and every hour of this week?)
It takes a lot to fuel these basketball-loving twinados. It occurred to me two days ago that I should be somehow recording this for posterity sake. In the past two days I’ve tried to document their food intake. Here, for the sake of preserving history, are my notes from the past two days of food production:
TWO DAYS IN THE LIFE OF: Fueling the Twinados for Basketball Camp Week
note: I signed them up for the camp’s Gatorade program– that includes all-you-can-drink-Gatorade all day long. This year I also signed them up for pizza lunch. You can buy as much or as little pizza as you want your kids to have (pizza by the slice). I signed them up for three slices each, each day. So, they drank Gatorade all day and ate 3 slices each for lunch.
Day #1:
Breakfast: two eggs over easy, 3 slices thick-cut bacon, a pile of blueberries, OJ. Owen also has a Boost Plus, in addition to his breakfast, every morning because he needs the extra protein, calories, and fat.
After-Camp Snack: in addition to what you see below, they each had a very large glass of milk and a banana.
Dinner: grilled teriyaki salmon, grilled zucchini, watermelon, and penne with spinach and white beans. For the record: Owen ate 4 pieces of salmon that night. FYI: that is over a pound of salmon (that is a lot of salmon; it kinda makes my stomach turn just thinking about eating that much salmon in one sitting).
Late Night Snacks: Kyle ate a bowl of black raspberry ice cream that night. Owen ate two (yes two!) mint chocolate chip Klondike bars, then had to get out of bed later claiming that he couldn’t fall asleep because he was “so hungry.” He proceeded to eat three (yes three!) bowls of his favorite cereal (Kashi Heart to Heart Warm Cinnamon Oat cereal).
Day #2:
Breakfast: homemade waffles (note: they each ate two of these), smoothies.
That particular morning their smoothies = high protein plain greek yogurt, a handful of fresh kale, a handful of fresh spinach, 1 whole apple, 1 whole banana, a few chunks of frozen pineapple, mango puree (as amazing as it is, even to me, these guys don’t care at all that the smoothie is bright green, with a very thick texture, with no added sweetener whatsoever. They just slurp it right on down without even batting an eye.
After-Camp Snack: a huge pile of very sharp cheddar cheese, sliced salami, and grapes. In addition to what you see below, they each had a large glass of milk and a Nutrigrain cereal bar.
Dinner: grilled steak, sautéed mushrooms, mashed potatoes, steamed green beans (we also had grilled asparagus that night, and although Meera loves it, K & O have always had the gag reflex from asparagus so I don’t make them eat it). Note: after eating everything you see below, Owen came in after dinner claiming he wanted “more steak.” He proceeded to eat another half a steak before getting ready for bed.
Late Night Snacks: Kyle ate a bowl of black raspberry ice cream; Owen ate a chocolate dipped, nut-covered Drumstick ice cream cone.
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This morning, after we dropped off the boys at basketball camp, Meera and I made a grocery store run to re-stock. She saw this box of glazed donut holes near the check-out line, and wanted to get it for her brothers as a treat for the end of basketball camp week. This afternoon she presented it to them. They were beyond thrilled. I gave them each a huge glass of milk to go along with it. 15 minutes later I returned to find the box completely empty. Whattha?!?!
Here they are, watching a movie, this afternoon in their delirious post-donut-hole, exhausted post-basketball-camp-week state:
I am delirious and exhausted too. This food production gig is heavy-duty. Braydon is taking me out to dinner tonight so I can sip a cold glass of white wine and eat something delicious that someone else made.
Oh, and today is the 21st — Happy First Day of Summer!!! (And Happy 44th Anniversary to MorMor and MorFar!!!)
Photo from yesterday, texted to me by Cristina, from The Cup (Meera’s favorite place on campus: the campus ice cream shop!)
While her brothers were in basketball camp all week, Meera was at home having her own awesome first week of summer. I lined up a series of her favorite babysitters for a few hours each day (lucky for us some of her faves are taking summer classes!). Meera did lots of crafts, took lots of walks, and ate lots of ice cream. She also had her first major allergic reaction of her lifetime (note blotchy face = hives = diagnosed today by our pediatrician as serious allergic reaction to something — who knows what — started Zyrtec today and starts Prednisone tomorrow morning). Ahhhh! Summer glorious summer! (allergic reactions and all!)
Our summer is off to a good start.
Here’s a quick re-cap of the past couple of weeks:
The Last Day of School ~
The last day of two 2nd-graders and a pre-schooler. Onward and upward! The last day was a half day. I picked ’em up and took ’em out to their favorite lunch: Hibachi ~
We’ve managed to pack in quite a few lasts in the last bunch of days:
Last Little League game of the season ~
Last playdate of the school year ~
Last swimming lessons (the bambinos took swimming lessons every week for this past semester) [note: this here is one wacky pic, but it is the only one I have of the entire stretch of swimming sessions] ~
Last parental work trip of the academic year (phew!!!)… Papi had a string of work trips over the late spring and we were all happy when he got home from his last one — Meera most especially misses him terribly when he is gone ~
We weathered the storm of “lasts” quite nicely all things considered. We woke up on our first official day of “summer” (i.e., first day of no school) to the most torrential downpour and flash floods we’ve had since moving here. I could not get over how hard it was raining. The bambinos were in their pjs and I sent ’em out there to celebrate the first day of summer break. They went cray-z. (That makes their mama proud; I love a kid who can go wild in the rain; I was always that camp counselor who was first out of the cabins for puddle jumping, with all my little campers like little ducks stomping right behind me. Big warm rain + happy free kids = the best.)
That was a nice start to summer. But, for the boys, the start of summer is most symbolized by the newfound freedom to stay up late watching Red Sox games. This is their happy place:
Summer for Meera means more time to toodle and doodle. This is her happy place:
Summer means more time to read ~
(Kyle brought home this award from school the last day — I am very proud of this for/with him. When he discovered that I had taped it up to the shelf along with all of their sports awards, the message was received loud and clear that this award is a BIG HUGE DEAL to Mama.)
Summer means laid-back dinners outside (we broke down and bought a grill a few weeks ago; we just couldn’t take it not having one. Grilling = Mama’s happy place.) Dinner with shirts off, happy, hungry from playing deep into the evening in the sun. Nothing says “summer” more than that. [note: this here is another wacky pic of the bambinos — but somehow it paints the perfect picture of the imperfection.] ~
And summer means walks (including walks to the fairy forest!) after supper ~
I believe strongly that in the best case scenario summer should include getting sufficiently bored for creativity to set in. If the start of our summer is any indication, this summer will include a lot of creativity. Sufficient boredom (“dead time”; “unstructured activity”; time to “do nothing”) is a prerequisite for the kind of rich play I’m talking about here.
Late afternoon pedicure in the bathroom sink is a good sign of sufficient boredom ~
Mid-morning picnic in pjs on the deserted dorm’s hallway floor is a good sign of sufficient boredom ~
I also believe strongly that in the best case scenario summer should include water. Lots and lots of water. Of all kinds of varieties.
{Note: despite the fact that I miss our pool a lot, the bambinos have not mentioned it once on their own, and seem to not miss it much at all. In fact, when I ask them straight out, “Do you miss our old pool?” they respond simply with, “Sorta.”}
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P.S. Summer is also a time of eating. Lotsa eating. I can barely keep up (the demand often outweighs the supply on summer days). Speaking of eating… our girl turned a big corner upon turning 5 — the other day, for the first time ever, she ate her entire sandwich at Subway for lunch (the Subway “kids size” – her usual: turkey and cheese on wheat with cucumbers, tomatoes, green peppers, and mayo). She was rewarded with a chocolate chip cookie for dessert. She made her brothers proud — Owen especially could not have been a prouder big brother of his sister’s momentous feat. (Of course, her brothers were eating an entire 6-inch each by the time they were 5, but we didn’t feel the need to mention that to her).
Onward and upward! Growing, playing, summer fun in the sun and rain. As my dad is famous for saying, “This is going to be the best summer ever!!!”
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