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K & O are suddenly — and I mean very suddenly — totally completely interested in weddings and marriage. They have never been to a wedding. And up until about a week ago they had virtually no awareness of weddings/marriage (at least as far as I could tell). This was the kind of thing that was so (so, so, so!) off their radar. But suddenly, like literally overnight, they became totally intrigued. It happened in a precise moment.

It was Friday afternoon. I end work early on Fridays to pick the boys up from school at 1:00. We came home, it was a rainy day, I put Meera down for her nap, and the boys and I started baking. We made “magic bars” (7 layer bars) for Owen, and we made blueberry muffins for Kyle. While we were waiting for them to bake we sat down together at the table to have a drink of juice. Kyle started it. He said something along the lines of, “When me and Owen grow up we will not live in this house.” This is not an unusual sort of thing for Kyle to think about/say. I said, “Oh! Where will you live?” He said something about how they are going to live in New York City and that I will come visit them there a lot. I said something about ‘I wonder if you’ll live just the two of you, or if you’ll live with other people too?’ And he looked at me in total shock: “Who would live with us????!” I said something like, “Well, I don’t know, maybe you guys will want to get married someday?” “Who will I marry?” asked Kyle. “I don’t know,” I said, “maybe a nice man or a nice woman that you decide you want to spend the rest of your life with.” Slightly disturbed, he said, “But I want to spend the rest of my life with Owen.” I remember there was a pause there. And then Kyle said something like, “Wait, you married Papi?” And I said “Yes.” And that is how it began. Something clicked. They had lots of questions.

I went and found a framed photo from the day Braydon and I got married, and brought it to the table. They’ve seen photos from our wedding before, but K & O have never been interested. But now they were. They wanted to know all about it. What a wedding is, what marriage is, who is at a wedding, what happens at a wedding, etc. They wanted to know about these things generally, and they wanted to know specifics about our wedding. We talked about it awhile. (Just for the record: I told them “two people get married when they decide that they love each other so much that they want to live together and spend the rest of their lives together” and I told them that “any two grown-up people can get married.” Note: I’m 100% counting on full and total legally sanctioned marriage in all 50 states for any/all people of any/all sexual orientation by the time K & O are “grown-up.”)

And then… I asked them if they wanted to watch a video of Mommy and Papi getting married. A VIDEO?!!! WHOO HOOOO yes-sir-iiiiiii they wanted to watch it! Such a thing exists?!! Let’s get to it ASAP. And so we did. We sat there, in the family room, on the couch, and watched the wedding video together. The entire thing. They were enthralled. They were giddy. They were beside-themselves-with-excitement. They were completely in love with seeing me in a white gown and veil. The veil, especially, was a huge deal. About halfway through the video I offered to show them the actual veil (I have always had it hanging on my bureau mirror in our bedroom but apparently neither of them had ever noticed it before). We paused the video and ran upstairs. They had me wear the veil, sitting on the couch, for the remainder of the wedding video. Once the video was over they each got to try the veil on. Kyle loved it but was too nervous he’d ruin it or break it or wreck it. Plus, he said, “it itches my head!” Owen, though, wanted nothing more than to wear that veil for the rest of his life. Itchy head was sooooo worth it! (Ah, learning it young– the price of beauty!) The magic bars and muffins were long done by now. Here they are, sampling their baked goods:

Over the weekend the wedding-craze became even more entrenched. They wanted, badly, to see me in my actual wedding gown. They were thrilled to discover that it was stored (unbeknownst to them) in an air-tight-sealed-garment box underneath Owen’s bed. I was very tempted to just rip it open and put the dress on for them. But Braydon, always the voice of reason, was very against the idea because he didn’t want to ruin the preservation seal. We looked, for a long time, at the dress in the box (luckily there is a see-through plastic top on the box). The boys were into it. When they got under the bed to push it back under there, Owen discovered another box. In it: wowie!–the shoes I wore on our wedding day!! Braydon agreed that the shoes were fine to pull out. This —one pair of wedding shoes, two ecstatic boys– started what is quite possibly the closest we’ve ever come to World War III in our house. I solved it quickly, though, by digging deep into my closet and pulling out a pair of “Bridesmaid Shoes” that I had worn in a friend’s wedding. The “wedding shoes” –both pair– have been a huge hit ever since:

Funny little tidbit to note: Kyle is so strangely smart sometimes (like, literally, smart about strange things). Within less than one minute of putting my wedding shoes on he said, “These shoes are soooooo beautiful!! But Mommy! Could you even see them with your beautiful wedding dress so long?! Could anyone even see them????!” “No,” I said, “you couldn’t even see them because of my long dress.” (Alas, my son! The sheer nonsensical intricacies of bridal fashion!!!!) “Oh Mommy,” he said, “WHAT A SHAME!” (Yes, my dear, WHAT A SHAME!)

A Very Important Historic Date: March 1, 2009:

Our current favorite weekend lunch spot is Chipotle. The whole family loves that place. Braydon and I each get a carnitas burrito, fully loaded. Kyle gets a “burrito bowl” with carnitas, black beans, rice, cheese, pico de gallo, and sour cream. Owen gets a size large cheese quesadilla. And the whole family gets chips & guac to share. Saturday was a big huge day for me because I had the pleasure and honor of introducing my one and only daughter to chips & guac!!! Some readers who know me IRL (in real life) will understand what a serious big deal this is. Some readers who know me IRL know my love of chips & guac. Some readers who know me IRL can imagine how exciting this beautiful moment was for me. Some readers who know me IRL understand the importance of Meera learning to love chips & guac. And yes!!!!!!! She liked the chips & guac (a good, good, good sign!). Here are my boys, witnessing their sister’s momentous occasion:

P.S.

This post will serve as a little appetizer for what is brewing on this here blogspot!!!!!…

…drum roll please…

Coming next week: FOOD WEEK on the J-M BLOG!!!

This has been a long time coming. I’ve always allowed anonymous comments on our blog because I’ve wanted to be open to questions/comments from people who might not be able to go public (a good example is an adoptee a while back who was posting questions and comments to our blog that she did not feel comfortable having her adoptive parents read). But at this point it has basically come down to this for me: either I stop the blog altogether, or I try blocking anonymous commenters and see how that goes. I just can’t stand the negative and harsh comments coming from the pathetic anonymous commenters any longer. I am the kind of person who can get 20 wonderful comments, but it is the 1 hurtful one that gets stuck in my head. I’m just like that. And in the interest of self-preservation, I need to defend myself a bit from it. Do you have any idea the guts it takes to post something like I did last night? Do you have any clue how vulnerable that makes me feel? I blog, and make our blog public, for the reasons I wrote about recently in this post. But waking up this morning to what Anon-at-10:01 wrote… it is just like waking up to a kick in the gut. It stings. It touches on deep nerves. And surely, the author of that comment, if they are human, must know that.

Dear Anon-at-10:01,
You don’t know my kids and you don’t know me. Reading our blog does not make you knowledgeable about us at all. If you were my kid’s teacher, or if you were my mother, or if you were our nanny, or a friend-of-our-family, then your opinion would matter. We work closely with our real-life-community to raise our three kids. But you, you have absolutely no idea how amazing my kids are — and you have absolutely no idea how challenging they are to parent. I did not ask for your opinion. In the future, have the guts to tell us who you are… or don’t leave a comment at all.

I’ve changed our blog settings to no longer allow anonymous comments.

Someday, long from now, when I’m well rested, and these days are far behind me, I may laugh at days like today. But, today, there is no laughing. It was a terrible, terrible, very bad day. A Top Ten ‘I-Must-Be-The-Worst-Mother-In-The-World’ Day. An “oh dear God how are we ever going to get through this?” day. A “someday maybe we’ll laugh at this, but right now it is hard not to cry” day. The boys were in rare form. They are wild (always), they are rambunctious (always), they are challenging (always), they are the most ‘energetic’ kids around (always), they are full-of-it (always), but they usually are not bad. They are good boys with insane amounts of energy. But they aren’t (usually) bad boys. Today they were bad boys. Excuse me (I’ll try to rephrase that…), they had bad behavior. Very bad behavior. It started from the moment they woke up. They were all over each other, throwing tantrums left and right, fidgety and agitated. Nothing went right. I’ll skip over all the gory details and just get straight to the horrible climax.

Our plan was to meet up with our good friends the Kulps for a playdate at Jungle Fun. From the second they saw Joy Lin the boys were crazed. Competing for her attention and affection; off-the-wall-wild; disobedient and –it seemed– determined to see how far they could push us (us = their parents). They hadn’t seen Joy in a while, so it is understandable that they were excited, but they could not contain their excitement… which was a problem. And then it got bad. Owen got a Time Out (sitting on the bench at Jungle Fun) for pulling a girl’s hair. I was mortified that he’d do that (pull her ponytail to the point that she cried), made him apologize to her, the whole nine yards. We should have left right then. Because it got worse. The manager of Jungle Fun came up to me to tell me that Kyle had bit — yes, BIT — a girl. We found her, crying with her mother, with an ice pack on her back. The bite was not bad, and admittedly, the girl was milking it for all it was worth, but still… it was a bite. A BITE from my 4 1/2 year old son. A bite from my child who hasn’t bitten anyone (other than his brother) since he was about 18 months old. I was horrified. Beyond horrified. Kyle cried hysterically as he said sorry to the girl and her family. He sobbed, “I need to kiss the owie for her to feel better” but the girl (understandably) turned down his offer. I apologized up and down to the mother — who let it be known that she was (understandably) not pleased. And then I gathered the boys up faster than I ever have, apologized to the Kulps for having to leave early, and I marched the five of us out of there about as quickly as humanly possible (with Kyle crying hysterically the entire way). It was a scene. And the thing is, our family — just being the unusual combo that we are — is always a scene (which just makes the whole thing feel somehow worse…)… but this, this was a different and completely embarrassing (humiliating!!!) scene.

The boys were told, on the ride home, that we would NEVER, ever, for the rest of their lives take them to Jungle Fun ever again. And we mean it. And they know we mean it.

Just as peace was starting to set in back at home, I did a very stupid thing. I let Meera hold a peanut (like, in the shell). She somehow bit off a tiny piece, which got lodged in her throat, and she began to choke. Braydon had to perform choking-infant-back-thrusts to try to dislodge it. She was o.k., but it took her almost an entire hour to recover. During that hour she was crying, lethargic, and just generally pathetic. Once she was really o.k. (I got Owen to play around with her to get her to laugh… which he did… and she ‘came to’ and was back to her happy normal self), I cried hard. Sitting at the dinner table, looking at my three precious ones, with tears springing out of my eyes, all I could think was “OH MY GOD, THEY DRIVE ME CRAZY, BUT WHAT WOULD I EVER DO IF SOMETHING HAPPENED TO ANY ONE OF THEM?” Braydon hugged me and told me that my baby is fine and that my boys are going to be o.k. I have to have faith that he is right. And I have to believe that someday I’ll be laughing. But today was a (bad) day to remember.

Meera Grace is 9 months old today. The photo above is pure Meera. All happy, all the time. She has got to be the world’s most ridiculously easy baby. She still sleeps unbelievably well– 2-3 hour nap each morning, 1 hour in the afternoon, in bed around 6:30pm and awake around 6:30am. For the past few months she had been getting up 2-3 times per night to eat (a quick feed and then back to sleep), but over the course of this past month we’ve seen this starting to change. Every once in a while now she’s waking for only one bottle. And the other night she slept from 6:30pm-3:45am, the longest stretch she’s ever slept. She wakes up happy. Even in the night, she just fusses barely a bit, to let us know to go in. In the morning she’ll lay in her crib talking to herself for 30-45 minutes before she’ll even begin to fuss for us. Putting her to sleep is about as polar opposite as you can get from our previous baby-sleep experience (ah hem, K & O); we change her diaper, feed her a bottle, read her a book, close her curtains, lay her in her bed, kiss her, say we love her, and walk out. That is that. Sometimes she’ll coo and chit-chat a bit, sometimes silence, but either way she’s sound asleep usually within 5 minutes. It is unreal. And this is just one example of how much of an ANGEL BABY Miss Meera is. I wish I could complain of something about her (it only seems realistic that there should be something to complain of), but truly, she’s pretty much angelic about everything. She just is one cool cat, always up for anything, always going with the flow, always mellow and happy. She has three big tricks now: 1) clapping, 2) pointing with her right pointer finger, and 3) waving hello and goodbye. Over the course of this month she gradually gave up nursing… to the point that now she’s barely nursing at all (maybe once a day on average), and she’s loving her bottles. Her current favorite foods are frozen cut up pieces whole-grain bagels, Earth’s Best brand baby food spinach and potatoes, and of course her all-time favorite: “baby rice and beans” (baby rice mixed with pureed green beans). She’ll try anything and we’ve started experimenting with all sorts of things: pieces of pasta, chunks of fruit, steamed carrots. She’ll dabble in it all. She’s got six teeth (2 on bottom, 4 on top). Her favorite thing in the world is still her brothers. She laughs, squirms, and kicks her legs like a mad woman just at the mere sight of them. Owen, especially, is her best bud. She thinks he is absolutely hysterical. Her favorite time of day is 12:40pm because that is when she leaves (with either Margie or Mama) to go pick up her brothers at school. The school pick-up is, for sure, the highlight of her day. And I don’t think there’s ever been anything quite as heart-warming to me as seeing the threesome reunite after a few hours apart each school day. Seriously. It is CUTE. She loves the stroller, loves the backpack, loves the bath, loves the car, loves the kitty. From as far as I can tell, there isn’t much this girl doesn’t love. She really loves being tickled. And she loves loves loves all her little baby toys. Favorite hobbies are: 1) grabbing on, playing with, and chewing on the brim of Papi’s baseball hat whenever he’s wearing one, and 2) grabbing on, playing with, and chewing on Mommy’s bracelets whenever she’s wearing one. We’re such suckers for this girl that we’re even known to wear hats just for her (B), and take off jewelry and let her have it to gnaw on (H)… (what can I say? the girl likes bling!!! you’re not going to see me standing in her way). She still doesn’t roll over (!!!!!!! LOL!!!), and shows zero interest in doing so (?!!), but she sits, stands holding on to things, and is trying to crawl (although she’s still got a long way to go with that!). This month the pink Bumbo seat has been retired; Little Miss gave it up and let us know it (screeching and screaming if we tried to sit her in it). It feels like all the real baby-baby stuff is slowly starting to disappear as our little one approaches the 12 month mark. God help me when we celebrate her first birthday. I can barely stand the thought of it. We say everyday that we wish our little chunky monkey chub of love would stay just like this forever and ever and ever. Oh why can’t it be so?! Happy 9 months to our sweet Meera Grace!

A family friend (a good friend of MorMor and MorFar’s) recently travelled to Haiti on a medical mission trip. While he was there he got these bracelets for Kyle and Owen, and then sent them to us upon returning home. They each have two bracelets — the first say their names, and the second say “Site Soley” (Cite Soleil, in Creole; the place where K & O were born). We were so delighted to get these bracelets in the mail, and the boys wanted to wear them right away. This has got to be one of the nicest things that anyone has ever done for our boys. A very special gift.

These were taken about a month ago, when we had a bit of snow on the ground. The boys got such a kick out of pulling Meera around in the sled. Meera liked it too.

For 2 or 3 weeks now K & O have been wanting to sleep together every night. It is fine with us, as long as they behave at bedtime, which they have been. Big Elmo was recently re-discovered (Kyle found him one day, deep in the back of Owen’s closet) and we’re having some sort of Big Elmo revival around here (his popularity seems to wax and wane but right now he’s big on the scene)… to the point that he’s even a bedfellow from time to time! This is big, since the beloved Honey Bunnys and Lovey Lions are normally the only (and the always) sleeping companions of K & O. Owen’s bed is pretty crowded when all 7 of them are sleeping together: (from left to right in photo above) Kyle, Honey Bunny, Honey Bunny’s twin brother, Big Elmo, Lovey Lion, Lovey Lion’s twin brother, Owen. Sidenote about this photo: K & O are such deep sleepers that when I snuck into Owen’s room, turned on the light, and took this photo with full flash, neither of them even stirred.

“A life recorded is twice precious, first the experience itself and then the memory of it full and sweet when we read it again later.” -Unknown

Yesterday we went to the Penn Museum’s 20th Annual Celebration of African Cultures. This was our second time going to this. The first time was when the boys were 2, (click here ) — that, by the way, was what inspired K & O’s obsession with African drumming (click here). The first time we went as our ‘big event’ for Black History Month 2007. It ended up being so awesome that we swore to ourselves that it would become an annual tradition for our family. We were sad to miss it last year, though, because we were in Florida. This year I made sure it was on our calendar far, far in advance. It lived up to all of our grand memories of it. Wow. Seriously, it was awesome.

At the Harambee Drum Ensemble and Harambee Choral Ensemble the boys were absolutely mesmerized by the drumming and star-struck by the drummers (some of whom were kids only a few years older than K & O). The drumming was so loud you could feel it pounding through your body. Now, that is the kind of thing that my boys live for! The place was so crowded that I ended up sitting on the floor with Kyle and Owen. Best seats in the house. Braydon and I had wondered how Meera would do with it all (thick crowds, big noise, lots of commotion; we also had her in a ‘real stroller’ for the first time [i.e., not our jogging stroller that she goes in for walks], and skipping her afternoon nap). Right away we saw our answer: she loved it (the stroller and the Celebration of African Cultures), and she did great the entire day. It was awesome.

Our experience at the Women’s Sekere Ensemble was probably a Top 20 K & O Moment of all time. First of all, these three women know how to make some amazing (like, pulsing through your body amazing) music. Secondly, K & O know how to make three women feel amazing. When the boys were little they had a board book that they loved (it was their absolute favorite for a stretch of many months) called Shake Shake Shake. It was about the shekere, an African gourd instrument. I don’t know if it was because these women were playing shekeres or what, but K & O went crazy for it (Meera loved it too, but the boys were waaaaaaaaaaaay into it). At first they were standing on the side watching. Right away the feet were tapping. Then the hips started hippin’ and that morphed pretty quickly into some moving and shaking. Kyle couldn’t contain himself any longer and before we knew it he was dancing in the middle, putting on quite a show for everyone there. Pretty soon Owen was in the center too — and these two boys danced like crazy for the rest of the performance. Braydon kept asking me, “Is this alright? Should we be letting them do this?” I kept watching the crowd, and especially the three women of the Women’s Sekere Ensemble, for cues. The crowd seemed to be loving it– nothing but smiles as they watched K & O. But the women of the ensemble were the make-it-or-break-it for me– and they were over the moon with K & O’s joy-of-their-music. The looks on their faces were priceless. The ladies were watching the boys dance to their rythms, and the ladies’ faces were truly lit up, their eyes literally sparkling. I could see what a thing it was for them and I just didn’t have it in me to try to stop the boys from it. After the show the three women actually managed to find us somehow in the crowd. They wanted to know the boys’ names and before we knew it the five of them (the three ladies, K, and O) were carrying on like they had known each other their whole lives. The women had lots of wonderful things to say about our boys. For me, this kind of affirmation is enough to last me a long time (like, many months probably). They were just absolutely delighted with K & O. After talking awhile we ended up walking to the next performance with them. As we walked through the winding halls of the museum Ky Ky was holding the hand of one of the ladies and Owen was chatting away walking side-by-side with another one of the ladies. Braydon and I trailed behind with Meera in the stroller. I seriously don’t know who got more out of this time spent during and after the show by the Women’s Sekere Ensemble — Kyle and Owen, Heather and Braydon, or the three ladies of the Women’s Sekere Ensemble. It was awesome.

But the highlight of the whole day was the grand finale performance by the Universal African Dance and Drum Ensemble. This group is unbelievable. It is a high energy heart pounding show of drumming, dancing, singing, and even stilt-walking, by people ranging in age from about 2 (seriously) to about 92 (seriously). It was awesome.

As soon as we got out onto the street Owen jumped up in the air and shouted, “THAT WAS SO FUN!” We walked to the parking garage and got into the car. Driving home all I could think was, ‘Is this normal?’ Is it normal for four year olds to love stuff like this so much? Is it normal for 8 month olds to seem to genuinely enjoy this? There is no way for me to gauge how exceptional or unexceptional it all is. It is all we know, so, in that sense, it is ‘normal’ for us. All I really know is that to me, on days like that, it feels like we’re hitting on all cylinders — and it reminds me that normalcy is very much overrated.