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After we read books to the boys and say prayers, Heather walks Owen to his bed and I tuck Kyle in his own bed. We “talk about the day” (which means I rehash some highlights), which we’ve done for the last couple years once we realized it helped Ky Ky fall asleep.

Recently I’ve started to say to him when the “talk about the day” is done: “Do you have any questions for me?” Sometimes he does, sometimes he doesn’t. Well, to be more specific, I am not sure he really understands what a question is exactly. This was last night’s event:

Me: Do you have any any questions for me?
Ky: Ummm. Ummm. Yes.
Me: Ok, what are your questions?
Ky: My question is….
Ky: I like airplanes.
Ky: I like boats.
Ky: Those are my questions for the day.
Me: You like airplanes and boats?
Ky: Yes.

And he snuggles in, sucks his thumb and heads off to sleep with a little grin on his face.

Braydon works from home most days these days. I’m at my Lehigh office and/or on campus a lot (except for Wednesday and Friday afternoons when I pick the boys up from pre-school at 1:00 and spend the rest of the day with them at home). On Mondays, Tuesdays, and Thursdays Alex picks up the boys from school. Sometimes she takes them on outings or errands, other days she brings them straight home to play there. I always email Braydon during the “Alex Afternoons” to check in and find out what is going at home, how the boys are doing, etc. Braydon’s responses to my emails — from his desk at his home office, to me at my desk at my campus office — always paint me a good little snippet of a picture of what’s up with my boyz and what’s happening on the homefront. This is the email I just received from Braydon, 1:40 pm, 12/6/07 [note: the other night I internet-ordered one of the boys’ Christmas presents– a double-seater glider swing for the swingset]:

Things here are good. At 1:20 I got a call from Alex: “I just pulled up outside, there is a big box in the garage that I think is a Christmas present. I am getting them out very very slowly if you want to come grab it.” So I went out and brought in the swing! It’s in your office. Kyle doesn’t miss a trick however – I heard him say to Alex, “can I talk to Papi for a minute?” he comes in and says “Papi, I saw a big box, I can open it?” They are playing in the basement with the cars now…

They each weigh over 40 pounds. And it is pure bone and muscle. They are built. They are heavy. Especially when you try to pick them both up at the same time. Long ago I gave up on carrying the two together. But he — my man, my hero, (I know girlfriends, I’m sorry, I shouldn’t brag, but he is The Man when it comes to dad duty and he is It when it comes to being Papi to twin 3-year-old Haitian-American-bundle-of-love-and-boundless-energy-boys), he can still carry two.

Over the past couple of days I have received this email from a few different people. Because Braydon and I both work full time, we can’t host a child right now. If you can think of anyone who might be able to do this, please pass this along.

Dear Friends,

We have just been given the best Christmas present ever. We have been granted free surgeries for Hydrocephalic children. This is a child who need brain surgery. I need to line up around 24 host families in the Philadelphia or Willimington Area. Host parents are families and/or churches who donate there time and love for a child who is coming to the US for life saving surgery. The child is a minor and can not be accompanied by a parent (according to our US laws).

Children will be in the US for 2 to 4 months. Host parents take them to all doctors visits, hospital stays, and care for them as if they were their own child. There are a thousand different questions I will try to go over some of them. Please feel free to contact me with any others I have not covered.

Does the child need their own bedroom? No a child can share a bedroom with other children. Do we have to be licensed? No but host parents fill out an application form and agree to a finger print, background check. What is the cost to us? We charge nothing but ask for day to day needs be met by the host family. (Clothing, food etc.) Plane tickets – We fund raise for each child needing a plane ticket. It cost between $2,000 to $6,000 per child depending on where in the US we need to fly the children. This covers the Medical Visa Cost in Haiti, plane tickets for the child and escort who will be bringing them to the US.

We love it when a church gets involved with just one child. The whole community gets together for a child. It is an awesome feeling to help a child who will for sure die without our help. Knowing you helped save a life. All of these children have loving parents in Haiti to return to. Imagine if you may being a parent and knowing you can not get the care for your baby. Your baby will die without surgery. Imagine how helpless of a feeling this is. The parents love their children so much that they bring them to us begging for help. They hand them over to us (and I cry sometimes more than they do) they cheer me up by saying “No cry God send you it will all be ok”. Taking the child back to that family whole and able to live life is the most amazing thing. We are blessed that God has chosen us to help these precious Haitian Children.

Please pass this email on to any church group, friend or family member who lives in this area. We need to line up homes ASAP as we just received the ok from the Hospital and Doctors involved. My contact information is below. May your Christmas be as blessed as ours.

In Christ Love and service, Vanessa

http://angelmission shaiti.blogspot. com www.AngelMissionsHaiti.org

Vanessa A. Carpenter 4071 Barley Drive Salem, VA 24153

1-800-409-7948 answering service / 540-380-4588 home / 540-580-9721 cell

One of the CDs we listen to regularly in the car right now is 20 Great Kid Songs: Music For Little People’s 20th Anniversary Special Collector’s Edition (click here). Song #4 on the album is “This Land Is Your Land” by Woodie Guthrie. This CD’s version of the song is a really cool version by Willie Nelson and friends (lots of ‘friends’ including many verses sung in various musical/regional styles and some verses sung by children). Kyle loves this one track and requests to listen to it over and over and over and over. For the past couple of weeks I have noticed him listening to it intently in his carseat when I play it for him. His favorite part is a section where one of the verses is sung in Spanish. He waits in anticipation for the Spanish verse and will often say, “Mommy, where is the Spanish??!!” I’ll say, “Just listen, it’s coming.” And sometimes he’s say, “I’m so excited! I can’t wait!” Over the past few days he’s been starting to sing along for sections of the song. He enunciates the words very strongly, follows the tune almost perfectly, and sings many of the verses’ with confidence– especially the chorus where he really belts it out with precision: “This Land Is Your Land, This Land Is My Land, from California, to the New York Island, from the Red Wood Forest, to the Gulf Stream Waters, This Land Was Made for You and Me.” This afternoon, on the drive home from their school, I noticed that Kyle was able to sing — word for word (including the verse in Spanish) — the entire song, almost perfectly.

These past few days K & O have been in such good moods. As anyone who knows them well knows, they tend to be very happy and very animated most of the time. But sometimes we seem to go through little spurts where they’re even more happy and animated than usual. These past few days there has been very little fighting and picking-at-each-other, there have been lots of giggles and belly laughs, and even more hopping-skipping-dancing-jumping around than usual. They’re in a good place right now. Braydon and I enjoy these little spurts immensely, it makes it feel like everything is o.k. regardless of whatever else is going on in our lives. And Owen— man, he is eating up a storm. Being so sick last week he lost more than 3 pounds (a lot for a kid with zero percent body fat). This week he has eaten an incredible amount of food. Yesterday he ate 7 pieces of french toast for breakfast. Today he ate 5 pancakes (plus guzzling down cup after cup of milk of course, and a glass of OJ here and there too). Two nights this week he ate the same amount of dinner as me. One night we had made pizza with a thick crust – Owen and I each ate 2 slices. Another night we had fish, rice, green beans and fresh dinner rolls – Owen and I each ate the same serving portions of all of it (except that he ate 2 dinner rolls and I only ate 1). The boy can eat. Anytime. But this week he’s setting records— even for himself.

We’ve known this about him for a long time — basically, since the first few days we spent with him: our son has a seriously positive attitude. This boy is ever the optimist. Without a doubt this is true about Kyle too, but Owen is this way to an extreme. And because I’ve been thinking so much about Owen’s incredibly positive attitude these past few days, I want to focus here on just him. The first moments we spent with Owen it was clear– He left that orphanage with an intense look in his eyes, a smile on his face, in his Papi’s arms, and never looked back. At eight months old, with two perfect strangers and his twin brother, leaving everything they’d ever known, Owen never hesitated, not even for a second. He was bright-eyed and ready to see the world. He was thrilled with everything we introduced to him. A brand new formula? Awesome! Pureed green beans? Cool! Being carried, hot and sweaty, in a front-pack baby carrier for 8 hour stretches at a time in Port au Prince? Let’s go! No problemo. His first morning home he babbled and screeched with joy like there was no tomorrow. Owen never fussed over a wet or dirty diaper. I don’t think he ever cried once from falling down when trying to learn to walk; he’d bounce right back up and try it again. To this day he rarely even bats an eye when he falls/slams/smashes/scrapes down; he always jumps right back up, laughs it off (quite literally), brushes himself off (quite literally), and goes for it (whatever it is) again in a heartbeat. More than once I’ve discovered trails of blood droplets through the house and had that be my very first clue that Owen was hurt. “My God!!!” I’ve screamed, when I’ve followed the blood-drop-paths to find Owen with his bloody cuts. “WHAT happened Owen???” His typical response: “It is just a little itty bitty blood Mommy, I’m O.K.!!! Don’t worry!” I’m not kidding. The boy is amazing. Every day is a “BEAUTIFUL day!!!” for him — rain, snow, sleet, or hail. Every field is a “PRETTY field!!” Every person is “Soooo NICE!” Everything is so good. This recent bought of sickness has brought with it, for me, a new-found sense of awe at Owen’s incredibly positive attitude. Despite a long stint of barf and diarrhea (almost 5 full days straight), he was unbelievably upbeat the entire time. He’d puke a ton, then look up at us and announce cheerily, “I just throwed up a little itty bit!” He’d be sitting on the toilet for the 100th time that day and shout out to us cheerily, “I’m o.k.! I’m just having a little bit of di-rea, but I’m O.K., and my belly is JUST RIGHT!” He’d be lying on the couch in misery, but when asked which video he’d like to watch next (in a long, long string of the same old boring videos) he’d say cheerily, “I know! How about Diego!?! That would be a good idea!! Diego!!” Really, the whole thing is mind-boggling. Yes, Braydon and I tend to be the-glass-is-half-full-kinds-of-people. Surely that is part of it. But Owen takes it about 1,000 miles further. Owen is a glass-is-overflowingly-full-kind-of-person… even when the glass appears to everyone else to be quite empty… and Owen is this way to an extreme which I’ve honestly never previously witnessed. Owen is, if nothing else, a child with a seriously positive attitude.

Real quick post to give the link to a longer post about K & O’s dreadlocks. We’ve received a few comments/emails lately asking for info on the boys’ locs. If you’re interested in knowing more about that, check out this post from March, 2007 — CLICK HERE. If you have questions leave them here in the comments and I’ll try to respond. Remember, though… we are *not* black hair experts!!! ;0 We’re just two white parents trying to do our very best with our sons’ hair.

What a long strange trip it’s been.
Monday night at around 5:30 Owen started saying he felt “sick in his belly.” At 6:00 he had one of the biggest, nastiest vomit attacks I’ve ever witnessed. Let’s just put it this way: Our boy does nothing in moderation… and at age 3 it is impossible for him to aim while puking (it just goes everywhere).
And that was the beginning of the end.
It was the end of our Thanksgiving Week plans, the end of our Thanksgiving Week house-guests (MorMor, MorFar, Stina, Tim, and Sadie), the end of our Thanksgiving Dinner (which 17 people were planning to join in), the end of our Thanksgiving Week festivities, the end of the Thanksgiving that we had spent the past few weeks planning and prepping and preparing for.
It was the beginning of a four-day marathon puke and diarrhea fest for Owen, the beginning of a four-day laundry and Clorox and Febreez fest for Braydon, the beginning of a four-day sad-lonely-without-twin-playmate-and-jealous-of-the-sick-twin-getting-all-the-attention fest for Kyle, the beginning of a four-day long-strange-trip for the Mama.
Tuesday morning we were hanging in there, hoping it was a 24-hour flu bug.
Wednesday morning we were hanging in there, hoping it was a 48-hour flu bug.
By Wednesday night all of our Thanksgiving plans were cancelled, our plans were dashed, and we were just hoping it would end soon. And we were buckling down for the long haul.
It was quite the Thanksgiving.
It was quite the day-after-Thanksgiving.
And here we are, Saturday morning, seemingly out of the woods. We’ve been throw-up and diarrhea free for about 16 hours now. We’re thinking the coast is clear. The fog feels like it is lifting– at least a bit. Although we are left in a gross kind of haze, feeling dazed and confused and stir-crazy and cottage-feverish.
Which, we fully acknowledge, is much better than feeling flu-feverish.
We are left feeling truly thankful for so many things. But what are we most thankful for this Thanksgiving 2007? We are most thankful that only one of the four of us got it. So far.
Knock on wood.
Happy Thanksgiving! Enjoy your Turkey Day left-overs for us! Over here, we’ve got plenty of leftover Saltines and Pedialyte (that we’re hopeful we won’t have to use on bambino #2)! ;0

Sunday morning Kyle and Owen were delighted to wake up to see snowflakes falling outside their windows. Our first snow of the season! Granted, it was just the lightest of a snow dusting, but it was snow nonetheless. And it was beautiful outside. The silence and peacefulness of a real snowstorm, but with the slightest, daintiest of snowflakes falling gently from the sky. Outside, in their pajamas and boots, it was magical for the boys. (the top three photos are of Kyle; the bottom three are of Owen).

Saturday we went to Jonah’s 4th Birthday Party. K & O love birthday parties. Many of their friends from school were there, and the boys had a blast– of course. But this party was actually super fun for everyone — it might have been the best kid-party I’ve ever been to. No joke. It was at a really nice Japanese Hibachi Restaurant. At first, when we got the invitation, I thought ‘oh my gosh, a restaurant party -like, at a nice restaurant- for 3 & 4 year olds?! It will be mayhem!!!!!’ But the kids were mesmorized by the exciting live hibachi cooking (including lots of fire!) and the result was that I’ve never seen so many little kids behave so well in a restaurant– ever! A highlight for K & O was that we got to sit at a table with their three best friends from school. Kyle sat right next to his very best friend (click here for backstory), and the two of them were so cute together laughing and playing and trying to use their chopsticks. Kyle kept saying “Will, you see that?! You see that Will?!” (when the Hibachi Chef would do something dramatic), and “Will, you like the chicken?! I love the chicken Will!! You like the noodles Will?! I love the noodles Will!!” Turned out to be a really great time (and the really great food was just the icing on the cake— so to speak)! Kyle did announce later, however, that for as much as he loved Jonah’s party, he still wants to have his birthday party in our backyard.