cousins

Watching Auntie J*en brings back memories.

The 4 cousins are starting to become more aware of each other, which is a lot of fun. The girls are good buddies, as they spend their weekdays together, but N and O really love seeing them at family gatherings too. N talks about Zo*e all the time.



I think Z*oe and Au*gust need a couple of lassos..













The boys have gotten really brave on the tire swing , making mama a little nervous at times. While it may look like life was just grand on this beautiful fall day, the boys were actually very cranky and obnoxious this particular morning. Preschool is still going well, but there is some fallout from all the change. We've had lots of limit-testing and drama around here lately, with moods swinging like the DOW. I'm pretty used to these phases by now, though, and know they will pass. As usual, the drama comes on the cusp of many emerging new skills.



It's enough to wear anyone out.

Omie and Opa

Opa was in town on a business trip last month, and stayed an extra day and night to see us all. It was a lot of fun seeing the three of them cutting it up together.



Lucky us, Omie came a few days later and stayed for a week. She came for Mea*gan and Ph&il's wedding. I have lots of great pictures of that, but I'll wait to post them until Mea&gan has actually seen them.

We took a nice fall hike to the "Giggly Hills" by the Mississippi River.



The boys were really sad when both my dad and my mom left, which was kind of heartbreaking to see. No^ah keeps asking me how many "sleeps" there are until Christmas, when we go to the "Big Red Barn". "Many, many," I tell him. Today he followed up with, "How many sleeps until I'm old and dead?" I told him that was too many to count.

disusting

On our way in to our Early Childhood class today, we stopped in the school’s restroom. The boys have long ago decided which stall belongs to which boy, but there was a lady in one stall, so the boys took turn using the other one. N was first, and after washing his hands, he took it upon himself to grab a couple of papers hanging sticking out of my bag. “What is this, Mama?” he asked. “Nothing, N,” I said, “It’s just a letter from our bank.” “Hey, O!” he yelled across the restroom, “Mama got another letter from her bank!”

As the nice teacher exited the restroom stall and moved to wash her own hands, she looked at me a tad piteously, I thought. Poor thing – in arrears with the bank again; times are tough all over, I imagined her thinking. Now, I don’t know where N got the another part, but the letter from our bank wasn’t addressed to me personally. It was a form letter the likes of which many Americans are seeing (that is, perhaps, if they’re lucky) reassuring me that our bank is in sound fiscal health with low and broad exposure to risk. Well, good, I guess. Yeah for us.

It wasn’t until O had washed his hands too and we were actually leaving the restroom that I noticed that Noah had another piece of mail in his hand, now partly ripped open and damp with water from the sink. I glanced at the contents of the familiar-looking envelope, and noticed that it was a letter from our mortgage holder, Country*wide Ho*me Lo*ans. Country*wide bought our mortgage from the bank that first issued it, and was, at that time, America’s biggest private mortgage company. It was then taken over by Bank of Am*erica, which is now the U.S.’s largest commercial bank by market capitalization, owning what is, as far as I can tell, still America’s biggest private mortgage company.

Countryw*ide has been criticized, sued, and fined in recent years for everything from horrible treatment of Katrina survivors to widespread and aggressive predatory lending and systematic discrimination against minorities by improperly steering them to high-cost loans, in addition to internal corruption and violation of labor laws. At least ten states, including California, Texas, and Florida, worked together and filed suit against Country*wide, accusing them of unfair and deceptive practices to get homeowners to apply for risky mortgages far beyond their means. This suit was recently settled as part of the Bank of A*merica acquisition. From 2005 to 2007 Cou*ntrywide CEO Ang*elo R. M*ozilo sold much of his CFC stock, realizing $291.5 million in profits, resulting in a class-action suit being filed by shareholders alleging securities violations. In May 2008, Mo*zilo made the news by accidentally hitting "reply" instead of "forward" in response to an e-mail from a Country*wide customer under mortgage stress. His reply described the customer's plea as "disgusting".

Last month, Countryw*ide endeared itself to our little family yet more, by sending a letter to our household (and all its’ other mortgage customers) to inform that some of their employees had stolen identity information that contained social security numbers and birth dates. Co*untrywide apologized in the letter and offers free credit monitoring for 90 days. to be on the safe side, I recently applied for this thoughtful free service, and thought that perhaps the letter in my hand was a follow-up confirming our enrollment.

But no. The letter N was messing with was the same as last week’s, and the one from the week before that. It offers our family “fast cash for strapped budgets”, and suggests we call a 1-800 number as soon as possible “before time runs out” so we can consider the many flexible refinance options available to us and get quick cash in our pockets. It suggests that we refinance our perfectly good, non-ARM mortgage at an excellent interest rate, the kind that isn’t posing a great risk to either our family or our economy (as long as we don’t lose our jobs or need to move), and trade it in for a high-risk version or some cash in exchange for the little bit of home equity we have left. Because we should all feel entitled to take advantage of Country*wide’s “long standing commitment to lowering the barriers to home ownership and to educating consumers”.

The parent discussion topic today was anger. Somehow, we managed to keep the subject to the kind of anger we feel towards those we love and not those who profit from greed or run our country.

those quotable boys

No*ah yesterday, upon squirting cherry tomato seeds all down his front: "Now you need to dump some compost on me and water me with the hose!"

Later he told Ollie, in that Little Stage Director voice of his, "Now you will be my little kid!" Ollie responded with a "Baa, baa". No*ah: "Why are you making that silly noise?" Ollie: "I am your goat kid! I was playin' a joke on you!" In typical preschool once-is-funny-fifty-times-is-even-funnier fashion, they then reenacted this hilarious scene until dinner...

I am obsessed with fridge pickles, and make no pretense of ever being able to make enough to get through winter with what I make now. No, my boys and I love all things pickled -we would probably eat a pickled chair leg eventually-and once they're made, we can't leave them alone until we have a sour stomach. So I couldn't resist one more batch.

Here's the recipe -adapted from a library book recipe which suggests more honey and less salt.

Refrigerator Pickles

2/3 C Apple cider vinegar

1/3 C Water

3 T Honey

1 T Salt

1/2 C onions

3 lbs. pickling cukes or 4 med. cukes

2 T fresh dill or 2 t dried (I think dried is actually just fine)

Pepper

Boil vinegar, water, honey, salt. Remove from heat. Slice cukes and onions thinly; if using large cukes, peel in alternating stripes, slice in half, seed before slicing. Place cukes and onions in a heat proof bowl and add hot liquid. Cool. Add dill, fresh pepper and put in fridge. Let rest at least 24 hours. Will keep 2-6 months in glass jars (or 2-3 days, if you live in our household).

harvest time in the city

Our potato harvest - we planted 1/2 pound of fingerlings in early summer and ended up with 10-12 pounds of potatoes, harvested over the space of 6 weeks.

Fingerlings galore.

Raspberries are plentiful this year after a layer of chicken compost

I am up to my elbows tomatoes and green beans. Our freezer is full of quarts of sauce.

N got really into cleaning out the coop and spreading new wood chips today.

Ollie seems to stick better to tasks that involve small motor skills, like peeling an onion. It took him about 20 minutes to peel a shallot, but he did it perfectly.

We talk a lot these days about how "both boys need to say it's OK to play that game". In this case, O was giggling madly.

N says, "this is my Obama bike rack."

Preschool continues to go very well, though our (unrelated) early childhood class leaves much to be desired this year. There are some very rowdy 3.5 year old twin boys in there, and believe it or not, they aren't mine. All kids have bad days, but the parents of the four twins in question could not have cared less that their kids were running wild and being totally disruptive during the group time, ramming into things and screaming. It was nuts. If it continues this way, we may quit. It would be too bad, because we've gotten so much good out of these classes so far. The boys were a little shocked, but they otherwise had a fabulous time, and the teacher is one of their favorites. They seem to just love classes and group activities of all kinds all of a sudden, which is good timing, don't you think? (Omie -you can join us next week - maybe you can set them straight.)

we are big schoolboys now!

We were fairly well prepared for the boys' first week of preschool. We'd read some stories about school. We visited the week before. I also made up a picture schedule and posted it for them. We have a lot going on all of a sudden, and having a visual image of what is happening in the week seems to help the boys make sense of it all. Time is such confusing this at this age -they're leaving the days of everything-in-the-moment behind, but don't have it even close to all figured out yet. Now, O says "the days go around and around, and the weeks happen again and again!"





We've spent every last moment we can enjoying the parks. (The weather since then has turned cold and wet.)



Grandma and I took the boy out for a last-night-before-school iced cream cone. I think this will make a fine end-of-summer tradition.




Then Grandma watched the boys while J and I attended the All-Parent Meeting, where we discussed such important issues as "What do I do if my little boy doesn't wipe himself yet?" (It wasn't me asking that question, but I didn't blame her for asking either) We also got a very good impression of the wise and warm woman who will be their teacher for the next year.

The next day, J and the boys rode the bus to school. N was very cuddly on the bus, and requested that J hold his hand as he walked into the room, but then they hung up their backpacks and barely looked back.

I picked them up in the car on the way home from work. I was able to watch a bit through the one-way mirror, and the kids were all sitting neatly on the rug in a semicircle with their backpacks already on. The room was totally picked up, and the whole school had an atmosphere of nurture and calm. The kids were dismissed one by one, and the boys were very happy to see me. Miss Karen told me they'd had a fantastic day.



O*liver was very excited to have his picture taken, but his brother was not.

They were beyond exhausted, but on the way home, O told me that when he grows up, he will be a teacher. At dinner, N told a story and sang a song from school. They are very excited to go back, and tell people that "we are big schoolboys now!"

thoughts just before the first day of preschool

(this was written yesterday, but i had computer issues and couldn't publish, so forgive the tenses. -M)

The boys and I spent an idyllic Saturday morning running a couple of errands and visiting yet another playground. J teaches on Saturdays, so it’s just the three of us, but I have so enjoyed these morning this summer. We’ve made it a mission to explore all the playgrounds within a couple of miles of us, and we still aren’t done—this city is simply full of great playgrounds.

Today’s stop was at one of the nicer city parks, just beyond the highway, right between the hospital where the boys were born and the apartment Joel and I lived in after we were first married. It was also right next to the dog park where I sat in the sun with a large cup of decaf after being liberated from 13 weeks of bed rest. Sitting on that bench watching Joel play fetch with Ivy was one of the happiest days of my life. We’d just come back from the doctor, who remarked that the boys would come any time now, but that they’d be fine. We knew then that the worst of the fear and difficulty was probably over, and after an entire winter inside, our Spring was here.

As the boys played on the equipment this morning, I kept looking one direction toward where my life with J began and the other where our life with the boys began. After we shared a snack on a shaded bench, we took a hike in the direction of the hospital. It was a bit too late in the morning to walk all the way up to the hospital, but the boys were pretty interested to hear that they were born in the tall building we pointed to. We made it as far as a bench facing the river, and I sat down while the boys played with sticks and acorns. Three and a half years ago, Joel, my mother, and I brought O to that same bench for his very first time outdoors. He’d been officially discharged, even though we all stayed in the NICU “family room” we’d been given to stay in until N was discharged too. It was an early Spring, and on our walk, I was amazed to see the late March greenery already emerging. I was still on a walker due to weakness from bed rest, too unsteady to carry O that far, so J had O in a sling, the proud daddy going down the elevator with his newborn baby son in a sling. O was still tiny in that blue cotton sling, yet so round and robust compared to even a week earlier. The three of us were almost giddy to have him there, to be doing something so normal, without machines, wires, or nurses. I remember sitting on that bench, looking at him, taking him from J and holding him against my shoulder and my mom and J stood overlooking the river, thinking, “Look what we pulled off, what we have been given.”

The things we do for our children before they are born are an act of faith. Sure, we bond with them in some way during pregnancy, but we also go into wanting or not wanting to have children based on an idea, a preconception that seeks to justify one direction or another taken. Some of us even have lists of pros and cons—we can’t really help but do it. But parenthood just doesn’t look all that good on paper, and if we were really honest, the pros wouldn’t add up to enough for a lot of us. In reality, the love we have for a child, the reason we might be willing to sacrifice a lot to become parents is nothing like that, nothing so rational or easy to explain. Nonetheless, some tiny part of many of us seems to know and take the risk that we’ll really want this thing we somehow want more than the world, on some level we can't quite understand in advance. And then, to have this child (or children!) born, and know that that drive indeed led to this—this miracle! I always wonder if a parent’s love for a child is perhaps like a tiny taste of what God’s love for us must be like – extravagant, complete, there no matter what we do, not based in any way on reason or merit, but on something divine that transcends all of that. Parenting can have incredible highs and lows, but I never doubt that my love for my children is unconditional.

Today, N and O spied a chipmunk, and following my advice to stay still and quiet if they want to see wildlife, they lay on their tummies and watched excitedly. They chattered back and forth, laying there in front of me, and I started to cry, first a little, and then a lot, grateful for their immersion in something other than me so I could just deal with my messy self and get it together. I did, eventually, but only after realizing that one of the greatest gifts of that difficult time (and there are many, and sometimes I’m still learning about both the gifts and losses) was realizing from the beginning that these kids are resilient and strong. After they finally came home with us three and a half years ago, I didn’t worry that they’d perish in the night like so many new parents understandably do. I didn’t once stand over their cribs and wonder if they were still breathing. I followed the rules, lay them on their backs in approved bedding, but after everything we’d already gone through, I just felt like they’d be OK, that we’d be OK, that we can handle what comes our way. And we are, and we do.

Today, three and a half years later, I had the same feeling I did before: "Look what we pulled off, what we have been given.” These big, healthy boys full of stories and questions and laughter, such good company to each other, so easy to love even when they’re maddening. And now, the four of us aren’t just surviving anymore, trading off care and sleep; we are also a family that enjoys each other’s company. What could ever have been asked of me that I wouldn’t do for this, right here, right now, or for the laughter this morning as the four of us ate breakfast, for the chance to sing to them before a night’s sleep? An overwhelming thought, but full of gratitude all the same.

Eventually, I wiped my unexpected tears, and initiated our going home game. “What are you going to have on your sandwich when we get home, boys? I think I’ll have a gravel sandwich.” In turn, they responded with the same creative silliness, linking their hands around each of my thumbs. “A toilet paper sandwich!” “A screw and nail and bolt sandwich!” “Snails on toast!”

The boys start preschool next week, and I’ve been a bit more emotional about all of it than I expected to be (can you tell?) The boys are on the cusp of a new kind of independence, one that involves a whole world that we will only see a part of. We have chosen a good school with good people who will given them a particular experience that we cannot. It’s been easier to feel like they’ll be fine when they’ve been in the care of dear friends and family, but this type of separation is new for all of us. Our boys are resilient and strong, even kind and curious and ready for new experiences. They are ready, and even if it takes a little reminding in the way of a park bench under an oak tree, J and I are too.

more of summer's delights

Some parents like to debate whether age 2 or 3 are harder (me: neither -18 months was hardest), and while it's true that the fussiness and drama do not disappear with the "terrible twos", I also really love this age, with both boys. I love to hear them think out loud, to reason, even empathize, to see them collaborate (and they really do get along very well), and to have long conversations with them. Even if some of those conversations are now about death, or human reproduction. I love to see them ride trikes, hop, and hang from the monkey bars, even if the other mothers look at them, then look at me, and just say, "wow". I'm loving being around my friends' 3 year olds too --I think I just really like this age. Anyway -the stuff they say is so darn funny right now, that I really ought to write more of it down.

Yesterday, N was trying to get O to sing a song with him ("Go Now In Peace", a sweet little round they learned in church that we often sing to each other as we leave the house), and O was going a little too fast for N's liking. N said, "You are going much too fast, Ollie! Is that necessary? I don't think that is necessary!" Today, Ivy was barking in her kennel, and I said that I'd be right back after I went to get her. As I was putting on my Wellies (Rain! We finally have rain!), O said, "It's OK, Mama - she fell silent." Is it obvious that we read a lot of books?

Last summer, I was still doing the twin mom head-bob at the playground much of the time: one-two-one-two, always counting kids and putting out fires. This summer, I bring a book or a magazine, looking up regularly while keeping my place with my finger. Last summer, a trip around the block still took at least 30 minutes, and we still used the stroller much of the time. This summer, we often leave it at home, and J and the boys take buses and trains all over town. They ride trikes, and Big Wheels, and even a two-wheeler with training wheels. A trip around the block can happen in minutes.



(And stop snickering about those helmets, you Dutch relatives, you. Nobody looks out for bikes here, and I hear way too much about head injuries in my line of work.) Of course, O is just as interested in examining the bike as riding it... Thanks to Auntie Me*agan, they know names of bike parts I don't know.



Last summer, no nap meant brace for an afternoon of mayhem and tears. This summer, they can usually roll with it, and they often just play in their rooms anyway.



Especially if they can eat cake instead. I love how they sit all up in each other's business and not minding a bit. I wonder if they'll ever stop doing that? Will they sit together on one bed in their room when they're teens, 90 degrees to each other with one boys' legs on top of the other's? I can kind of picture that.


Speaking of getting in somebody's business, would you look at Zo*e trying to knock a boy well over twice her weight off that ball? O was totally oblivious.





Both boys adore corn. Tonight I was brushing N's teeth, and he asked me to "leave the corn in, please". Um, no. Both boys just saw the dentist, who said they have fantastic teeth, both in surface and structure, and that they could well get through childhood without a single cavity and no braces. I don't want to mess that up.




Here is N trying to play in the sandbox, which is being overtaken by our "volunteer" squash. The plant has 8 acorn squash on it - all due to a stray seed that apparently didn't quite make it into the compost pile. I wish more things worked like that: Didn't quite make it to the bank? Free money for you! Miss the laundry hamper? Have some free socks and underwear!


Playing "smash Daddy".


N has a habit of playing just beyond where the swings would konk him in the head - a habit I've been trying to break all summer.


Compared to years previous, the boys have little interest in toys, at least at home. They prefer sticks, and rocks, and leaves, and straws, and pretty much any tiny random object. When they're really lucky, Daddy will even help them fashion these random objects into vehicles. This one, of course, requires direct supervision. Daddy drives way too fast if you don't watch him.


O is a diligent corn shucker. N was upset I wouldn't let him use our hairbrush to brush the silk.


We had a huge National Night Out party a few weeks ago. From the boys' perspective, this meant that all the grownups on the block went crazy, blocked off the street, made all the cars go away, cooked a bunch of good food, and played in the middle of the street. Their wooden shoes were very popular. Rarely a day goes by that a boy doesn't mention that amazing day that we all hung out in the middle of the street.


And here we have N going "tomato hunting", which he often asks to do after naptime. His saying that gives me visions of him shooting little yellow cherry tomatoes with a tiny little gun, like from the Playmobil sets my brother used to have as a kid...

I hope you're finding equally worthwhile ways to spend your time as summer wanes. The boys start twice-weekly preschool next Friday, the Sunday School year starts next Sunday (and I'm teaching the K-2 kids this year), and their early childhood class the week after that. Busy, busy, but I know that we'll all be happier having someplace to go as the colder weather comes.
A far cry from leisurely playground afternoons in the sun, though.