About Me

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Maine, United States
Happily married for 14 years- celebrating the reality that our children are home

Wednesday, January 18, 2012

who'da thunk it? babies from the tropics love snow!

Garak was a little slow on the draw and missed his ride


looks pretty cute in his snow outfit though

such a biggie boy "Mama, Hayden do it myself"

Tuesday, January 17, 2012

Garak o-nee wanta dis Mommy

we are slowly but surely working on a photo scrapbook of the long and storied 2 trips to Uganda and back. I have finished that page that shows our last goodbye to the boys' families. the story they tell when they flip to that page is "Garak is crying becuz Garak don't wanta Mama Benny. Garak o-nee [only] wanta dis Mommy (patting me when they say it)" Then we look at the page with Hayden enjoying his time w/his family and sad to leave his auntie "Mama Johnny." Then pictures of them both crying when she said goodbye.  With his limited (but rapidly expanding) vocabulary, Hayden is able to clearly express himself around this somewhat emotionally complicated memory.  "Hayden isa very chad [sad] becuz Hayden wanta Mama Johnny, but lika come Mommy an Dah-ddy's ouche [house]."  This morning at breakfast Hayden spontaneously brought up the topic of wanting to go to Mama's Johnny's house and I thought to myself "okay here it comes. let's see how we can navigate this conversation."  However; he brought it up in reference to the photo book. I understood this after a bit of listening on my part. He was actually saying that he wanted to go back to her house and that's why he was sad in the pictures but he ended by saying "but Hayden loves a dis Mommy, 'Mama Mommy'[gesturing towards me]" Sweet stuff. Heartwarming stuff. Nice way to start the day.

Sunday, January 15, 2012

Garak's name is Garak

Today at church a man introduced himself to Garak and asked him "what's your name?" Garak shook the man's hand and responded "Garak's name is Garak."  There you have it.  Just to be clear about it.  This response is "classic Garak" in that it also demonstrates Garak's tendency to be quite verbose.  If you ask him a yes or no question, 9.5 times out of 10 he will reply with a paragraph --not much of which you can decipher but-- most of it is trying rephrase what you just asked him and give reasons for and against and explanations for why he does or does not agree with what ever you just said.  If you ask him to clarify and give you a yes or no answer he looks up at you bewildered and replies "yes or no."  Good times...
incidentally when asked his name by the same man Hayden replied "John, Johnny, Johnny-Hayden" so he is a bit less sure of quite who he is.  more on that later

Friday, January 13, 2012

It wul be for veddy veddy fun!

That what the boys say when they are excited in anticipation of doing something. It wul be for veddy veddy fun!  ie "Today Mommy is no going a werk an it wul be for veddy veddy fun an Hayden wul be cho happy!"
it's claws for celebration!
matching hockey shirts w/more presidents to open!

Hayden is so proud of the airplane he made w/Daddy

milk guzzler!

casual milk drinker/non-milk-drinker

going shopping
stickers on paper is overrated!

we are in the habit of taking tea together. they love it (these 2 shots are at Gramma Brimer's)

such sophisticated children we have. we have tea almost every day after lunch.

Sunday, January 8, 2012

F-A-M-I-L-Y...*sniff*

There is a song that my boys have on a kids' video that basically goes.
"F-A-M-I-L-Y (sung letter by letter spelled out)
FAMILY!!
When you're in my heart, you're in my family.
When I'm in your heart, I'm in your family."
Garak LOVES this song and asks for it quite often.  He shout sings along
"EH-E-AH-I-EHL-WY FAMILY!"
So last night for the first time Garak and I sang this song together without the video on. He was just cuddling me sitting on my lap and singing along with me right into my face.  He was just so delighted to be singing along with me.  Imagine the scene.  Singing with my son; I could have missed this moment.  So thankful for it.  After singing it a few times, I could not continue without crying.  How precious.