Never a Dull Moment The Johnson-McCormick Family Blog ~

Monday morning we all went to school/work late because we had a Lehigh photo shoot on campus. This was our second session with this photographer. During the first session, she did photos in our apartment. She spent quite a bit of one-on-one time with the bambinos while a Lehigh PR-Writer interviewed me. Somehow she developed this really great rapport with K,O,M. They are so relaxed around her, and with her taking photos of them. I was sort of dreading the second session, because it was scheduled to take place on the central part of campus (which is much more public than the area where we live). But somehow, we were all quite at ease, and it felt smooth and easy. For a period of time she took photos of just the kids– and I couldn’t help but snap photos of the shoot. I’ll be curious to see how the pics come out, and how Lehigh will use them… This aspect is a little crazy part of this Living-On-Campus gig. At least it has (so far) been relatively painless for us (and maybe we’ll even get a decent family pic out of it!).

Friday night we went to the circus! The Ringling Brothers Barnum & Bailey Circus — The Greatest Show on Earth! — came right to Lehigh, on campus, at Stabler Arena. It was awesome!

The bambinos had never been to a real circus before, and had no idea of what to expect. They were blown away. As with all things like this, I’m not sure which was more fun: watching the circus, or watching the bambinos watch the circus.

Our dear friend Beth was supposed to join us for the circus and the weekend. But on Friday, during her drive from Connecticut to Pennsylvania, her car broke down on the highway… which led to a cancellation of our weekend visit… which led to major disappointment/sadness/upset on the part of the five J-Ms (and Beth). We’ve missed Beth greatly this weekend– especially at the circus.

We didn’t want Beth’s circus ticket to be wasted, so we quickly switched plans and brought Meera’s babysitter Niomi, and her roommate Ivy, with us to the circus. They joined us for dinner before too (I had made a crock-pot of vegetarian chili in preparation for Beth’s arrival). We ended up having a great time, despite missing Beth.

I hadn’t been to the circus since my parents took me when I was a child. It was unbelievably fun! Truly– The Greatest Show on Earth!!! A super, super, super great night!

Anyone who knows Meera knows Bunny too. “Bunny Bun” is Meera’s beloved lovey/attachment object/constant companion/most valued possession. He is Meera’s best friend (and yes, interestingly enough, despite its pale pink plushness, it is and has always been, according to Meera, a “he”). Bunny Bun has always gone everywhere with us. Meera has never slept a wink without Bunny Bun. Meera has never gone to daycare/school/a playdate/doctor’s appointment/or any appointment/or any event ever without Bunny Bun. Bunny Bun is a stinky, matted, permanently stained despite being washed weekly, loved-beyond-loved lovey.

We have, like any family who has kids with serious attachment objects, had our fair share of crises related to Bunny Bun. Meera has hid him in hard-to-remember places. Meera has temporarily lost Bunny Bun. And we’ve gone on some crazy-hard-core all-hands-on-deck family searches through every square inch of the house/garage/yard/shed/pool/hotel/boat/plane/train/automobile to find him. One time Meera even accidentally dropped Bunny Bun off a pier into the ocean and we had quite the family bonding experience as the five of us frantically-adreneleine-pumpingly worked together to fish Bunny Bun out of the sea before he was swept away to the depths. But never have we actually had to put Meera to bed without Bunny Bun.

Tonight, when it was time for bed, Bunny Bun was nowhere to be found. We went through our usual family Bunny-Hunt to find him. But we just could not locate the Bun Bun. Through intense interrogation of Little Miss Meera (interrogating a 4-year-old is a lesson in diligence, patience, and cunning), we came to discover that Bunny Bun had been left at school. There were tears. And sweaty palms. And some snippy words exchanged between two parents (nothing like a lost Bunny Bun to provoke some serious marital stress). After a phone call between Braydon and Meera’s teacher, we came to find out that Bunny Bun, was, in fact, probably left on the playground.

The thought of Bunny Bun sitting out, in the dark and damp, all night long, on the school playground, 20-minutes-away-from-home, all alone — and the thought of Meera trying to make it through the night without him — was enough to push all five of us over the edge.

Braydon promptly jumped in the car to make the trip, at 8:00pm, to the school, armed with our most powerful flashlight, and a determination to find that Bunny Bun that only a father of a four-year-old-with-a-serious-attachment-object can know. And find it he did. Sitting right there, all alone, in the dark and damp, on the playground, was Bunny Bun. His text home, “I HAVE BUNNY!” was received with probably one of the biggest waves of exhilarated relief I’ve ever experienced. No joke.

Bunny Bun is safely tucked under Meera’s arm as she sleeps soundly in her bed, all safe and sound, home sweet home, with Bunny Bun. How sweet it is.

Well, here it is. Our 2012 Tree Photo. For what it’s worth.

I’m not sure how much longer this annual photo tradition will last. It was like pulling teeth to get us (all five of us) to make this happen. I think, in part, our hearts just weren’t in it because we’re in a new locale. And I think, in part, the kids are just simply getting older, and therefore more cynical/skeptical/uncooperative/whiney about posed photos. Not that anyone likes to pose for photos, but this year seemed especially intolerable.

We had put it off and put it off (we usually do it at the end of August, or early September). And finally, we just forced the issue. We all agree that we like having the annual official photo documentation of the yearly maturation of the bambinos. And we all agree that posed photos are pretty dang miserable. The future of the Tree Photo hangs in the balance. We shall see what happens next year.

At least, for now, we’ve got seven years worth of them! (click here for our Tree Photos)

p.s. And Mom– because I know you’ll notice– yes, Kyle is on the left. We forgot (again) to put him on the right. But this year, when we flip-edit the photo it looks really, really bad. So, we’re sticking with this one– for better or for worse.

Maggie and Eric came to visit — for the second year in a row — all the way from Wisconsin. Greg came too — for the second year in a row — from NYC. So, this was officially the 2nd Annual, hopefully of many. We had so much fun with our three weekend visitors.

Friday night out to dinner with Maggie & Eric (bambinos had a babysitter) ~ Saturday morning at Sayre ~ tailgating with Kelly and John ~ football game with lots of friends ~ queso dip and Spy Kids ~ many, many rounds of UNO ~ boys wearing out Eric in all-things-sports ~ lots of loving with Maggie ~ Breakfast Sunday morning ~ a beautiful fall weekend at LU ~ loud times ~ quiet times ~ silly times ~ serious times ~ happy happy happy ~ all good, good times.

Some relationships in this life are just plain special.

The J-Ms LOVE Maggie & Eric & Greg!

xoxoxoxoxoxoxoxoxo

Our downstairs neighbors are four sophomore football players. The bambinos really like these guys. K & O, especially, are loving having these four football players live right downstairs. Saturday Lehigh played Bucknell. Early in the morning (we’re talking 6:30 am — when the J-Ms are just quite literally the only people awake on campus), we tip-toed downstairs to tape a ‘Good Luck’ poster on our neighbors’ door. The game started at 12:30 that day. I was worried the guys might not see the poster– but my worries were subsided when, by noon, pictures of this poster were all over Twitter and Instagram. And then we watched as our neighbors played a really great game– one, in particular, started and then proceeded to have an awesome game day. They had felt the love! K & O are convinced it was the “magic charm” of the poster that made them play so well… and are now committed to doing it for every game for the rest of the season.

Snapped after hopping off the bus in Bethlehem.

These four glass sculptors have a new fan club. Many ooh’s and ahhh’s as they melted glass, blew bubbles into the glass, twisted, cut, blowtorched and created amazing Glass Christmas Trees.

Initially jaded and cynical artists, by the end they were standing at the rope pointing out all the different kinds of things they could do with the melted glass. Telling the boys about the temperature.  Telling me about their kids and how many sculptures they have to make for the upcoming season.

Local artisans. Love it. Kids loved it.

Anyone who knows Kyle and Owen in real life, and anyone who has read this blog for any substantial length of time, knows this about their clothing choices:

1. Kyle and Owen have never cared much about what they wear. With only one exception… that exception being…
2. Kyle and Owen have — from the time they could express an opinion — insisted on dressing as identically as possible.

That they have always dressed in matching outfits is no secret. Look back on this blog over the years of photos posted and you’ll see it over and over: matching outfits. I’ve been all over the map with this in my own mind. I’ve gone through phases (especially when they were toddlers) of thinking it was super cute; I’ve gone through phases of trying hard to get them to individuate with their clothing choices; I’ve tried to understand their deep desire to dress identical; I’ve tried to not think or care too much about it; I’ve worried about it; laughed at it; pondered it; and let it roll off me. Ultimately, I always let them do it, and helped them to do it, by buying the double-sets-of-clothing to make it possible.

I remember the year they were in kindergarten. They were six years old, getting really tall, sporting some pretty long dreadlocks, and wearing super-twinny-identically-matching outfits every day (down to the socks and underwear). I went through a phase then of feeling self-conscious, as their mother, about their clothing. I was worried that people would think I was some sort of crazy-psycho-twin-mom who insisted on dressing her (way too old for it) twins in matching outfits. I could only imagine the things that other mothers were saying behind my back when I went to pick them up at school. Who knows? Maybe none of them noticed, or cared, but for awhile that year I was feeling really self-conscious (read: paranoid) about it.

I decided to talk about it with their kindergarten teacher. She was/is one of the most insightful and gifted teachers I’ve ever known. She’s also a mother of twin boys herself. She’s also a Peurto Rican woman who is very in tune with minority kids at the school. I asked her, “So, what do you think the deal is with Kyle and Owen insisting on wearing matching outfits?” And she told me, point blank, “I think it is because they feel, so much, their minority status, and they feel stronger if they ‘match.'” Wow. It hit me hard. It hit me hard because it resonated with me so strongly. “I think you’re right,” I said. I told her that my inclination had always been to just let them dress this way until they no longer wanted to. I asked her what she thought. She agreed– “Just let them do it,” she said, “eventually they’ll figure it out and outgrow it.”

Ever since that conversation I’ve seen Kyle and Owen’s twinny dressing through that lens– at least partially. I’ve never drawn much attention to it with them, have bought the matching clothes to oblige them, and haven’t pushed them to dress otherwise. But I’ve always wondered when they’d let it go. And I’ll be honest: I’ve laughed inside my own mind imagining them going to prom in matching outfits– going off to college in matching outfits– starting their first jobs in matching outfits–

Until…

Drumroll please…

Get this! —-

Everything was chugging along as usual with their matching outfit thing. The night before we moved (August 17, 2012), before bed, they picked out — as usual — their clothes for the next day. And — as usual — they laid out identical outfits for themselves. They wore those on our moving day, Saturday, August 18, 2012.

The first priority on our moving day was to set up Meera’s room and K & O’s room. By the time Kyle and Owen went to bed that night (their first night in our new home), their room was completely set up, including all of their clothes in their dresser/closet. The next morning, our first day of living on campus, Kyle and Owen got themselves dressed. When they appeared in the kitchen I had all I could do to play it cool— they were dressed in completely different outfits. I did not let them see that my jaw just about hit the floor. I didn’t say a thing, and neither did they. We breezed through it like we had the years of matching outfits.

But I marveled at it, and wondered what would happen the next day.

The next day, they woke up and did it again— dressed themselves in completely different outfits.

They seemed totally 100% unselfconscious of it. In fact, they seemed unaware that they were even doing it.

They did it the next day, and the next, and the next. After a week or so I asked them, for the first time: “Guys, I’ve noticed that you’ve been wearing different outfits. You used to always wear matching outfits. Why the change?” They looked at each other, both sort of shrugged, and then said, completely nonchalantly: “We don’t need to do that anymore.” And that was the end of that.

It has been 8.5 weeks now and Kyle and Owen have not chosen matching outfits once. We’ve had a few conversations about it, but they have been short, and the boys have only reiterated that they “just don’t need that anymore.” When we went shopping for their First Day of School outfits, they picked different outfits. Last weekend we went sneaker shopping, and they picked different sneakers. Today I finally did some fall clothes shopping for them (it is finally getting too cold to wear shorts to school), and I was confident in picking all sorts of clothes that were not at all matching. Tonight, after dinner, I showed them everything I had bought for them. They were thrilled with it all.

They still share clothes, and like the same things. They just don’t want to dress identical anymore. And I think it is here to stay. We’ve turned a corner.

Sunday afternoon, walk in the woods behind Sayre, after brunch. Kyle and Meera ran up ahead. When we found them, we found them like this. Meera asked Braydon to take a picture. So he did.

We invited our neighbors over for Brunch yesterday. It was so much fun!!!

40 awesome students + 5 J-Ms + 1 beautiful Sunday = good stuff. We are loving getting to know these people, who are now our friends/neighbors/students, and we are loving watching our kids’ relationships with them develop. It is all very, very cool to witness and be a part of.

Meera insisted on getting dressed up for brunch. She was the only one in a party dress, but that was just fine with her. (In the photo above she is holding her new most beloved possession– an adorable hand-made crocheted ghost that one of our favorite friends/neighbors/students gave us yesterday). Kyle was not the only one who loved the baked french toast. It was my first time making it, but it will surely be top on the menu for all future brunches. I made a double batch but it was quickly completely devoured (the last few arrivals didn’t even get to have any)! Recipe at bottom of this post.

All three of our kids are social butterflies, but Owen most of all. There is nothing he loves more than having people over. And he is always (one of) the life(s) of the party.

And look! A picture of Braydon and me! Another one of our favorite friends/neighbors/students asked to take it, and we let him, and here it is! We might actually start getting more photos of us!

Not everyone made a craft while they brunched with us. But many, many did. Toward the end, however, the bambinos couldn’t be contained indoors any longer and the activities moved outdoors for football and scootering.

We are really excited about the Residential Fellows Program. As we start to settle in we are seeing how very real the possibilities are.

* * *

re: Baked French Toast — it was so good! I used the Pioneer Woman’s recipe. I doubled it, and added two extra eggs (so, 18 eggs total), and an additional 2 cups of milk (6 cups of milk total). Seriously easy and seriously delish!!! We also had a ham, 2 spinach quiches, 2 pumpkin/cream cheese cake logs, a huge stack of fruit-ka-bobs, a big bowl of clementines, and chips/dip/carrots, not to mention the oj, cider, pellegrino, coffee, tea, hot chocolate, etc….. and just about nothing was left…. one thing I’m learning– let me tell ya: college kids can eat!!!!!

Meera learns hopscotch

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K & O (and Papi) play 3-on-3 football

Yesterday was our house closing on 275 Valley View Road. It is over and done with now. We sold our house. Mixed emotions (to the point of emotion-overload/sensory-numbness) abound for Braydon and I. The bambinos, on the other hand, seem to be nothing but a-ok. Thank the heavens for that simple true fact. It is, really, the one and only thing that has keep us plugging forward on this journey for the past year. Ultimately, we are very sure, that this has been the right thing for our family.

Still, it is just absolutely crazy what we’ve done, and not a day goes by that we’re not reminded of it (because people — everyday — tell us, “I wouldn’t do that if you paid me a million dollars!”). I’ve finally learned, at age 40, to follow my instincts and let the rattling and shaking of what others think roll off me. But it doesn’t come easy for me. It is a daily struggle.

So, we closed on the house. We closed that chapter. We are officially fully in, 100% in, our new chapter. It is exciting, and scary, and it is calming, and unnerving, all at once.

And it has been a ton of work. Sheer physical labor, hours and hours of taking apart the entire material life that we knew, dissolving a home that I (especially me) had worked so hard to create. It has involved a lot of emotional, spiritual, psychological work. We’ve processed and processed until we can’t process any more. And here we are.

The day before the closing, I picked up the kids from school and took them for a final farewell to the “old house.” Braydon was in Chicago on a work trip, so I did it with them on my own. I tried hard to get them to talk about their feelings. But, basically, they were like, “Mom, we have talked and talked and talked about these feelings for a whole year! We have nothing left to talk about!!!” For them, it just is what it is now. And I am trying to learn from them to just let it be. Sometimes it is important to talk it through. Sometimes, no matter how hard you try to force it, there is just nothing else to talk about. And that’s o.k. So, they just played instead.

The boys jumped on their beloved trampoline. They miss it, but they say “it is worth it” to give it up for our new life. Meera wanted to swing (she misses that swing), but after awhile she was done with it and happy to just move on, leaving that swing set behind. She didn’t even look back. Amazing stuff. These kids are just so incredibly incredible that it just blows my mind sometimes.

Inside, with the house completely empty, they had their last dance party in the playroom. This was my favorite room of that house. I have always thought it was just beautiful; I love the light; I love the space; I have always loved that room. I watched them play and dance in there for quite a while. They loved the echo of the empty space as they stomped on the floor and sang at the top of their lungs.

We stopped the car at the end of the driveway for the bambinos to say goodbye to the two birch trees that sit at the entrance to the drive. They had climbed those trees and played in and around them for hundreds and hundreds of hours over the years. They had named the trees, long ago– “Lil” and “Frank.” Owen climbed up high in “Lil” one last time. He wasn’t sad or mad to have to leave her. Just happy to climb her one more time. With the windows rolled down in the car, they yelled as we drove away, “Bye Lil! Bye Frank!!” And that was it.

And then they just wanted to go home. They couldn’t wait to get home. Home is no longer 275 Valley View Road.

275 Valley View is now just a house that we used to live in.

Last night Owen and I were talking on the couch. He said, out of the blue, “Mommy, you thought we’d all be homesick when we moved. Remember? But I wasn’t homesick at all. Now, when I go back to the old house, I’m homesick for home. But I was never homesick here to go back there.”

It is amazing how time moves, chapters turn, things transform, closings happen, openings are found.

Owen took a whole slew of photos with my iPad yesterday. When I saw this one on the screen this morning, it took me a few seconds to figure out what was going on in it. At first I thought it was just Owen in the picture, then I realized it was both Kyle and Owen. (If you look closely you see that Owen is holding up the iPad, taking a picture of Kyle, in our messy bathroom, with the mirror in the background.) I feel like it is reflective of life for us right now. Everything is a bit confusing and scattered and it takes a few seconds to get a grip on much of what’s happening.

It is a phase of chaos and confusion for us right now as we walk through the final days of what has been a year-long journey for us. It was almost exactly a year ago that Braydon and I began exploring — in a very serious way — the idea of fundamentally altering our life. We had been talking about it for a few years, but it was October 2011 that we became very clear about actually doing something about it. And thus began the shift to: a) move onto campus via Lehigh’s Residential Fellows Program as LU’s first Faculty Family in Residence, and b) radically and dramatically downsize and rid ourselves of approximately 2/3 of our earthly possessions.

Here we are, a year later. We are 8 days from the closing date on our house (yes, that’s right). I am someone who does not believe it until it is signed, sealed, and delivered, so I won’t celebrate the house sale until 9 days from now. However, as we prepare to no longer own that house, and as we do the work to get every single item out of there, and deal with all that needs to be dealt with in a house sale, we are feeling the life shift very strongly.

It is unnerving. It feels like the earth under our feet is shifting as we try to get our footing. There is a sort of over-saturation at this point– and I feel a little numb. It takes a few extra seconds to figure out what is happening. And I know that I haven’t even begun to process everything.

I am confident that all is good, and that we are on track. But it is not completely easy.