Siblings and best friends.....well, sometimes

Aspiring photographer.......

Sophia is very interested in photograpy. More specifically, she is interested in taking over the camera and taking the photos herself. Here are a few such examples of her attempts and they were quite decent. I did help steady her hand but she did the rest.

Sweet Sunshine

Some summer time silliness......

Book Worm

One of the things I have tried to instill in our kids is a love a reading. Colin and I read to them nearly every day and I have to admit I find it almost impossible to stop buying new books for them. Finding Keenan happily flipping the pages of a book warms my heart and makes me hopeful that reading will be an integral part of his life.

Sunny's Arrival

Approximately two weeks ago, we all trekked to Chicago to pick up Sunny, our foreign exchange student. It has been a period of adjustment but the kids really like her and she is excited to be starting school in a week.

Neigh fell down!

No photos to accompany this story, in my opinion, the retelling is a stand alone tale.

Keenan is obsessed with horses. He loves looking at the many photos of me jumping my horses that proliferate our walls. His pony ride last Halloween is still a source of pride for him and he loves looking at the pictures of him clinging to the saddle. So when the cross country phase for Olympic 3 Day Eventing was featured on the Oxygen channel a few days ago, I asked him if he wanted to watch it on Mommy's lap. His enthusiasm for the idea broke his face into a wide grin as he flew into my arms.

Now I have to preface this by saying that earlier in the day, I had previewed 40 minutes of the cross country event online. As many of you know, I am well aware of the inherent physical risks involved in this phase of the sport and I wanted to see if the course seemed to be a horrific replay of the Barcelona games, or a course that caused few, if any, casualties. In the 40 minutes, I only saw one rider fall and made the mistake of not taking into account the fact that the mercury would surely be rising as the day progressed and could well play a crucial role as the remaining riders rode the course.

Fast forward to 6pm where Keenan climbed into my lap ready to watch 'neighs go jump.' For the first hour, Keenan was transfixed, his gaze never wandered from the T.V. screen. When the network broke for commercials, he became agitated and would repeatedly ask me "where's neigh?"

Of course, the inevitable happened, as the cross country phase progressed, the temperatures in Hong Kong soared and the horses (and riders I imagine) started to show signs of heat induced exhaustion. Mistakes, on the part of both horses and riders, started to pile up and the falls began. Keenan would shout "Neigh fell down" which did not seem to bother him at first. Then the falls got worse and Keenan started to pick up on my instinctive reactions. He suddenly curled into me and tucked his little head into my chest and started to sob. I quickly decided to turn off the event, but not before yet another hideous fall.

It literally took me 15 minutes to calm him down. I tried to reassure him the horses were OK (although, in truth, one of the falls left me uncertain). I took him to our bathroom to get some Kleenex to wipe his tears and he looked up at the medicine chest and pointed, shouting "neighs need Bactine!" His big brown eyes turned to me for reassurance and I quickly took his idea and ran with it. I said "Oh, the horseys all got Bactine, and they also got Bandaids, really big Bandaids!" He quickly calmed down but for the next two days, he would ask me "did neighs get Bactine?" His concern carried over into the photos of me jumping. As we descended the stairs to his room, he would look at the photos and say "neigh gonna fall down." I had to reassure him many times that none of my neighs fell down (at least not in these photos).

Yesterday, I sought out the one event I was certain no horses would fall, Olympic Dressage. As Keenan sat in my lap, he looked a little apprehensive at first, but then he gradually began to smile and cheer as the horses danced graceful half passes and flying lead changes. He seemed soothed and even told me he wanted to go ride a pony, I was relieved, because I thought I might have traumatized him for life.

The entire incident fortified a feeling of Keenan that has developed over time. I am frequently in awe of our son's sensitivity and kindness. If Sophia finishes her strawberries first (one of Keenan's favorite foods, mind you) he pushes over his half full bowl to her and says "here Phia," he calmly watches her scoop out most of the berries into her bowl and isn't the least bothered that he is only left with a mere smattering when she returns it. I'm not saying that he doesn't ever get mad. He is quick to bop her on the head if she has taken one of his toys, but there is something so sweet and endearing about his demeanor. Our foreign exchange student, Sunny, arrived a few days ago and as he sat next to her at the dinner table, he was very vigilant that she got enough to eat, honoring her with dubious gifts of half eaten pizza. I'm not sure if disposition at 23 months is much reflection on who they will become as an adult, but I sense that Keenan may be a prince among men. One thing is for certain, he won my heart long ago.

Art Project for Sunny

The kids wanted to make some signs for Sunny, our foreign exchange student from China, to welcome her at the airport. The kids were thrilled to get their hands, toes, fingers and noses into this project. I think there was more paint on Keenan than on the paper.

Sunny arrives next week. We are excited to meet her and are hoping we have sufficiently recovered from the horrible cold we all managed to get in the past week which unfortunately, led to a nasty sinus infection for Colin. Keenan's creation is the top photo, Sophia's artistic effort is on the bottom.

Sprinkler fun

Sophia's 3rd Birthday

Sophia's birthday cake







New dress from Grandma

The cake aftermath

Paris, ce'st la vie!

The Eiffel tower shines an unusual blue in preparation for Bastille Day







Colin has been lucky enough to be flying a fair number of Europe trips lately.  I wish we could join him but these photos bring back memories of our trip together in 2002.

Sophia's 3rd Birthday Bike

Kids with hats

Sharing a laugh

Grandma comes to visit

These photos were from three or four weeks ago and are long overdue for posting.  Colin's Mom came to visit and the kids loved spending time with her.  I will be posting more from her visit but many photos were taken on another camera and another card which I have yet downloaded to this computer.  Bad blogger, bad!

Rainy day fun

All I can say is that I had two very wet kids after this puddle play.  I had never seen them quite so excited for bath time.  Oh well, got to try to have some fun on a rainy day.

Driving someone else's car

Our neighbor's son received this birthday gift from his grandparents.  Sophia and Keenan got to be passengers and then Sophia commandeered the jeep.  Sophia driving a car at age 3?  Heaven help us.  Actually, heaven help the neighbors.

Doggy See, Doggy Do....

I realize you probably can't see the text on Keenan's shirt, but it says "Puppy see, puppy do, puppy get in trouble too."  Need I say more?

Baby you can drive my car.........

As I have mentioned before, the kids are absolutely devoted to the Beatles.  "Drive My Car" happens to be one of the current favorites. Unfortunately, they seem to take the sentiment a little literally..........

New photos are forthcoming, really...........

There is no doubt about it, new photos are long overdue and so are timely updates. I will do my best to correct the error of my ways this week.

As I had alluded to in a previous post, we have had a lot of things in limbo as of late. Not that long ago, United announced they would be now grounding 100 airplanes in the fall. As many of you are aware, in 2003, Colin had been furloughed in the aftermath of 9/11 and was only recalled just over two years ago. Even before the numbers were announced, a feeling of familiarity and dread swept over us. We have been down this road before and it was pretty easy to recognize the warning signs. When the furlough numbers were finally announced, our worst fears were confirmed. 950 to be furloughed, Colin is in the 700 group. Since then, we were waiting for a furlough mitigation agreement to be announced to see where he stood. At present, there is no way of knowing if Colin's furlough will be mitigated, it really could go either way. No matter what the outcome, one thing is certain, the 950 pilots who are on the chopping block do not deserve this, and for nearly 800 of them, this will be the second time they been laid off from United.

Much of our energy has been invested in figuring out what is next. The U.S. airline industry is in shambles and globally, it is not much better. There are opportunities in the Middle East and Asia and we have been exploring all of our options. Our main objective is to keep our family together and provide for our children. To put it mildly, this has been a stressful time.

In the meantime, we had been in contact with our foster agency to let them know we were in flux. They assured us they were in desperate need of families so they wanted us to proceed with our foster son. We had made the commitment, so we forged ahead, despite our uncertainty. And we waited for his arrival information. 9 weeks went by and we were still wondering when he would be arriving. I made numerous calls to determine the cause of the delay. Several weeks of the run around and then suddenly the curve ball, our agency informs us that they had discovered our foster son was accidentally simultaneously referred to another family in Phoenix and the paperwork had already been processed by the agency above them. Deep breath and then the question, "now what?" We were immediately offered another referral and we were leaning toward accepting it.

Colin had the common sense to verbalize a question I had been asking myself, "is this really the right time to take on this responsibility? Were we in the best position to take on a foreign exchange student who arrives in 3 weeks AND, in addition, a teenager who has been traumatized and speaks no English?" The answer seemed pretty obvious when I was truly honest with myself. While my emotional side wants to help, the logical, rational part of me realizes that I am closer to my limit that I would like to be, than I NEED to be for this challenge. What really sealed the deal was the flooding sense of relief I had once we had made the decision. For me, that spoke volumes. So we will be welcoming our foreign exchange student in three weeks but have deferred any foster referrals for the time being.

Without a doubt, we still want to become foster parents but believe it is in everyone's best interest to take on this task without a known Damocles sword hanging over our heads.

Verbal vomit over. Lots of great photos forthcoming. Photos of Sophia's 3rd birthday, amazing shots that Colin took on his recent Paris and London trips and some fun in the sprinkler. I promise they will lighten the current mood of our blog.

All giggles

Keenan was full of giggles last night, he and Colin exchanged lots of laughs, good for some much needed comic relief.

Congratulations Sophia!

Today marks the 10th day that Sophia went #2 in the potty.   #1 usually makes it to the potty too.  It all started June 11th when Colin decided to have a heart to heart discussion with Sophia about her reluctance to use the potty.  We have read all the books, so we have not pressured her or made her feel bad about her disinterest in actually using the potty.  She didn't mind reading about it, in fact, loved her potty book that we had gotten her and insisted it be read to her several times a day.   Apparently, she loved the idea in theory, but did not have any immediate intention to turn it into a reality.  

One day, Colin decided to partially ignore all that good advice and tell her that he really wanted to see her try to use the potty so she could actually wear the "Curious George" underwear she coveted so much.  He was kind but firm.  Less than an hour later, she said she wanted to try but wanted "some privacy."  Less than 10 minutes later, I heard some screaming from the bathroom.  Alarmed, I ran full speed to see what the matter was.  I was greeted by a little girl, butt naked, jumping up and down, pointing to the toilet, screaming, "I did it, I did it, I went poo-poo in the potty!"

Big hugs and lots of praise all around, that is, after we had wiped her bottom.  Meanwhile, we dusted off her sticker chart and let her proudly place her unicorn sticker in box #1 (out of 10). We had long promised her that when she filled out the chart with 10 unicorn stickers, she would get a pizza party, a lemon cake and get to see a movie in the movie theater (she has never been before).  So not many hours after she placed that 10th sticker on her chart.   She got two out of three of those promises, her pizza party and a lemon cake.  A movie will be forthcoming as soon as we identify a movie suitable for a three year old.  

As fate would have it, there was a Beatles cover band playing in the park last night.  Now I have to preface this by explaining that the kids are absolutely nuts about the Beatles.  I suppose that I am mostly responsible for their obsession since I really can't persuade myself to play children's music when I drive.  Several months ago, I started singing "Yellow Submarine" to Sophia and Keenan.  After every verse, they would yell "more, more."  Since I have been a big Beatles fan for most of my life, I figured they should hear the real thing and I started playing "Rubber Soul" and "Revolver" whenever I drove the kids around.  Since then, after every song ends, they say 'more, more please."  Sophia knows every word to "Yellow Submarine" and when Keenan wants to hear "Good Day Sunshine," he cries out "Good sun, good sun."  It is a good thing that I love this band.

Sophia and Keenan watched the cover band for over two hours.  They clapped enthusiastically after every song and when the band finally played "Yellow Submarine," Sophia screamed very loudly and jumped up and down in sheer joy.  After returning home, the two fell into an immediate deep slumber.  

Congratulations Sophia, you are growing up so very fast......    

Rainy Day Story Hour

Our deck umbrella comes in really handy on sunny days but even works well on rainy ones.  

Keeping up with change...

It is true, I haven't been posting much these days.  The reasons are many but not really anything I want to write about just now.  What I will say is this,  skyrocketing  oil prices have caused the already unstable airline business to be in absolute turmoil these days.  Some days, I feel like I am walking on constantly shifting ground.  Some things are up in the air (no pun intended) and I will write more when I know which way is up.

Pretty in pigtails......

Here it is June 3rd and we finally had warm enough weather for Sophia to wear shorts.  Of course, she promptly fell and scraped both of her knees.  She was so distraught that she had to get band aids, yeah right.  

Yesterday, Sophia rode a bike for the first time.  I can't believe how fast she is growing up.   It seems like it is suddenly happening at warped speed.  Next month, she turns three.  Did I just really write that?  

 

I'm Definitely Up to Something......

Keenan's shirt says "I'm definitely up to something."  I got this shirt for him because, well, it was the perfect way of describing Keenan :)  His expressions in these photos merely illustrate my point.   

Top Knot

Some new milestones have been reached in our household.  These ones pertain to hair.  Specifically, Sophia's hair has finally grown in enough to put it up.  Our first attempts were in the form of a top knot.  She loved picking out hair bands and is pretty proud of herself.

Sleepy boy

Last week, my parents were visiting, along with my cousin.  When I fed Keenan lunch, my Dad was at the table with Keenan and my Mom was just across the room.   So while Keenan was eating, I went downstairs with my cousin to show him some books.  

Several minutes later, my Mom came downstairs carrying the phone.  She said Colin was on the line and was requesting I take a photo of Keenan.  I took the phone and asked Colin why I needed to take a photo.  He said "because your Mom said he is asleep in the high chair."  My response was "huh?"  I went to investigate myself and sure enough, this is what I found.  I said, how long ago did he fall asleep?  Bewildered looks all around.  My next question, surely you guys didn't just leave him alone?  More bewildered looks, which spoke volumes to me.  Still, he obviously hadn't been distressed since he never made a peep, and it really was such a cute photo op.