Okay, this post is a bit late, but I wanted to get it all down...
We went to the Mehaber last weekend. Last year was pretty rough. Our two new kids were still new and struggling with English. We thought it would be fun for them to go to the Mehaber. It wasn't. There were lots of tears and melt downs from all concerned, although there were high points.
This year was so much more fun. So much fun, in fact, that I neglected to take my camera out the entire time. I just kept thinking about how much I miss when I am walking around trying to get a good shot instead of having fun in the moment. So... I have to record some mental pictures that I want to remember.
Nathan and I smiling together, playing name that tune as our kids sang along to songs while wearing headphones. They don't know the correct words, and a couple of them are a wee bit tone deaf so it was more challenging than you'd think... although we always got it by the chorus.
Seeing Meg and Sam (and the Bump, aka Mimi) standing outside the hotel waiting for us.
Dancing with my girls at the Mehaber dance class.
Seeing Meron walking under a pink umbrella with a new friend and watching her glee when she recognized a kindred spirit.
Sitting at Chili's with Meg, Elz and Nathan. Appetizers and dessert for supper. Way fun.
Hana loosening up and deciding to dance on the stage when it wasn't in use at the Mehaber. Meron dancing with abandon and finding her friend from the night before. Watching them hold hands and spin. Seeing Kai jumping around in circles, unable to do anything else to express how the music made him feel.
Laying in the grass at the Raspberry Festival, watching the kids play, listening to the band with the cool breeze on my face.
Watching my kids and Sam play together in the hotel room, all of the grown ups sitting and laying on the beds being served imaginary food. Everyone under 4 feet tall spontaneously deciding that the coffee table they hauled over contained a birthday cake and that it was my birthday.
Sam not wanting my girls to see him cry when they were hugging good bye in the hallway.
Nathan's face when he saw his cheering section at the color run.
It was a great weekend. I'll remember. Even without the pictures.
Monday, July 23, 2012
Tuesday, July 10, 2012
Equestrian antics
Hani loved it as long as the pony was staying very still.
This is what the actual ride looked like:
The one above is her complaining face. The one below is her "I hate this and I can't believe you are making me do it" face.
Mimi... she was ecstatic. This girl? This girl will be the one drawing horses on her notebooks in 5th grade. I know... I was one of those girls too.
Now we are 4...
Let me tell you about Malakai.
Malakai is... the most 3 year old boy you have ever met. Sweet and funny and cuddly one moment, wanting help with everything. The next minute he says he "CAN DO IT MY OWN SELF!" whether or not this is the case. He is... a surprise.
The way he moves through the world is so different from my daughters. His obsessions interests baffle me. Cars. Planes. Trains. Fire trucks. All things noisy and fast. He has little patience for art projects.
Kai is always injuring someone, either himself or someone around him. He doesn't observe the wide world, focusing instead on his narrow interests. He frequently walks into walls (and most recently got a giant goose egg from walking straight into a lamp post) and steps on toes, hands and tail.
We have started giving him talks about how powerful his body is, and how careful he has to be to be gentle to the world around him. And he is so gentle at heart. Tonight after giving me a bloody lip (you would think by now I would have learned to keep it out of reach of his large, destructive noggin), he spent 5 anxious minutes pulling my lip down to peer at the damage. Trying to kiss away the hurt he accidentally caused (which is difficult when the hurt is on the inside of my lip).
He loves babies and spends a large portion of his day following around the smallest children at daycare, trying to keep them safe and happy... and frequently accidentally knocking them over. I have never seen anything so sweet as watching him baby talk to a baby not that much younger than he is.
Kai is a boy who loves fashion and has serious ideas about what clothes he is going to wear each day, although I am not exaggerating when I say that at least 85% of the time at least one of his articles of clothing is on either backwards or inside out.. because that's how he WANTS to wear them. He almost always has sparkly purple or pink finger and toe nails (the boy needs some brothers. For reals) and loves purses of all shapes and sizes.
Malakai is... the most 3 year old boy you have ever met. Sweet and funny and cuddly one moment, wanting help with everything. The next minute he says he "CAN DO IT MY OWN SELF!" whether or not this is the case. He is... a surprise.
The girls will sit for an hour, contentedly drawing, cutting and gluing. He scribbles and tears for 3 minutes and then starts to purposely irritate his sisters. Yet, he will sit for hours to be read to. He brings me stacks of books and listens intently while I read, long after my girls have gone off to play circus, hospital, or the ever popular "dropping the baby off at daycare" game.
He incites riot where ever he goes, counting on his admittedly charming smile to keep people from being annoyed with him.
He makes people love him. Something about his stout, sturdy little boy body that has so recently begun to emerge from his baby self as it hurtles through his world with abandon is so endearing. And terrifying. And amazing. 
Kai is always injuring someone, either himself or someone around him. He doesn't observe the wide world, focusing instead on his narrow interests. He frequently walks into walls (and most recently got a giant goose egg from walking straight into a lamp post) and steps on toes, hands and tail.
We have started giving him talks about how powerful his body is, and how careful he has to be to be gentle to the world around him. And he is so gentle at heart. Tonight after giving me a bloody lip (you would think by now I would have learned to keep it out of reach of his large, destructive noggin), he spent 5 anxious minutes pulling my lip down to peer at the damage. Trying to kiss away the hurt he accidentally caused (which is difficult when the hurt is on the inside of my lip). 
He loves babies and spends a large portion of his day following around the smallest children at daycare, trying to keep them safe and happy... and frequently accidentally knocking them over. I have never seen anything so sweet as watching him baby talk to a baby not that much younger than he is. 
Kai is a boy who loves fashion and has serious ideas about what clothes he is going to wear each day, although I am not exaggerating when I say that at least 85% of the time at least one of his articles of clothing is on either backwards or inside out.. because that's how he WANTS to wear them. He almost always has sparkly purple or pink finger and toe nails (the boy needs some brothers. For reals) and loves purses of all shapes and sizes. 
He loves to dance and to make people laugh.
Know what else? My quintessential 3 year old boy? Not 3 anymore.
Today... today he is 4. I can't wait to see who my sweet, silly, astonishing boy becomes.
I love you, Malakai Melese.
Friday, July 6, 2012
The Ride
So, my Hani? My wonderful, beautiful Hani? She's got some control issues. Like... she wants to control everything. In the world. It makes sense, right? If she can control the world than she can make sure no more bad things happen to her. She can make sure that her world is safe and normal and predictable. This leads to some difficult times because she can't. Control everything, that is. The fact that she can't doesn't mean that she doesn't try, which I imagine is an extremely uncomfortable feeling. Like driving in a car with no brakes.
On the 4th of July we went to the town celebration and they had pony rides. There was much excitement. It was one of those things where sweet, sweaty little ponies are attached to a big wheel kind of thing and have to walk around in circles all day. Not so dare devilish. Meron loved it. Kai was scared for about 30 seconds and then started enjoying himself. Hani was horrified. She smiled at first and clearly liked the horse, but then as the ride went on she got more and more uncomfortable. It was so odd to watch... it was so backwards. To get less comfortable the longer she sat on her small, slow moving pony.
Every time she went around she got a little less enthusiastic. On about the 5th revolution she started to cry and said, "He isn't LISTENING! Make him LISTEN to me!!" She started to panic about how Kai was riding. He took one hand off the pommel to scratch his nose and she let out a very motherly bellow of, "That's not SAFE! TWO HANDS Malakai!!" The next time she went around she started saying, "He's going faster and faster! He's not listening!" I was baffled as I watched the dispirited pony plodding along in the 104 degree weather. Clearly not giving her a wild ride. By the end of the ride she wasn't crying, but wasn't thrilled. Until she got off. She petted the ponies and told them thank you. She said she couldn't wait to tell Papa that she rode a horse. She wanted to go again. Thinking she had conquered whatever weird fear this was I said absolutely. Got on the same pony. Same snails pace in a circle. Same slow progression from happy and enthusiastic to... uncomfortable. On edge. Scared about Kai getting hurt. And then I realized.
She can't control this. She can't control that pony because he has to walk along with all the others. There were no reins to give even the illusion of control. It. Drove. Her. Crazy. She didn't feel safe until her feet were on the ground and her fate was once again in her own hands.
I love her for trying it again in spite of how uncomfortable it was. I wish she didn't feel like the world would spiral out of control if she just... trusted. I know trust that the world will stay sane and safe is too much to ask right now. But I'm thinking of getting a pony to lead in circles. I think it is so good for her to experience relinquishing control and still being okay. Maybe even having fun. Think how much nicer the world would be if she didn't have the weight of it on her shoulders. If she could relax and enjoy the ride safe in the knowledge that, while bad things that we can't control do sometimes happen, the world is....beautiful. In spite of (or maybe because of) the imperfections.
On the 4th of July we went to the town celebration and they had pony rides. There was much excitement. It was one of those things where sweet, sweaty little ponies are attached to a big wheel kind of thing and have to walk around in circles all day. Not so dare devilish. Meron loved it. Kai was scared for about 30 seconds and then started enjoying himself. Hani was horrified. She smiled at first and clearly liked the horse, but then as the ride went on she got more and more uncomfortable. It was so odd to watch... it was so backwards. To get less comfortable the longer she sat on her small, slow moving pony.
Every time she went around she got a little less enthusiastic. On about the 5th revolution she started to cry and said, "He isn't LISTENING! Make him LISTEN to me!!" She started to panic about how Kai was riding. He took one hand off the pommel to scratch his nose and she let out a very motherly bellow of, "That's not SAFE! TWO HANDS Malakai!!" The next time she went around she started saying, "He's going faster and faster! He's not listening!" I was baffled as I watched the dispirited pony plodding along in the 104 degree weather. Clearly not giving her a wild ride. By the end of the ride she wasn't crying, but wasn't thrilled. Until she got off. She petted the ponies and told them thank you. She said she couldn't wait to tell Papa that she rode a horse. She wanted to go again. Thinking she had conquered whatever weird fear this was I said absolutely. Got on the same pony. Same snails pace in a circle. Same slow progression from happy and enthusiastic to... uncomfortable. On edge. Scared about Kai getting hurt. And then I realized.
She can't control this. She can't control that pony because he has to walk along with all the others. There were no reins to give even the illusion of control. It. Drove. Her. Crazy. She didn't feel safe until her feet were on the ground and her fate was once again in her own hands.
I love her for trying it again in spite of how uncomfortable it was. I wish she didn't feel like the world would spiral out of control if she just... trusted. I know trust that the world will stay sane and safe is too much to ask right now. But I'm thinking of getting a pony to lead in circles. I think it is so good for her to experience relinquishing control and still being okay. Maybe even having fun. Think how much nicer the world would be if she didn't have the weight of it on her shoulders. If she could relax and enjoy the ride safe in the knowledge that, while bad things that we can't control do sometimes happen, the world is....beautiful. In spite of (or maybe because of) the imperfections.
Subscribe to:
Posts (Atom)
