Chronicle 2012

The Fifteenth Year

Well, it’s been a year of blossoming in Lutherville, our beloved hometown, where the children are revealing their true colors, and we’re enjoying the show.

Fifteen years ago we took each other’s hands and made impossibly optimistic vows. We didn’t know then that melding two lives takes a lifetime, especially when little ones are introduced into the mix.

For the past two years, we’ve been in hibernation, working to keep everyone fed and clothed. But now we have changed the last diapers, given away the crib, and rearranged the bedrooms…again.

We are ever grateful that our home has grown into a gathering place…ironic for two introverts, and yet completely comfortable too. We welcome drop-ins, and indeed, often get them. Geneva is as likely to invite the UPS man to stay for dinner as she is to invite a dinner guest to spend the night. (Both have happened. The invitations, that is.)

If you can bear the noise, the mess (a messy girl becomes a messy wife becomes a messy mom), the bear hugs, and the football throwing, then come visit us. If you can’t (we can relate), then call us and we’ll meet you at the coffee shop around the corner.

Jen on Life with Boys…So Far

As the third of four girls, I never thought I would mother boys. Even when I imagined having 12 children, never did it occur to me that some might be male. And then along they came. Cute and cuddly as babies, boys seemed a lot like girls (and dolls), and they didn’t mind being dressed up.

Then they grew. And started to make noise…general noise, with no communicative meaning. Then they added perpetual motion to the random noise. And developed an uncanny ability to try things I would never think of, like throwing paper airplanes at the Christmas tree to see what they could knock down. (A paper airplane can actually break a Lenox nativity scene. But as one young logician pointed out, it wasn’t actually the airplane that broke Joseph: it was the fall caused by the airplane.)

Boys say hello with their bodies, greeting one another—and me—with a tackle. Pummeling means “I love you.” They’re loud during naptime and quiet when I want them to talk. They don’t cry unless they’re in great pain or so exhausted that I’m probably already crying too. (Then they back away slowly and carefully.)

Life is a competition. Who can unload his half of the dishwasher first? (The dishwasher has halves??) Who can get dressed the fastest? Who can drink his milk first? Their favorite game is Risk, that pleasant little parlor game of world domination, followed extremely closely by tackle football.

When competition wanes, they have an endless supply of knock-knock jokes. And if a boy should ever ask how you’re doing, don’t fall for it. “You’re doing fine? Hi, Fine. I’m Benjamin. Nice to meet you, Fine.”

For all their rough-and-tumbleness, they have a gentle side reserved for Geneva. They clap for her when she dances and twirls, give her tender kisses at bedtime, and obligingly attend her tea parties. In return, she wrestles them to the ground, chucks the football at them, and barks orders like a tiny drill sergeant.

Busy boys talk when they are good and ready, give and accept hugs when the moment is right, and teach us new things about masculinity every day. They need a safe haven for mooring and a cheerleader when they venture forth. I am glad to be both, knowing that this is for a time, and one day they will strike out on their own.

Ken on The Girl’s Rise to Power

For a long time Geneva just cried and wiggled and made everything wet. But this year she has become quite a force. Turns out she’s the boss. Like a first-born who just happened to get her body after everyone else.

If you’re working on your spiral, she takes the ball and tries to show you how flexibility outside the pocket could actually take you to the SuperBowl this year. If you are using the green marker and she has her pick of the other 63 colors, she takes the green one out of your hands and says, “I do it.” Other colors are nice too, but still. And if you are going into the bathroom to help her she just might say, “Daddy, get out, I need some privacy.” Really? At age two? What is she doing in there?

And then there are the tears. Things are never bad, they are irrevocably, horribly, heartbreakingly bad. And when they are, all of the words in Webster’s Dictionary melt and come out as tears. Except when some of them get stuck in there, in which case they come out at bedtime when the Busy Boys are trying to sleep, the exhausted Mom is starving for “Me time” and Daddy is reminiscing about those solo days in the quiet one-bedroom apartment.

But Gigi still responds to a firm fatherly voice. And when she hears that, the wheels start to turn and another technique is sprouting. The demure smile, the slight tilt of the head, the warm embrace. You see where this is going. Something tells me I should invest in Apple stock now just to deal with the implications of this smile in 15 to 20 years.

Well, that’s the news from Lutherville, where the Busy Boys are playing hard, The Girl is taking charge, and all the homeschoolers are vying for the top of the class.