2011 with Oliver and Liam

Happy Summer! I write this once again looking out at a serene lake in the Catskills at my in-laws' summer home. It smells like pine, looks like a my sympathies greeting card, and tastes like rice krispy treats. Liam and Oliver are in heaven. All they are doing this week is running around outside, swimming, boating, golfing and eating. They have not taken out their bin of toys since the second day. I think they're turning into Huck Finn.


















The past few months have been extraordinarily busy, but the boys always seem to bring levity to any situation. Just this morning, Liam and Oliver were having a tandem pre-nap break down, but they were so wild that Lauren and I were shaking with laughter. The biggest news in the boys' lives since February is that they have been successful in their potty use. Finally.
This happened when Chris and I got fed up, shopped for underpants with them, and then hid all the diapers. Instead of accepting this and using the potty, the boys demanded to call their Grampy, who clearly would be able to provide them with the absent diapers.
Within a week, Liam had the potty-thing down, but it took Oliver until we gave Liam a video of his choosing after a successful pee to attempt the potty. He subsequently succeeded masterfully. In fact, one of his teachers at school described the three bowel movements he performed his first day on the potty as "MAN sized poops." Let me tell you, she was not exaggerating. Oliver explains the size of his movements by telling you if he is a man or a boy after the deed.
Oliver and Liam are also the owners of brand new super sweet bicycles. They have learned to break, go down hills, and fall.

Some other recent favorite Liam and Oliver stories:

• Oliver, every night before pajama time: "How 'bout a little bit 'o naked time?" And then the boys proceed to jump like monkeys on the couch singing Foo Fighter or Black Keys songs.
• Mom: "How do you say water in Spanish?" Liam: "Water in Spanish!"
• While eating breakfast during grading week when I am not working with students, Liam: "Mommy, are you wearing a yoga shirt to work?" Mom, defensively, "I have a work shirt underneath." Liam: "Mom, are you trying to pretend your yoga shirt is a sweatshirt? You're silly, Mom."
• When sick of Mom and Dad not giving him what he wants, Oliver: "I want my Liam!!!"
• Oliver also will look for help in any trying circumstance by calling "BROTHER! HELP!"
  
• Liam: "Look, a John Deere tractor!" Mom: "how do you know it's John Deere?" Liam: "Because it's green. See, like my dinosaur is green. It's a John Dinosaur!" (After this, many green items became John- item for a bit.)
• Oliver: "Mom, you look so nice today in your dress. I'm going to take a picture. Uh-oh, I lost my camera. Here, I'll take it on my phone."
• When walking in the woods and hearing the drilling of a woodpecker, the boys looked around pointing and asking if it was here or there, and I answered that it was high in the trees. The boys were shocked and Oliver queried "did it climb up all that way?" Before I explained that a woodpecker is a bird, I had a marvelous moment of wondering what their heads thought this beast looked like. (Cornell Ornithology has a wonderful catalog of birds, their sounds, and even videos. Check it out for kids or adults!)
  
• One day Liam had been whining a blue streak and I finally lost it and hollered "for heaven's sake, Liam, will you stop whining!?" Liam replied in a totally normal voice, "oh, ok."
• At a party at Nancy and Ben's house, we told Liam and Oliver it was time to go to bed. Oliver started dancing. Tia Lu inquired about said dancing. Oliver replied "I'm dancing the sun up!"
• And of course, the requisite penoos tales. I have a lot and will spare you the majority. Suffice to say, the most often spoken quote from the boys these last few months, especially in light of the potty use, has been: "I love my penoos."
  

February was a totally awesome month. Eva Pepper, my sweet and crazy haired niece, was born on February 3rd. Liam and Oliver got to visit her in the hospital a few times with the gift of milkshakes. We went to a superbowl party at Jen Rogalsky 's house with about twenty people who are from Wisconsin, so you can imagine how crazy that got. And during February break, Oliver and Liam had the opportunity to spend a weekend hanging at our house with Grampy and Babcia Ivers during a snow storm. Chris and I high-tailed it to Toronto where we behaved like teens. In fact, Nancy almost had to save us from ourselves and drive up with a new car key on our last day. We recovered. (Thanks, Fancy!) We also had a wonderful party for birthday girls Lauren and Rachel. Happy day to you too, Sarah and Maggie!



March brought the annual St. Paddy's Potluck at Nancy and Ben's. Zio Jonathan joined us and stayed a bit to play with Liam and Oliver. He took them on their first visit to the Butterfly Conservatory in the Strong Museum.

We had fun going to Roghan Foster's 4th birthday party and seeing the whole family.

Also, Sarah and her friend Ed came up for a short but sweet visit in March during her spring break. Good to see you sister!

Lauren and I took Eva Pepper to her first political rally in Rochester in March. We were marching for funding for NYS public education. I am schooling her early to become Righteous Babe. (I have already started reading an Austen made into a comic book.)

Oliver and Liam spent another weekend of swimming and playing with Pop-pop and Gammy in Buffalo at the end of March, and thankfully got their mullets cut. (MOM- they currently have bushes on their heads!!)



April brought beautiful weather and spring break. We had a BBQ party for Chris' birthday. He is old, but has great friends so I'll keep him. The first weekend of spring break Chris ended up in the ER with some sort of horrifying back issue, which was completely misdiagnosed and rectified easily later. My parents and Ben Laabs helped so much in our time of trouble- thanks, friends!
Spring break was saved during pedicure/movie/general pampering day I spent with Maggie and Tania. The day Oliver and Liam liked best was when Tania, Dominick, Elena hopped in our van and traveled to Chris' jail to check out the newborn chicks used in the pheasant release program. The inmate-run veggie farm was amazing, as are Chris's new Sheriff and Under-Sheriff. He is so calm and happy at work these days. Funny to think of how stressed we were pre-election!

Spring break also brought a Buffalo Easter with Gammy, Pop-Pop, Aunt Nanny, Tia Lu, Uncle Ick and our family. It was a wonderful time of good food, relaxation, and messy eggs! I sadly injured my foot running one week away from my scheduled spring half marathon, so I was reduced to sitting around reading. HA!


May brought rain and busy-ness. Mothers Day was spent biking with the boys in the park, and hanging out with Babcia and Grampy. We even had another elegant dinner at Tom Wahl's with the Giorgises, Reinerts and Ben. The highlight of this was Dominick, Oliver, Elena and Liam running around the picnic area laughing and collapsing in puddles of kids, and generally amusing the crowd.

My whole family- Mom, Dad, kids, Chris, Lauren- came for the 9th time to my Culture Night at York Central, where Latin America Culture was the highlight. (Pictured are a dance troupe from Oaxaca, Mexico.) It was a wonderful night, made even better because Tania Giorgis did the key-note speech about her year in Nicaragua living and working in an orphanage. My students were able to donate to the program, and also had fun dancing, playing instruments and doing art projects.
The Corporate Challenge run this year was fun, but not as good as usual without Lauren!

For Memorial Day weekend we went to the Ivers' cottage in the Catskills. We had a wonderful time playing in the woods and eating good food. Chris and I even got out for our first open-water swim of the year and the water was perfect. On Saturday, Babcia, Grampy, Aunts Judy and Pat, and Marty took care of Liam and Oliver while Chris and I went to Brooklyn to meet Harry and Dina Marenstein's beautiful new son Noah. We had a picnic in Owl's Head Park overlooking the ocean, had a fresh-cut salad on Irina's garden balcony (Dina's Mom who was sadly out of town), and then spent the evening and morning eating Indian food and playing with Simon. Simon is a musical wonder. He is already drumming and singing Stevie Wonder and playing Beatles songs on the guitar. The visit was far too short, but the Marenstein's are journeying upstate this week.
Happy Birthday Tony and Dina, and Happy 4th birthday Andy!

June was insane as usual. The end of school for a Union President is rough. It was a tough year budget-wise, and many more teachers have been cut. Thank goodness for students at York being so awesome. I'm teaching a section of 7th grade American History next year in addition to Global, Sociology and my Literature class. At least when Liam and Oliver get to high school, they will have no excuse to slack in History class!

This month Oliver and Liam went to their very first dentist appointment, during which we discovered that they are indeed identical twins. (Seriously, were you really wondering?) Each boy has a small deformation in the same place on the same tooth. That does not happen to un-identical humans.

Father's day was low-key and lovely. We even got to celebrate it again the next weekend in Buffalo with my father who was recently back from a father-son trip in the South West.

Babcia Trinci, Chris' maternal grandmother passed away this June after a long, happy and generous life. Oliver and Liam went to Buffalo with my parents while Chris and I went to Vermont to the funeral. I will always remember Babcia speaking in Polish, laughing, and loving my cat Lefty.































At the June potluck, we had the added bonus of Doctors Keith Jones and Shelly Jansen joining us. We are thrilled both for Shelly's PhD, and for their recent engagement! We also sent some shouts out to Jen Rogalsky who was in Ghana getting married!!! Congrats and we can't wait to see you and meet Yahaya!


I received a scholarship from the Cornell Institute for European Studies this spring, along with six other NY State educators, to go to East Central Europe in late July for ten days. We'll visit Berlin, Prague, Krakow, Auschwitz, and Budapest. The scholarship is partially funded by the EU to showcase some of the newer countries so that American educators will teach about them more comprehensively. In late June, I went to an orientation at Cornell for seminars on History, politics and linguistics of East Central Europe and to meet my travel mates. It was fascinating and I'm super excited to go!
In Ithaca, I spent the evening with Jonathan Ivers and Rene Funke eating and sampling wine. Great to see you!









































A few last shout outs:

• Congratulations to Eva and Gregor in Austria on the birth of their daughter Rosa. We can't wait to meet her!
• Congratulations to Craig and Emily on the birth of their son Skyler!
• Happy June birthday to Logan Brent, John Scherer, Ben and Harry
• Congrats to my running training mates Ben and Tania on finishing the half marathon in amazing times.
• Thanks to Aunt Nanny for taking care of our kids all the time
• Good luck to Tony and Chris who are coming along in their 40 Oak beer adventure!
• Happy Retirement to Aunt Mimi Jones!
• Our cousin Chris McGinley is engaged! Congrats and good luck.
• Congrats to gay couples in NY State who can now be married!
  
• Have a Happy Summer!