Family Memories

I find myself more and more wanting to create family memories for our kids to take with them and possibly pass on and Kyle and I to sit back and remember years from now. I remember always thinking it was a bit silly when my dad seemed to often comment how nice it was to sit together at the dinner table, especially once we had all started to disperse into our own lives. Now I am beginning to understand what it was to him and seem to have developed that same desire for family connectedness. Its interesting how fun to me at this stage of life is almost always a family outing or activity...these days simple and easy to bail out of if it becomes to stressful. More extensive and adventurous trips/ activities wait in my plans until the kids are older. I think it is somewhat natural to want to share memories with your children, but has been more pressing to me since researching developing attachment with children that have attachment issues. It is said that the more happy memories you can form with your adopted child the more likely the bad memories of the past will no longer consume the
child's generalizations about life.

This weekend I noticed the pure joy in Isaac and Prema as we sat around an outdoor fire, worked together as a family to make orange juice, and bundled up to weather the cold for ice cream at the Candy Kitchen. Friday night we ate dinner with Kyle's parents and then had a fire outside on the porch. We made smores, sang and played music together, and the kids danced with some sparklers. Isaac was eager to accompany Kyle with his ukelele. Prema was excited to sign "Silent Night" and dance to music. When the night was over and Isaac was not fully cooperating to get ready for bed I reminded him that his behavior is a direct indicator of whether or not we will have a campfire again...he immediately cooperated and wanted to make sure we would sing again too.

Other parts of the world have snow in winter, we have citrus trees ripe for picking...DELICIOUS. We are lucky enough to 2 grapefruit and 1 tangerine tree in our yard and 2 orange trees in our neighbors yard (that we take care of while they are gone). Isaac, Prema and I are the gatherers and Kyle is the juicer. (Eli just plays on the floor or on the ground outside.) Both Isaac and Prema are thrilled to be the fruit deliverers. I pick from the trees and drop them on the ground and Isaac and Prema race to pick the up and bring them inside. Today Isaac wanted to carry some in his underwear, pockets and shirt...we let him. What a hoot.

Then this evening we ventured out in our Florida cold (45 or so degrees) in hats, sweaters, coats, and pants and tennis shoes for some ice cream It has become a weekly ritual to visit the Candy Kitchen. Kyle's parents used to go on dates there before kids. Kyle and I started going on dates there this past year and slowly it has developed into a weekly family outing with the kids rain, shine, or cold. Isaac became so cold eating his ice cream that we had to sit in the car. Then as we were driving home and he was still eating his ice cream he began announcing with distress "I need to pee, I need to pee." So as any parent of a 2 year old potty trained child, we made a quick judgment call to turn on the next street, pulled Isaac out of the car and had him pee on the street. Better there than in the car seat, but tough to explain to an Indian child who used to only use the street as her toilet that she is not allowed to do the same in America.