Open Book Answers - Part 7 (by Heather)

theghelertertwins.blogspot.com said... 1. What made you decide to adopt from Haiti? 2. How did you and Braydon meet? 3. Will you adopt more children? 4. Where is your next big adventure? 5. What haven't you done yet?
Hi Rony!!! I think Braydon is planning to answer question #1. #2 & #3 have already been answered. #4: Not sure where our next big adventure will be. Honestly. Right now nothing big in the works. Although, hopefully on the horizon will be a big twin-fest-adventure with you and Cindy et. al.!!! Braydon and I are going to the Dominican Republic in October, but that is minus-the-boys. ;) A few places I/we want to go with the boys before they are 12--- Africa, back to Haiti, Costa Rica, the Grenadines, Anegada #5: What haven’t we done yet? OMG!!! Soooooo much!!! I don’t even know where to start! I feel like I’ve done so little. I’m not saying that to be flippant. I’m completely sincere: I feel like life is just waaaay too short and the things I/we want to do require waaaaaaaay too much money. We’re always just trying to live it up and live life to the fullest and experience/enjoy/immerse in the moment. There is always soooo much left to do. I know you know what I mean Rony. xoxo


Troy & Tara Livesay said... Do you plan to tell your boys a lot about their birth families - do you know much about them? And If you stay a college prof. can the boys go to your university for free? andif you were to take a WILD guess about what your kids would be/do when they grow up --- what would you guess.
Hi Tara!!! We do plan to tell Kyle and Owen about their birth family. We do know a little bit about them that we are keeping private until they are old enough to comprehend. We don’t know what age that will be, but we plan to take it as it comes and share their information with them when we feel they are ready. We have faith that we’ll know when the time is right. If I stay a prof then it depends what university I’m at when the boys hit college age. Right now my university would give them a huge discount – but not free. It just depends where you are. Wild guess re: what they’ll be when they grow up ---- eeks! (I think this was truly the hardest question we got --- in all honesty – for me this is such a hard question)… um… Kyle: Poet or Romance Novelist (with a mostly female audience) /// Owen: Olympic Diver and/or Swimmer.

Laura said... as a mother of twins, do you find yourself more attached to or relating better to one boy over the other? and if so, what do you do to address this?

Hi Laura. When we first got the boys I spent the majority of the first couple of weeks with Kyle, and Braydon with Owen. That was mainly because Owen strongly preferred Braydon. And we have since noticed that Owen always prefers men. Because of that I ended up really bonding with Kyle and Braydon with Owen. After the first couple of weeks we conscientiously started spending more and more time with the ‘other’ boy because we didn’t want it to get too unbalanced. Eventually, over about the first couple of months, it evened out. I’d say that now I’m equally attached to both of them. But I can relate a lot better to Owen. Interestingly Braydon can relate a lot better to Kyle. Interesting, huh? Anyway, I wouldn’t say it is a problem, it just is what it is. I think Owen is a lot like me, I am a lot like him. Strangely so. Kyle is a lot like Braydon, Braydon is a lot like Kyle. Strangely so. Sometimes we laugh about it – “OMG! Kyle is soooooooo Braydon’s son!!!” etc… but mostly we’re just amazed by it. It really calls into question the whole nature-vs. nurture debate. To “address” it we each make a point to spend one-on-one time with each boy separately. But we’ve never had a ‘problem’ with feeling like one is ‘favored’ over the other, gets better/worse treatment than the other. I’m sure it is quite similar to any mother of twins or siblings. But I guess I don’t really know.

Gail (Braydon's Mother) said... I'd like to know whether you've considered turning some of the blog into a book. Lots of possible subjects of course, but it would be especially interesting to follow the boys' increasing awareness of color at a very early age and their wonderful positive feeling about being black. Gail

Hi Gail! No, we haven’t considered turning the blog into a book. I have too much on my hands already with my academic publishing!!! LOL!!! The blog is for fun and I don’t really think we’ll ever do more with it than what it is. Sorry to disappoint!

Anonymous said... Love the blog! I don't know how you do it. You really do it and make it seem possible. I read because it is an inspiration. I know they say that we (women) can do it all (i.e., career and family) but sometimes that is hard to ACTUALLY believe/know. Sometimes it takes seeing it. Even though I'm not seeing it for real, I get to see it online through your blog every day. thank you for that. My only question is HOW do you do it???

Well, I feel like we barely are doing it. But check out the previous Open Book Answers posts because I've tried to write about this there. Thank you for your comment. I feel like it is really, really hard to 'do it all' and those of us out there desperately trying to make it work really need to stick together. Thanks for your words. love, Heather