Moments.

This evening AB and I sat quietly outside as the sun went down. The breeze rustled the yellowing leaves just as the golden streaks of sunlight were beginning to pass through the branches.


We sat peacefully side by side with our reading. Content.


These are the kind of moments that I will treasure for the rest of my life. Quiet moments like this one. And loud moments where our laughter fills up the whole room. Our giggles setting one another off in a seemingly neverending cycle of joy. Loud moments when I pick her up from school and she is bursting at the seams with stories about what happened at school, what she learned and read, who she played with, the hilarious thing that her friends said. Loud moments in the car when we sing as loud as we can to Foster the People's "Pumped Up Kicks" and Living Color's "Cult of Personality". Quiet moments when she lies cozy among her blankets, eyelids drooping as she fights sleep, while I read to her the adventures of Harriet the Spy and James with his magical giant peach.


These are the moments that make it all worth it.

Mr. Extracurricular.

Now that AB is settled into her school routine it is time to switch it up a bit.  Enter Mr. Extracurricular. (In my mind,  Mr.  Extracurricular is a burly man in a jogging suit with a clipboard and a whistle he blows shrilly every time I miss an extracurricular registration deadline).

The fliers touting soccer,  basketball,  cheerleading and foreign language classes have started making their way home.  When she was in preschool I was able to dodge Mr. Extracurricular by hiding behind the trusty excuses of lack of time and lack of money.

While I could continue to hide behind lack of money, my lack of time excuse isn’t as solid anymore.  So, I pacified Mr.  Extracurricular by promising that I would get AB involved in one this fall.  But now I (we?  because the kiddo should have some say,  right?)  must pick one.

Basketball and cheerleading were immediately crossed off the list.  Chinese as a Second Language classes were also rejected because, as awesome as it would be for her to learn Mandarin,  it was too expensive at the moment.  

That left soccer.  I like the concept of soccer.  The teamwork.  The camaraderie.  The running.  AB is a bit of a shy kid,  so I was thinking that the social aspect of the sport would be beneficial for her.  

But the more I thought about it, the more I started to dislike it.  First, I’m cheap.  I don’t really want to invest in cleats,  shinguards and uniforms (that she will be most likely outgrow in the next three months) for sport that she may end of hating.  Second, she is getting quite social at school, so I really don’t have to worry about her in that department.  Third, she is super active during the day,  so I think that her interactions with Mr.  Extracurricular should be more artistic and intellectual in nature as opposed to physical.

Therefore, I felt like I was back at square one with Mr.  Extracurricular breathing done my neck.  It did not help that I then read Battle Hymn of the Tiger Mother by Amy Chua and started to feel like the laziest mother on the planet. Okay, so I’ve pinpointed that she should do something artsy and cerebral.  Great.  But I’m way behind.  She should already be a soloist for the youth symphony and having her artwork displayed in local galleries.

Yeah,  right.

When I finished the book,  I decided that I am not going to push it. Watching your relationship with your kid deteriorate to the point that that you have a screaming match in a Russian cafe complete with broken glass? No, thank you. I really don’t care if I go on Mr.  Extracurricular’s Ish List.  Right now, I am quite happy with reading stacks of books, making collages and singing my heart out with my kid afterschool and on the weekends.

Mr. (Organized) Extracurricular will just have to wait.

Primary Race?

When I was registering AB for kindergarten, I was quite shocked that the form required that the parent/guardian indicate a “primary” race of the incoming student.

Primary? Meaning of first rank, importance, or value.

How is a multicultural kid supposed to pick race? How unfair is it to require that children are supposed to identify as one race or another?

My daughter is half African-American and half-Caucasian. 50-50. Half of me and half of her dad. So, which of us is more important?

I eventually checked the “African-American” box for primary and the “Caucasian” box for other. Why? Because I am the one who is raising her. I’m the primary parent.  Therefore, for statistical purposes AB will be categorized as African-American.

But how would she have answered the question?

Honestly, I have no idea. My multicultural kid has no real concept of race. She understands that not everyone looks the same. She understands that people speak different languages. She understands that her skin is lighter than mine yet darker than her father’s. When she draws pictures of herself, she picks up the light brown crayon as opposed to the dark brown or the peach. But if you ask her what she is?

She’ll say that she’s a girl and she’s 5 & a half.

Frankly, I like it that way.

I know that once she is older, she is going to be asked that question…alot. Probably to the point of great annoyance. Perhaps she will struggle when she is older and defining herself as she tries to find her place in social circles. Or maybe (in a perfect ideal world) it will be a non-issue as the number of kids identifying as multiracial grows. So, why bring it up so soon?

She knows what Mommy looks like. She knows what Daddy looks like. She knows what Grandpa & Grandma and Grammy & Grampy look like. She knows that she is a mix of all of them.  She knows that she is loved.  I think that’s enough for now.

In the meantime, I shall be indignant on her behalf.  “Primary race” ?  Heathcliff Huxtable says it best:  “That’s the dumbest thing I’ve ever heard in my life!"

Bouquet of Sharpened Pencils: Reawakening My Inner Scholar

September is about new beginnings.  It is about fresh starts.  And, thankfully, September does not hold the weightiness of January.  There are no heavy expectations.  Instead, it is a refreshing moment where we can start over again from those January resolutions that may not have actually been implemented.  

Things have not exactly turned out the way that I envisioned back in January.  There were goals and resolutions but the action steps were not there to bring those dreams into fruition.  Rather than mourn this seeming failures, I treat them as opportunities to start again.  I review why I didn’t do what was necessary to make the goal happen. Why was I dragging my feet? Was that goal really what I was wanting for myself? Perhaps,  my priorities and desires were slowly shifting as different things came up in my life.

September is my month of reevaluation and reformation.  I loved school as a kid, and four weeks in,  I’m stoked that AB feels the same way.  Now that I am no longer in school myself, I find that I am needing to find a way to make the excitement about learning seem fresh and new even though I’m not in a classroom.

I have decided to educate myself.

I am creating my own curriculum.  I am creating my own fellowship.  I am researching and writing for myself.  When I was younger, I would throw myself into subjects, acquiring as much knowledge that I could about a given subject.  I had three inch binders crammed with notes, pictures and articles about my obsessions du jour.  Thanks to this little thing called the World Wide Web I had plethora of resources available to me. There are two specific subjects that I vividly recall soaking up like a sponge. The first was the Mafia. I was an 11 year old kid printing out pictures of bullet-ridden mobsters and crime family trees while I memorized all of the dialogue of the Scorcese classic Goodfellas.  Disturbing, yes. But, I felt utterly inspired by the drama and danger.  The second was Gone With the Wind by Margaret Mitchell (GWTW).  I was led to GWTW from the Outsiders by S.E.  Hinton.  If a boy as tough as Ponyboy was sensitive enough to read a book like GWTW, then I had to try it.  I tried it and loved it.  I read it in two days.  I was absolutely smitten.  My dad introduced me to the film and I was officially obsessed.  My binder was full of pictures of every single costume from every possible angle with notes about behind-the-scenes gossip.  I could name every actress and actor considered for Rhett and Scarlett.  And of course, I memorized every line in this film as well, accent and all.

Perhaps, these interests made me an odd child (and I still wonder where I found all that time to gather all of my research), but that is what made me Me.  As I got older, I started to lose that focus. There were various reasons, time and the coolness factor being the main ones.  But 15+ years later, now that it sometimes feels like I have an abundance of time and I no longer have the desire to impress my peers by downplaying “nerdy”  pursuits,  I think it’s time to get back a little of my 11-year-old self.

If I could go back in time, I would bring 11-year-old self a bouquet of sharpened pencils and some brand spanking new notebooks and say, “Have at it,  kid.”

If you have built castles in the air, your work need not be lost; that is where they should be. Now put the foundations under them. - Henry David Thoreau