She Has Grown.

She has grown.

An apple a day...

And she won't stop growing.

No matter how many times I implore her to do so, she just...won't...stop.

She reads chapter books and listens to boy bands.

She likes to exchange knowing looks when we see other kids acting out in public.

She writes me letters when she is upset with me.

 

She wears scuffed brown boots and skinny jeans almost every day. 

She remembers the name of my boss.

She has given up on the possibility of a younger sibling.

She is a stickler for schedules.

She just wants people to be nice to each other.

She has grown. 

And she won't stop growing.

This is a good thing, right?

Miss Independent.

Summer is (unofficially) over. AB is back in school. New teacher. New babysitter. New backpack. New kicks. In the mornings when I do her hair, she watches The Electric Company instead of Sesame Street. There is no hassle at the door with shoes because she can tie them herself. At drop-off, instead of walking her to her classroom door she requests that we say our goodbyes about 10 feet away from where her classmates line up because she's a "big girl" now and can go by herself.

This morning she said to me with a huge grin, "Aren't you glad that your child is growing up?" (I kid you not.)

Yes....and no.

It is rather incredible to see her able to do all this new things without my help. It makes me feel like I'm doing a pretty good job at this parenting thing. But at the same time, there is a slight sadness that she doesn't need me to help her do these things anymore. Then I see how excited she is about everything, and the sadness disappears.

As I watched her confidently walk away from me this morning, I had a moment where I thought, there is no going back.

Look out, world, Miss Independent is coming through.

Mommy Guilt Redux.

I feel like I should be Queen of Transitions at this point given all the various major life shifts I have made over the last 7+ years. Yet, with each one, no matter how much planning I do in preparation, it is a major shock to the system. While all of the changes have been for the better, it always feels not-so-awesome at the beginning because it's just plain different (which often translates into difficult).

The fact that AB is older is a bit of a double-edged sword. The good: We are able to have actual discussions about the changes and all the good things that will come from said changes. The bad: She is able to express her dismay about our being apart in a more mature (= more heartbreaking) way than ever before.

The tears, pleas, and letters (oh, the letters) leave me second guessing, as always, whether I am doing the right thing. I know that I am  and I know that I am going to feel guilty. But, I also know that she is going to be fine.

That I'm going to be fine.

That we're going to be fine.

Just as we have been every other time.

Book Review: The Great Big Book of Families

This book makes me super happy. It's a must read for ALL families. It should be in every classroom. It should be required reading in every elementary school. Yes, I feel that strongly about the importance of this book.

The Great Big Book of Families is fantastic. It is a celebration of all different types of families. It encourages a discussion with children about their families with simple text by kidlit veteran Mary Hoffman combine with cartoonist Ros Asquith's fun multicultural illustrations. This book covers everything from homes (some families live in big houses and some live in tiny apartments) to school (some kids are homeschooled) to vacations (some families visit other countries, some go on day trips, and some can't afford it) to feelings (some families are more expressive than others and most importantly, all families are happy all the time) and a great deal more. The Great Big Book of Families ends on the key point that families change due to a variety of things: jobs, feelings, marriages, divorces, births, adoption, etc.). The fact that your family looks one way today does not mean that it will not look a different way next year, next month, or even tomorrow.

AB and I had a great talk about the book. We talked about her friends' families, our own family and even made a family tree like the one in the book. While it may just be the two of us right now (as Mary Hoffman reminds us, "You can be a family with just two people"), her family is much larger than the two of us and there are a great deal of people who care about her even though she doesn't see or talk to them every day.

So, here's a challenge: Ask your child how they see your family today? How do they see their friends families? Their answers might (pleasantly) surprise you.

Articles of Interest.

A round-up of interesting articles about books, parenting, creativity and education from around the web:

• How A Books Is Born - GalleyCat
• Let's Go Reading in the Car - The New York Times
• The Top 10 Education Reforms Mom Congress Wants to See - Parenting
• New Research: Twenty-Something Moms are More Likely to be Single - ModernMom
• 50+ Ways to Explore the Great Artists With Your Kids - Creative With Kids
• Fisticuffs Over the Care and Keeping of Books - Book Riot

Happy Reading!

Articles of Interest.

A round-up of interesting articles about books, parenting, creativity and education from around the web:

• Motherhood: Ecstatic, Frenzied and Exhausted - Huffington Post

• 10 Best Books for Thinking Parents - Parenting

• Developing Outdoor Creativity with Your Kids - Patch

• "Why Don't We Have Any Black Kids?": An Education System Divided - New York Times

• The Best Places for Mom Entrepreneurs to Work It - The Mogul Mom

• Dickens, Browning and Lear: What's in a Reputation?- Guardian Books

Happy Reading!

Empowering Video: For Mamas Who Rock Business

On Wednesdays I share a video that facilitates empowerment; because when you know better, you do better.

You defining success on your own terms is the best thing you can do for your kids.

I finished Danielle LaPorte's book, The Fire Starter Sessions, a few days ago. It is wonderful in both content and design. If you have any desire to lead a better and more fulfilling life, this is the book for you.  I felt like I was having "aha!" moments almost every other page. (Don't believe me? Check out her 30 Days to Fire Up Your Creative Genius series for the Huffington Post.)

So, for this week's video I wanted to share a bit of her magic specifically targeted at mothers. This is an older video from when The Fire Starter Sessions was an e-book & e-course, but it still rings true.

Good Copy + Bad Cop = Me

I wrote the following post during a particularly trying time of single mamahood back in 2009. Things have (obviously) improved 
over the years, but we do have our moments. 

The kid sure knows how to pull at the heart strings.

"I love you! I want you! I want yooooou!"

Granted these nuggets of undying devotion only come out with such passion when she is on a time out. When she sees that I am unswayed and not returning to her room, she turns on me.

There is a period of time where all I hear from her room are sorrow-filled ululations which quickly turn into cries for family members who cannot hear her. I am sure that if she had a clear concept of God and the heavens she would be appealing to them as well.

"I don't like you! I want Grandma! Grandmaaaaaaa! Grandpaaaaa! I want Uncle Briiiiiii! Aunt TTTTTTTTTT!"

But alas no one come to her rescue. Her cries simmer down to whimpers and sniffles which then settle into silence. A few moments later she will either emerge with tear-streaked cheeks, shuffle over to me and fling herself headfirst into my lap whispering a muffled "Sorry..." or I will peek my head into her room and find her asleep in bed surrounded by her stuffed animals with her blanket pulled up to her chin.

Whatever the outcome, I always feel a sense of triumph. "Haha, I win! You cannot beat me, little one. I am the adult here. Ha and ha!"

But here is the problem. I feel this every single time my discipline works. I can talk a mean game and I can carry it out too, but I am always surprised when it works. Perhaps it is because there is always the moment when in the midst of it, I want to give up. Thrown in the towel. Say, "Fine, have the daggone piece of candy!" or "Fine, wear your swimsuit and rainboots and nothing else to school. Who cares that it's snowing outside!" But I don't and that is usually when she turns the corner.

Multiple times a week I feel like we are acting out this scene from Kramer v. Kramer:

Ted: [while Billy brings ice cream to the table] You go right back and put that right back until you finish your dinner... I'm warning you, you take one bite out of that and you are in big trouble. Don't... Hey! Don't you dare... Don't you DARE do that. You hear me? Hold it right there! You put that ice cream in your mouth and you are in very, very, VERY big trouble. Don't you dare go anywhere beyond that... Put it down right now. I am not going to say it again. I am NOT going to say it AGAIN.
[Billy eats ice cream]
Billy: [Ted picks him up] Ow! You're hurting me!
Ted: OW! Don't you kick me!
Billy: I hate you!
Ted: You're no bargain either, pal! You are a spoiled, rotten little brat and I'll tell you right now...
Billy: I hate you!
Ted: And I hate you back, you little shit!
Billy: I want my mommy!
Ted: I'm all you got.

And I feel horribly. How can you feel that way about your own child? But I do. Well, I don't hate her. But I very strongly disliker her during those moments. Those are the moments when I wish I could just drop her on her father's doorstep and say, "Here you deal with her because I can't." And I imagine that you can probably do that in a marriage. Leave that kid with the other parent and drive off into the sunset for a little while and return when a cooler head has prevailed. But I can't do that.

So sometimes, I give myself a time out. I lock myself in the bathroom, turn on the shower as hot as it will go and give myself a stern talking to or say all the things that I wish I could say, but cannot because she's only three and a half for gosh sakes. Once the mirror has steamed up, I have usually deflated all my own hot air and am okay enough to open the door.

Where is AB during my time out, you ask? On the other side of the door vacillating between crying for me to come out and asking if I'm okay and if I accidently locked myself in the bathroom. When I emerge she is always quite happy to see me and willing to talk about what went wrong. She will give me a run through of the prior ten minutes, "Annabelle threw the books and Froggie and Mommy said to pick them up and Annabelle said NO! and was put on time out and then Mommy locked herself in the bathroom by axident."

Suffice it to say, while I have gotten much better at discipline over the past year, I am by no means a master. While it is clear that AB does not hold a grudge (with me anyway), I know that she is in no way being scarred by me being a consistent disciplinarian or, dare I say, a mean mom at times. I just wish that I didn't feel like such a baby about it myself. Hurt feelings have no place in motherhood, right? Kids are always going to say things that they don't mean. Heck, I constantly say things that I don't mean in my bathroom time-out rants. I feel like I am on an emotional roller coaster though. I go from sadness that she is so upset, then frustration that she thought she could get away with it, then anger that she thinks that I am so horrible that she requires some sort of stealth rescue mission, then relief when it is over which is quickly followed by the dread that it is inevitably going to happen again.

I need to grow a thicker skin. Pronto.

Out of the Mouths of Babes.

{image via we heart it}

A few weeks ago AB and I were sitting at the kitchen table. She was having a snack and I was knitting. Out of the blue, she turned to me and said, "I'm going to be a big sister one day." I said, "Really?" and continued knitting.

"Yeah, and you're going to have to go back to the hospital again."

"Why?"

"To get the new baby."

"Oh, I see." I smiled at her and continued knitting.

This past month two of her classmates have become big sisters, so this conversation wasn't really anything new. But then:

"And I'm going to get a new daddy, too. And he is going to be very kind to you."

Now, that gave me pause. I put down my knitting and gave her a huge hug. In that moment, I received encouragement from my child. She didn't know it. She was simply stating as fact what she believed the future held for us. But I needed it, because sometimes in the thick of things, it really does not feel like I am moving us forward at all. I feel that I am running in place. So, her unwavering belief that one day our family will expand was comforting. And the kindness of the new daddy. You could have knocked me over with a feather. He won't just be kind, he'll be very kind.

I know that it will not necessarily look like we envision it (i.e. the baby may come the daddy; the baby may not come from mommy's tummy,etc.) and it may take longer than we'd like (i.e. she may be in high school by the time the pieces fall into place), but it will happen.

Out of the mouths of babes often come gems.

AB Pic of the Week.

This face.

This pout.

This arched eyebrow.

This particular expression. 

This exact face.

It is impossible to resist.

Single Parents Day.

Apparently, today was Single Parents Day. A whole day to honor the hard work of single parents.

As a single parent, I find it to be unncessary as a way to bring awareness to the challenges and triumphs of parenting. Two reasons:

1. It's rather obvious that parenting is hard, and even harder without a partner.
2. Mother's Day and Father's Day cover both categories of single parents (or caregivers) quite well, I believe.

However, I think that it should be day to bring awareness to single parents about acknowledging the good things we do, instead of bemoaning the things that our kids don't have or the people who are not in their lives. Stop, take a moment and pat yourself on the back for the damn fine job you are doing as a parent.

A handful of personal kudos:

• I tell AB "I love you" & give her kisses and hugs upon her multiple times a day.
• Without prompting, AB tells me "I love you" gives me kisses and hugs multiple times a day.
• I get compliments on how she carries herself when I am not around.
• We read together every day.
• We laugh together every day.

As the day draws to a close, I am grateful to continue on this journey with such an awesome kid.

Be A Mother, Not A Friend.

{image via weheartit}

As you all know, I love my kid. I adore my kid. I think that she is the best thing since sliced bread.

However, I am not her friend. And I surely do not want her to think that she is mine. Nor do I want her to describe me as her "best friend" when she is older. 

Do I want us to have an open and supportive relationship? Absolutely. But will I be sharing everything with my daughter? No.

I think the "friendship trap" is something that a lot of single mothers fall into. The dynamic between a single mother and her daughter is bound to be different. However, the boundaries must be established. Whenever I hear a mother-daughter relationship described as "best friends", I always cringe a little inside. I want for AB to know that while I love her dearly, she is not my partner or my equal. There will be no clubbing or bar hopping nights in our future. I will not be crying on her shoulder about any future heartbreaks. I'm her mother. Not her friend.

As mothers, I believe we do our daughters a disservice if we blur those lines. Our daughters should see us as their rocks. This is not to say that we should be entirely devoid of feeling or a complete stick in the mud. However, I believe that we should not be sharing all of our lives with our daughters. Our daughters do not need to meet every gentleman who takes us out on a date. Our daughters do not need to hear about how much their fathers hurt us or how badly they screwed up. Our daughters deserve to have mothers who provide stability, authority and structure.

Be her protector, her confidante, her role model. Be her mother, not her friend.

In The Absence of Kinks.

AB's  hair is chestnut brown with streaks of auburn that only show up when in the right amount of light. Her curls are loose yet defined. They are the curls that the kinks of my hair long to be. Her hair can be brushed into subtle waves. When wet it will spring back into its natural curl but longer.  Thankfully, she will never experience the burn of the hot comb, curling iron or relaxer. I live vicariously through her and let it lie as she flips it back out of her face with a grown up flair that it is apparently inherent in those with blessed with long hair. My mother worries that AB will become vain about her hair, while I worry that I will become (or have already become) vain about her hair.

While pregnant, I wondered incessantly about what she would look like. What would her coloring be? Would she have her father's blue eyes and my kinky 'fro? Would she be a beautiful mix of the two of us, or would the concoction of the two of us come out all wrong, uneven, a sign of our failed relationship?

I gave birth to white baby with straight hair and big brown eyes. I deconstructed her parts into mine and his until she was no longer a baby but simply another belonging to be divided. I got the eyes, the nose, the smile. He got the ears, the eyelashes, the feet, the build. We split the hair - the curls from me, the texture (or lack thereof) from him. Her complexion has darkened thanks to sun and age; however she is still, and forever shall remain, darker than him but lighter than me.

Despite finding these elements of me in her, I still fail to see the resemblance. But then, I think about how I don't really look like either of my parents. There are no "spitting images" in my family. There are glimpses and fragments that  appear and disappear. Wispy ghosts of resemblances.

This hair gives her anonymity. I like that she can slide through cultures with an ease that I cannot. She has been mistaken for a Latina (Dominican, Spanish, Mexican, you name it), an Indian (her surname, apparently, is quite common in India), and a Native American ("Oh, she's got that Cherokee blood, right?").

This mixture of African, Irish and Italian has given her a worldwide hue. I imagine her with her long multicultural hair tied up in a knot at the nape of her neck, backpack filled to the brim, notebook and pen in one hand and a camera in the other, traveling the world. I imagine that I have presented her with a key that will allow her to traverse this globe and be accepted by all. I picture her slipping in and out of cultural identities as she currently slips in and out of imaginary play  worlds.

She is the physical manifestion of what I wanted to experience in my youth. There is no pressure upon her to be black. There is no pressure on her to be white. She can be a chameleon and choose whatever she wants to be. This is my unintentional gift to her. This freedom that stems from the absence of kinks.

{Originally posted on Black Girl Investing}

Absent Presence: Reflections on Solo Parenting

Single mamahood is not all rainbows and butterflies. It is not everyday euphoria about being able to parent your offspring as you want with no interference.

Single mamahood is messy, frustrating and lonely.

Granted, this could be said about any parenting. But the journey of a single parent in the absence of involvement from the other parent is something quite different. Single mamahood is rough. No question. It is not something that you can do halfway. Single mamas don't have the luxury to be lazy. We get all the highs but we also get all the lows.

I've been on this single mama road for the past six years. It has not gotten any easier. In some ways, it has gotten harder because AB is now aware. She has memories of her (inconsistent) father. She realizes that her family is different than the other kids. She knows. She knows more than I would like based on her own (not so great) experiences with her father. Yet at the same time, I am grateful that I don't have to explain or skirt around the issue of why her father is not in her life. However, I am not proud of the fact that when she wants to talk about him with me (and only me) she whispers in secret her thoughts about how she loves him but does not like him.

As she grow older, more of her features and mannerisms are similar to his. The look on her face when she is dancing or finds something truly hilarious. I look at her and see him. This brings up new feelings for me. Just when I thought that I had successfully mastered the emotions of parenting alone, when I see him in her, his failures as a parent feel like my own. I wonder if my feelings of shame, embarrassment and failure will ever go away. I wonder if I will ever stop trying to (over)compensate for his absence.

It is rather amazing how someone who is absent can have such a presence in our lives. It is because I give his absence power. The power is fueled by hurt. That is what these feelings are really all about. My anger stems from the fact that he hurt me by not living up to my expectations.

I need to let that go. It is time to let that go.

Because despite his failings, AB is her own person. Those smiles and shuffling feet are hers, not his.

She is not him.

She is not me.

She is the best of both of us.

I need to remember that. It is time to remember that.

Tickle Monster.

"I'd like to talk about something for a little bit."

That is AB's new line. When she says this it means that she is wants my undivided attention about whatever she is wanting to talk about. I gladly oblige. When she is through with her desired topic, she simply says, "I'm done talking about it. I want to do something else now." So, I must let it go.

Letting it go is hard, especially now that 5 years old is on the horizon, I find that she's got some interesting things on her mind. (My favorite question from yesterday, "Why do we have faces?") Her incredible memory  enhances my fascination with her thoughts. (She still recalls the flavor of lollipop she got when she went with my mother to the barbershop...10 months ago.)

Earlier this week, she wanted to talk about her dad. I took a deep breath, gave myself a quick internal pep talk about allowing her to express her feelings and not injecting any judgments of my own, and settled in. She gave an overview of things she remembered about him, things they had done together, things we did as a family, things that he had done. Unfortunately, there was more bad than good. Then she said that she didn't like him. "I love him because he is my daddy, but I don't like him because he's mean." Before I could respond she asked me if I liked him.

Well, crap. The short answer is no, but I can't tell my kid that. So I said, "Of course, because without him, I wouldn't have you." *Tickle, tickle* She collapses into laughter, states that she is done talking about him and just wants me to keep tickling her. Fine by me. But not, because I want to know what she is thinking and how she feels about her father not being in her life and if she thinks that I am scarring her for life by raising her alone.  However, I think I'll be okay playing ostrich about it for a little while longer.

I knew that this moment was going to come. There will be many more moments and I will have to come up with better answers, because tickling my way out of it is not going to last for very long.

At Least I Have a Cute Kid.

On one of my outings over the weekend, with brown-eyed babe in tow, I found myself in line behind a guy that I went to high school with. He was with his fiancee and their infant son. Obviously I recognized him and I am pretty sure that he recognized me, though we didn't speak to, or even acknowledge, one another. Yet, I wanted to burrow myself into the ground. Mind you, I had never had a crush on this individual or had a bad encounter with him. So why was I so self-conscious?


It was the simple fact that he looked like he had it together. Whether he does or not is not the point. But he looked it. He was the strong provider. He passed her money clip (a flippin' money clip!) with a wad of bills in it to pay for the food, while he sat at the table with the baby. He wore a fitted hat, oversized shirt and short, and sneakers. All in pristine condition and all various shades of the color red. The fiancee had quite the serious ring on her finger and she was looking fabulous despite the fact that she had given birth not too long ago. Hair perfectly coiffed, cute outfit, large designer sunglasses ( y'know, the ones that make you look like an insect). I, on the other hand, wore a sweatshirt, bandanna, perscription glasses and carried a squirming toddler in my arms (who much to my chagrin was mistaken for a boy despite wearing kickass pink Vans). I wasn't looking busted, but I felt that way in their presence. To add insult to injury, I heard that he had recently purchased a home, while AB and I sleep in my childhood bedroom. Sadly, it made me feel better that he had become pudgy in the 5+ years that I had last seen him.

While I did not see their bundle of joy, (though I could tell it was boy from the socks and various accoutrements on the carseat), I found solace in the fact that my kid is probably cuter than theirs, in all her tomboy glory.

Circus Freak.

So, is she yours?


Perhaps,they are thrown off her bone straight hair and light complexion in contrast to my kinky 'fro and dark complexion.

Brown-eyed babe is 50% African-American, 25% Italian and 25% Irish. But essentially she is biracial. Half black. Half white. However, she is not the one whom people see as abnormal. I disappoint them by not responding, "No, she is just my charge. I'm the nanny." Instead I give them a simple definative, "Yes."

So, she looks like her dad then?


Such a polite way of asking if he is of a different race. To this inquiry I responded quite cheekily, "Yes, she has his ears.", which is the truth.

I hope that her peers are less put off by her mixed heritage. And then there is the whole can of worms with regard to her own sense of identity. It has been my observation that most kids with a black parent identify themselves as black. Not that she has to identify with one or the other, but we all know how society loves to try and place people into boxes. What if I were to enroll her in an Irish dance class, would she be regarded as an outsider due to her darker skin tone? I wish I could just pass these worries off on blue-eyed babe but his sense of race is a bit murky as it is with regards to black and white. When we lived in Massachusetts, I had such anxiety about her only being surrounded by her white family members. I was quite resentful of it actually. Now that the tables are turned, I have anxiety about her not seeing her white family members. I guess we shall cross the racial identity bridge when we come to it. However, that does not mean that I won't be fretting about a possible furture identity crisis in the meantime.