Announcing the 2nd Annual Gathering of Adoptees and Foster Care Alumni of African descent:

Back in March it was announced on the Adopted and Fostered Adults of the Diaspora (AFAAD) that their second Annual Gathering has been scheduled:

Save Nov 6-8th!

Announcing the 2nd Annual Gathering of Adoptees and Foster Care Alumni of African descent:

November 6-8th, 2009, Oakland, CA


This is a unique and important group that we should all support. They are doing great work! I'm hoping they get a chance to publish more of the conversations that take place during the gathering. I have so much to learn about being a mother to an adopted child and this is the group that I feel can teach me the most.

What if every dollar you spend this year...meant something

What if
every dollar
that you take from your wallet
or transfer from your online account
was spent in line with what you value most
what if every dollar you spent was from your heart as well as your hand
what if you thought first
what if you realized you are wealthy
and then you spread that wealth in a way that those that are not would feel the comfort of it
what if you started today

you need shoes

buy Tom's.

Working and Playing

This morning my guys let me sleep in all the way to 9 AM (a big big thank you to my husband who played Lego's with Q for an hour and a half) and so I missed the morning news and was listening to an interview with an author while I made my coffee.  She said that she lived in Ohio in a place where the family was the center of everything and people didn't leave their children to be raised by others.  She then went on to say how difficult that is but that it was worth it.

Funny, that line "to be raised by others."  So innocently thrown out there.  The judgmental high tone of it all.  It's similar to "I'm a full-time mom."  Hmmmm.   

I'm a full time mom too.  I just happen to have a job that pays our mortgage.  Actually, wouldn't that make me a full time mom +.  At work on Tuesday, I mentioned to a male colleague that I would probably be taking Wednesday and Thursday off but if I didn't get everything at work done I would bring Q into work for a couple of hours and then he and I would putz around the city.  He asked if Q was out of school and I told him it was Spring break.  He looked off in the distance and said "Spring Break,  huh, I think my kids have spring break soon.  Actually, it might be this week too.  They might be on Spring break now also."  Now, just to be clear, this man is not divorced, he lives with his wife and his children.  And his children are young like Q also.  And there you have the huge difference between a working Dad and a working Mom.  While most dads would know when there kids were going to be home for a week and not in school, I cannot think of a single working mom that would have any choice but to know.  It's the expectations on the mom that make the big difference.  If child is off of school and hanging out all day on play dates with Mom and doesn't see dad but for dinner nothing is ever made of that.  But if the neighbor of that child is off of school and is hanging out with dad, playing lego's and basketball and going to play dates and sees mom just for dinner, well, everyone feels sorry for the kid and worse starts making the kid feel sorry for himself too.

Yes, folks it's different being a working mom from a working dad.

But as much as I would stay home if the mortgage would get paid without my salary I do not for one moment think Q's life would be better.  It would be different.  For what he would gain in my influence he would naturally lose in my husbands.  One of the nicest things about working outside of our home is seeing the relationship my son and my husband have developed.  While my husband has never been a 'stay at home' dad, his flexible schedule means that on vacations and after school we do not have to have a babysitter.  It's nice because school can be tough (much tougher than daycare) and on vacation days he really needs a rest.

The world I've been able to give Q is larger and more varied than what he would be living in if I were at home.  In the last job I had, as an executive assistant to the CIO of a Hedge Fund, my boss was woman, and the owner of the firm was African American.  At the job I have now I work for a man who is Mexican and speaks four languages and the CFO who again is a woman.  This is rarified air in the financial world, let me tell you, but Q doesn't know that.  He thinks it's normal that in Finance world (which has got to be 90 % white and the 10% non-white is asian and east asian predominately) I would have two female bosses and one of the two men one would be Hispanic and the other Black.  Hah!  Let him keep that perspective.  

Q has always loved coming to my work places.  And why wouldn't he.  Yesterday, when he walked in the receptionist gave him a pack of gum, one of the other admin's called him sir, took his coat and asked him if he wanted juice and my boss, the owner of the company went into his office and brought out a book of paper airplanes (tear out a page and follow the instructions to make a dozen different types of airplanes.)  "Here" he said with his slight spanish accent "you can make some airplanes and fly them around the office."  And that is what he did.  And while he did he soaked in the environment.  Men and women hard at work 33 floors above Manhattan.  Well spoken and engaging they looked even while they argued a bit, happy to be there.  And when for a very brief moment it started to snow and then the wind kicked up and really the snow started roaring past the windows as if it was December and not April, everyone stopped and went to the windows and looked out.  "Wow!!!"  We all said.  Q too.  And the man who didn't know whether his children were off that week said to me and Q "It's great isn't it?"  And Q and I said "Yea!"  

After the paper airplanes Q spent some time looking out the window at all that was going on in the city 33 floors down, then he made some drawings of the city on some 3 foot by 3 foot paper that had been saved for him.  In his drawings, there are tall tall buildings and lots of cars and there are people in planes, and people walking on the city streets, and below that people in the subway in tunnels and all of them, all the people are smiling.

At 1 PM we left the office and went, per his request to American Museum of Natural History.  We have now been  there so many times we could work as docents.  This time I think we both realized that our next time in the city we're going to another museum.  "Maybe the Met, Mom.  I'm missing it."  Yup, I love me my Q.  After we walked through the museum we stepped out onto Central Park West and grabbed a city bus headed downtown.  A bus ride through Manhattan can simply never get boring.  The cast of characters is just to broad.  We went through Time Square and then the garment district and ended up at Madison Square Garden where that bus line stopped.  We then took a taxi the last bit of a way to our very favorite place in all Manhattan (that doesn't serve food - I should say) Strand Bookstore.  Strand sells discount books but it's so much more than the sum of it's parts.  The old wooden floor squeaks and the aisles are packed with books and people who love them.  Every type of person.  It's beautiful.  Really.  We take the elevator up to the third floor and start our calisthenics, down on the floor with my glasses falling off my nose to look at comic books and up on a small stool reaching as far as I can to look for books on mythology.  An entire section of chapter books at pretty much his reading level.  We have a system now.  We each separate (I can always see him of course) and we each pull books we think might be of interest.  We arrive at the low tables (I think the chairs are six inches off the ground) and begin to go through our stacks.  This time we had more than twenty books.  I read the jacket of the book and we make a 'no' pile and a 'maybe' pile.  Most of the books go to the 'maybe' pile.  Then I have about 15 books that I now read the first one or two pages of.  From this he says 'no' to some (to obviously boring or 'young' which he says the way a wine connoiseur might say about a wine that has gone to vinegar) and I say 'no' to some (mostly because we should 'leave them for next time' Mommy speak for 'they are too old for you.)  Finally we have it down to about 4.  This is when it gets really hard.  The only thing that helps at all at this point is that we are both really hungry and he knows by now that we will be back some time in the future.  With his stomach growling he chooses one comic book and one chapter book.  We've spent $14.00 and an hour and a half and we couldn't be more pleased.  

I ask if he's willing to try Ethiopian and he looks unsure.  He's tired.  I say let's go look at it and if there is nothing on the menu that sounds good to you we'll go somewhere else.  We take another taxi and wind up at the little store front Ethiopian restaurant in the East Village.  There is no one in the restaurant and nothing on the menu that looks appealing to him.  No problem I say.  There are a ton of restaurants in this neighborhood.  We walk 1/2 a block down and there is a pizza place on one side (New York Style, lower east side pizza) and right in front of us a hamburger restaurant.  He hears hamburgers and we walk in.  It turns out to be a local food, grass fed beef type of hamburger joint with an acoustical guitar version of a Chopin tune coming from the speakers.  We are both happy, Q and I and we are the first people there so have the full attention of the waitress.   I decide to split a hamburger (much to his chagrin) and when we do finally take a bite of our sandwiches I regret that decision.  It was the best burger I have ever had.  Q too.  We ordered the cheddar, bacon burger with sauteed onions and mustard.  The look on Q's face was pure bliss.  The waitresss, a woman in her late fifties had been watching us and when she saw him bite into his burger she came over and started talking to us.  We talked about good food and not good food and she gave us a far too detailed story about why we should never again eat at McDonalds.  Before we left she gave us some home made chocolate chip cookies.

Outside of the restaurant the sun was going down, judging by the orange glow on the buildings and as we stood waiting for a cab to come down the street I pointed up at the 6 story tenements and told Q this was the neighborhood that a book we read recently was written about.  We talked about the jewish immigrants who came here from Europe, how they lived and how the streets had changed but the apartments maybe not so much.  We talked about all the people we saw on the streets now and how it wasn't one group but a mix of many different kinds of people.  He asked where all the jewish people went and I said I'm sure some people are still here but many families moved out once they began to succeed in America.  They moved out to the suburbs and other immigrants moved in.  As we stood there we could see Hispanic, African and Asian immigrants walking by.  And then a taxi drew up and we got in and the taxi driver was wearing a turban.  I love me some New York City.

We got out of the taxi onto the now dark street and entered the door with thousands of others.  The schedule told us we had 2 minutes 50 seconds to get from one end of Grand Central to the other.  "Can we do it?!"  I fake shouted and he shouted for real "Yes!"  And we were off holding hands, running and laughing like lunatics.  "Why did we move to B...If we lived in Connecticut THAT would be our train " I laugh yelled and pointed to the train nearest us.  Q was laughing so hard he had to stop running and literally fell to his knees laughing just near the big clock in the center of the grand hall.  "Get up, Get up, if you don't get up we'll have to take the 7:15 train.  I can't stand the 7:15 train the people are the worst!!!"  I tell him, to more peels of laughter.  "OK OK but you MUST STOP TALKING until we're on the train!  You are 'ridiklis' "  and we ran some more, hoping on the train 30 seconds before the doors shut behind us.  The train was packed and we were 5 min late for getting seats together.  We walked all the way through the cars and I finally found a single seat on the aisle and asked the woman next to it to remove her bag please from the seat.  She did so kindly and I began to take off our coats and put them and our bags over head.  "The books mom!"  Q said and I was retrieving the chapter book from the bag when I noticed an aquaintance of ours from our town.  I smiled and he said hi and then he stood up from his coveted third seat with a free seat next to him and offered it to us.  Yay!  Q wouldn't need to sit on my lap!  The woman saw us moving and I told her she had just been spared listening to the story of Lenny and Mel, investigative middle school reporters.  She laughed and when she saw how handsome our friend happened to be, she was even more happy.  Everyone won, except perhaps our friend who had given up his precious leg and elbow room.

For the hour + ride we read the book, which was a great one, very very funny and enjoyed the last bit of our delightful day.  Y picked us up at the train.  And the stories of our day would have to wait.  We both could hardly speak.  "The shoes are smokin'" said Y.  And Q and I looked at each other.   I love my Q.  I love 6.  And I love that I can give him this great big, big, wonderful, diverse, world.

A Day in Photos: For Evelyn

A Day in Photos: For Evelyn

http://threecontinentfamily.blogspot.com/2009/03/anybody-in.html

March 17, 2009

Alarm is not set.  Q has off of school (Superintendent's Day: Hmmm.  Superintendent is perhaps Irish?) and I've taken the day off too.  Big plans, but Q has been ill since Friday so probably a visit to the doctor is in order.

6:30 AM Q awakes and asks if we can skip cuddle time and go directly downstairs to see if the leprechaun has come and left him anything.

Q discovers 6 dollars and the note below.  He tells me he thinks the writing looks like mine.  What?!  Are you saying my handwriting resembles that of a leprechaun?  Why I never....

Homage to Julie:  Broken Coffee Pot Photo: 

About 7:30 unable to really eat toast as Q cannot yet read and I am his reader.

Homage to Rachel: Hair drying photo (I will do a post of all the out takes - they are hysterical. at least to me.)

9:30ish Sit down to look at taxes.

10:00 AM Avoid looking at taxes by taking Q to a cafe.

11:15 AM Doctor's Visit - Find out Q has strep throat!!!

12:15 Decide to drop Q off at home instead of taking him with me to the grocery store.  Figuring infecting half the town at the local cafe is accomplishment enough.  Stop for moment to appreciate our first flowers of spring.

1:15 PM  Stopped at gas station that didn't have auto charge thingy on gas pump.  Decide I cannot go into gas station to pay.  Try in town grocery that is a little gross but may have cubed beef for stew.  It does not.  Drive to second gas station that happens to be next door favorite restaurant/ gourmet take out to see if by chance Jesse has made Irish Stew.  She has not.  Get turkey sandwich to eat in car on way to grocery store that is 7 miles away.  Luckily they have cubed beef.

Back home to start stew.

Earlier in the morning Q had looked through his cookbooks (he has about 4 kid cookbooks) and chosen a cupcake recipe that has shamrocks on the top.  We start to make the recipe and I realize that the recipe, which appears to be English, makes about enough batter for 6 mini cupcakes.  Leprechaun's we are not and so half way through the recipe I grab another book and start adding more ingredients (Barefoot Contessa's cupcake recipe: highly recommended!)  Q has decided instead of green and white cupcakes he will use all of the colors saying that they will be rainbow cupcakes in honor of the leprechaun.  He practices separating the eggs (we only lost one!) and separates the batter into four bowls and then has four colors to work with. This took more than an hour and was part art project, part science and of course part cooking. 

Please note:  Strep infected cupcakes were kept for our own consumption.

6:00ish - Dinner with the guys (something I do not get to do on work days.  Y is trying to be funny by doing the leprechaun dance to get Q to smile but Q is too annoyed having to wait longer to start digging into his stew.)

7:00ish Q comes running downstairs to show me his 6 year molars are coming in.  We are both really excited.  We jump up and down and I give him a big hug!  My baby is growing up!  For some reason it feels as important as the day I saw his very first tooth come in.

7:30  Last hurrah playing in bedroom before story time while Q does nebulizer for his asthma.

7:45 Start of story time - favorite time of day.  This photo is what I imagined reading stories would be like before I had Q.

These next photos are more what it is like; constant movement and commentary.

Don't you love the title of this book.  Q would not have cared if this were a book about advanced calculus - he was taking this out of the library and bringing it home.

Here wiggling front tooth that is very ,very loose!

8:30 PM - American Idol time.

10ish put away food brew last cup of tea.

Drink tea and check blogs.

I will spare you the shower and bed photos.

Thanks Evelyn for suggesting this.  I had wanted to do a day in photos with Q and got to it much more quickly than I might have if you had not asked us to do this.

Thanks to everyone that has already shared their day in photos it's a true joy to be able to see lives so well lived.  For those of you that do not post your family photos I would encourage you to do this for yourself (without posting of course.) As another blogger has said the exercise really does make you look at your day in a new light.

Notes from Working-Mom-Land - A.M.

Notes from Working-Mom-Land

Tuesday, March 3rd, 2008

5:45 AM Alarm goes off 

5:55 AM Y hears the alarm and wakes me up

5:56 AM Shower

6:05 AM Still in the shower.  Having great difficulty leaving the peace and quiet and the warmth.  Temperature outside about 10 degrees.  Q wakes up and comes into the bathroom to talk to me about his day yesterday.  I've been in the shower so long I can't see him from the steam but I can hear him sit down on the little table while I try to drag myself away from the caress of the water - Q tells me the BIG NEWS - He read his first book all by himself - Green Eggs and Ham!!!!!!

6:10 AM I drag myself out of the shower - Q tells me he went snowboarding (Monday was a snow day!) but the snowboard wasn't good so he went sledding which WAS good because he and his dad went down the hill together and they both flipped off and fell face first into the snow!!!!!!! 

6:15 AM I'm dry - kind of - and I put on my outfit that I picked out on Sunday (all clothes hung in order from Monday through Friday - no way can I listen to Q AND choose clothes that make me look like an adult.)  Q yells from his room can he wear a short sleeve shirt under a long sleeve shirt and then he won't be so hot!!!!!! during gym?!!!!!  I scoot over to his room while pulling on my tights and see he is already wearing his t-shirt and it's tucked up under his chin in an effort to see the belt that he is trying very hard to belt on his own.  His jeans are too big in the waist and he's cinching the belt really tight.  I stop for a moment and watch him.  His room is a mess of all the magic of 6 years old stuff.  He is so earnest and happy and curious and loving and I feel - really feel -  the fullness of this life and say my quick prayer - thank - you - God - thank you thank you thank you thank you God.

6:25 AM Blow dry my hair while Q shows me how he can read Green Eggs and Ham - he is sitting on the floor of the hallway and I'm yelling over the blowdryer - "that's AMAZING!!!  Look at how all your hard work has paid off!!!  Wow!  Reading!"  He is ignoring me.  He is looking at the words and he's literally in a wonder of it all daze.  He cannot believe he can read.  The world has just exploded and it is no longer censored.  

6:30 AM Y brings up a cup of coffee and toast with cinnamon sugar.  Loveliness!  No time to sit down.  I eat while I am putting on my makeup.  I am about to put on my shoes but remember the snow storm yesterday and the 6 inches of slush on the city streets and decide to wear my boots.

6:40 AM Start asking Q to put on his boots - this will take several minutes - ok honey let's get your boots on - sweatheart - yes I saw the book - now let's get your boots on - yes, I saw you do a slide back flip off the couch several times but if you remember we're not supposed to do any kind of back flip off of the couch - now how about sliding those feet into those boots - yes I see your boots could be gloves but you couldn't easily eat anything if you had to - come to think of it - why don't you try them on your feet!  As this exchange goes on - I put my wallet in my purse, check for my subway pass, grab soup out of the fridge - toast two pot tarts - wrap pop tarts in paper towel - put soup and bread and poptarts in cool polka dot lunch thingy Y bought me - put my mega huge snow hiking boots (my nice shiny city girl boots are at work for some reason that I cannot recall) on - and put my shoes on top of my purse - put on my coat - put on my hat - try to resist helping Q zip his coat - fail resisting helping Q with his coat zipper - get scolded at by Q that he is NOT  a BABY and he will zip his own coat - remind my self that I am happy he has his boots on as he walks outside into the 10 degree temperature holding his coat closed because there wasn't time to zip it.

6:50 AM Car ride to the train station.  Listen to Q talk about how he hopes the lego station is open today.

6:55 AM sit in a car for a few minutes as we watch the ferry pull away from the dock and the people who have gotten off trudging toward the stairs to the platform - watch the people on the platform visibly shiver from the cold.

7:01 AM Get out of the car as I see the train lights in the distance - kisses to the boys and waves and I try to dash down the stairs in the tunnel but quickly realize each boot weights ten pounds and so I kind of shuffle the toward the stairs the way a guy with cement 'shoes' who has just escaped the mafia might - with an earnest need to move forward quickly without the ability to actually do so.  I look and feel foolish - but decide my warm feet make up for my feelings of awkwardness.  

7:05 AM Train starts towards Grand Central.  I put in my ear phones and listen to my i-phone.  Try to watch adoption videos on you tube but AT&T is not having it - no connection.  I open my bag and eat my pop tarts - brown sugar type.  I cannot sleep so I look at the river and think in a couple of weeks there will be no more ice on it and all of the snow will be gone.

8:17 AM the train pulls into Grand Central.  I will never ever get bored of walking through Grand Central Station.  Early morning sunlight is pouring through the tall windows and making those long diagonal stripes down to the floor.  The clock stands sentry while people are walking or sprinting or running in every direction.  Thousands of people are getting off the trains from the towns West, North and East and heading into the subway or out into the street while a seemingly equal number of people are coming from the subway or street and walking through Grand Central in order to get into the office building above it.  There is no way to get through the center of the main hall at this time of day without being jostled.  It is CITY.  THE city.  Big, loud, wonderful, fast, purposeful, with a diversity that is without parallel.  It is literally one of my all time favorite places in the world, and as crazy as my day is I have 60 seconds of real childlike happiness each day I get to travel through it.

8:20 AM Escalator down into subway.  Stand watch over 10 turnstyles with hundreds of people coming at me through them - see a free moment and I dash through one in the opposite direction - get bumped several times as I make my way to my line - one of 6 or so.  The subway is crazier than Grand Central.  Walk down the steps very very carefully as my boots seem to be about 6 inches longer than each stair.  Get the the platform as a train is pulling up but it's an express.  I let it go because I know I will be trampled on the escalator when I get off the express as people literally run up the escalator at this time of day.  

8:22 AM Local train comes - I take it - it's more  crowded than express but when I get out I'm one level about the express platform  - so no escalator.  I now have just one flight of stairs.  

8:24 AM - Out on the street again - it's freezing!!!!!!  But my feet are nice and warm and dry.  I debate whether to walk a block for expensive coffee or just go into work and drink the coffee there.  

8:26 AM Standing in line so that I can pay $6.00 for coffee and 500 calories worth of bread!  I think about how sick that is.  I wonder if one day years from now we will watch a table full of woeful looking men testify in front of congress that indeed they never knew their product was addictive.

8:28 AM I am run/sliding/thumping my way across the street and then down the block to my work.  I hear a heavily accented "Maam!  Maaaaammmmm!!!!!!!!"  behind me and I turn around.  He is one building away and waving frantically in the direction of the intersection I have just crossed.  "IS THAT YOUR SHOE!"  He screams.  I look where he is pointing and sure enough in the direct middle of the cross walk is my black suede pump.  It's amazing what one lone shoe looks like in the middle of a busy street.  I scream (yes, I screamed.  I have seen accidents that caused blood to spurt in all directions and remained calm but the sight of my shoe made me burst out.)  The kind man waves his arms frantically to the cars that were about to run over my shoe and dashes out into the intersection.  He grabs my shoe and comes running toward me as I try as much as I can in my boots to run toward him.  "Your shoe!!!"  He says smiling as he hands it to me and then goes dashing back down the street in the opposite direction.  I look at him and am reminded how much I love New Yorkers.  I am about to put my shoe in my back but realize it is soaking wet and carry it in my hand as I go in the building.  

8:30 AM I try to manuver my shoe, lunch bag and coffee cup and purse so that I can get my security pass to go into the elevator bank of our building.  Finally get it and swipe it so that the turnstyle opens.  I get on the elevator with four other people and press the 33 floor button.  The elevator closes and the guy standing next to me looks at the shoe I'm holding in my hand which is dripping slush onto the floor of the elevator.  He looks up at me.  I smile at him.  He looks confused and gets off of the elevator.

8:31 AM I get out of the elevator, say hi to Pearl at the reception desk, take a left and walk past all of the cubicles.  I pass the kitchen and take another left and arrive at my cubicle which looks directly into a small conference room that is all glass and looks out over Park Avenue and Central Park.  I take off my coat, hat, scarf, gloves and boots.  I take out my dry shoe and put it on and try to dry off my wet one somewhat with a paper towel.  I put on the wet shoe and pull out the space heater and point it to my feet.  Not as bad as I thought. 

I sit look out of the window and take a sip of coffee.  I look at the clock.  Q is just getting to school and my day begins.

Love, Loss and Root Beer

Last year, one evening while we were finishing up dinner Q said to his father, "Dad, how do you feel about fish?"  

"I like it.  It's delicious!"  Replied my husband.

"Nooooo, I mean PET fish Dad!"  

So started the conversation that led to our adventures in animal husbandry.  Or fish husbandry.  It has been a marvel to me how complicated this has been our exploits in creating a living environment for these fish.  If I wrote it all down it would be good for an entire television sitcom season.  Perhaps one day I will and that will be our ticket to the big time.  Today, however is not the day.  What I want to say today is that Q and I have become very attached to our wee aquatic friends.  We have two tanks, one in his bedroom ( a single Beta Male fish with truly beautiful red body and fins) and one tank in our dining room which up until yesterday contained three Cardinal Tetras and one velvety blue female Tetra name Potato Chip (red beta is French Fries and the three little ones are something like Ice Cream, Root Beer and Bubble Gum.)  Yesterday, Potato Chip died.  She died while he was in school - thank goodness since it was not pretty - she was gasping and doing a combat crawl across the bottom of the tank.  I scooped her up and got her out of the tank before he came home last night and because he had a friend over for a play date he never noticed.  

And so this morning after breakfast, I put him on my lap and told him that his little fish died yesterday.  His eyes opened large and he turned to look into the tank and then fell against me and cried and cried.  If it had been one of the little three schooling fish I doubt that would have been the reaction but this was beautiful blue Potato Chip who was the star of the tank.  Full of vigor and wiggle and always swimming in and out of the various rocks and things we gave her, she was fun to watch and we often commented on her antics as we ate our meals.  

"I'm mad at God Mom" was his first response.  

"I wish I could do something to help you sweetie, I know it's hard."

"I want Root Beer" was his second response.  Which was not a request for another pet fish but rather for the soda.  A week ago, he had talked me into ordering root beer for lunch while we were out having pizza and I gave in which is not something I typically do but I was in my first just lost my job haze and he ended up with a huge bottle of root beer in front of him.  I asked for a glass, poured him his root beer and then took the rest home.  Since then we have not been around at a time I think soda is an option (which is basically only lunch.)  And he has been talking about that root beer for a week.

I looked at him and was still about to say no not for breakfast when he popped off my lap, ran into the kitchen, open the refrigerator with his usual heave ho style and grabbed the bottle of root beer from the door.  I wish I could say he swiftly opened the bottle and downed the stuff but he struggled with cap and was not able to get it off.

I got up from my chair and took the bottle, unscrewed the cap and poured him a small shot of root beer which when I handed it to him he downed in two or three swigs.  Had it been Saturday morning I would have let him drink the entire thing, but I felt his teacher did not need a grieving 6 year old on a sugar high.  With pop music coming from the radio, dinner and breakfast dishes pile up high in our little 1940's alley kitchen and the scent of coffee and banana bread wrapped around us we stood there in the kitchen for a moment looking at each other.  Out the kitchen window I spotted a blue fleck and had Q quickly stand up on a chair and pointed out our Blue Bird friend hopping up and down the branches of our neighbors towering pine tree.  We didn't say anything just watched him for a moment.  He was almost nearly the same color as our little fish.  Q looked at me, smiled and then gave me a big hug.  "I'm taller than you" he said as he let go of me and I grabbed him took him off the chair and said to him as he escaped my tickling hands "Not yet you aren't baby, not yet."

Raising a Super Hero

These past few weeks have been challenging. I work in the financial field. In New York. Nuf said.

Meanwhile, these past few weeks have been glorious. To watch a wee preschooler turn into a young boy "I am not a little boy!" And this past week I realized he is correct. He is not a little boy. He is a boy. The painting above was done by our dear friend Rick Price. Q is 2 1/2 years old in the painting. When I asked Rick to paint Q's portrait I was thinking of the classic portrait. We had a baby blue sweater with a peter pan color that Q never wore but that I loved. However, I believe in letting the artist follow his instincts so when Rick asked what I was thinking I left it to him. "I'm thinking, Spiderman" said Rick. Rick worked at our local cafe and almost on a daily basis Q and I would stroll in, me wearing exaustion with as much grace as I could muster (Q is not a sleeper) and Q wearing - almost every day - his spiderman costume. He was not allowed to wear it the two days he was at daycare (against the rules) but every other day he had it on. Q wasn't pretending anything in those days, he WAS spiderman. You can see it in this portrait, can't you? Spiderman going over his accomplishments at the end of a long day. Relishing the fame. And he was/is famous. "Hey" casual passerbys would say "it's Spiderman. Nice to see you!" And Q would nod usually. Sometimes give a small wave with his little hand. Those little hands in the portrait, Rick got the hands perfectly. They are Q's hands. No one elses.

After Spiderman there was Batman. Same thing - about a year. One day soon I'll write about our adventures out in costume. Those days were magical. I often think about the fact that I am not raising a boy, I am raising a man. Well, lately I have begun to think I am raising a super hero.

We are conservative people. So during challenging times, we pull back a bit and prepare ourselves for anything. Last year Q took drum lessons until the summer. We were going to take the summer off and start in the fall again. He was excited. In truth we have the money. And some to spare. But like I said, we are conservative and so we are slowing down on some of our 'wants' in order to never have to worry about our needs. I explained to Q that while we did have the money we thought it best to keep it. Things are uncertain and that we could practise the drum at home in the meantime. He smiled at me and said OK. "I think that is smart mom."

Meanwhile he has been actively petitioning for a new pet (we have 5 fish in two tanks) which are his responsibility and now he wants a guinnie pig. We had pretty much said it was a possibility for Christmas. But last week we decided again that while we had the cash, we didn't feel it was a great example for Q that during uncertain times we take on more responsibility with bringing another, living, breathing, eating animal in our home. And so I sat him down and said exactly that. Not in any kind of heavy way at all, in fact hopefully with a happiness about it. I explained that we liked to live simply in general but especially now. I said the reason that we did was so that our worries were always very small and that we never had anything bigger to think about than maybe are we eating too much dessert? Or what color are we going to paint the bedroom? Simple stuff. Again, he looked at me and said "OK, I understand. We'll have a new pet one day." Yes, we will. And we hugged. And I was amazed.

A few days ago, I came home from work and we were getting ready to read stories. He was sitting in his rocker and said "I'm just going to rock for a moment and think. You can sit on the bed and talk to me if you like." "OK" I said and I sat down on his bed. We talked for a couple of minutes and then he said "I think you are a great Mom." Wow. It's the best thing in the world. Then he got up from his chair and got into bed and told me to sit forward a little bit. I did and I felt his little hands rubbing my shoulders. Although rubbing is too strong a word because in reality his touch was so gentle I could barely feel it. "Q, are you giving me a massage?" "Yes, I know you've had a hard day." About one minute later he got down and went into the bathroom and came back with an absolutely soaking wet warm washcloth." He had me rest my head on a pillow and put the cloth on my forehead (his father does this for him if Q says he has a headache.) While I layed there he rubbed my feet for a minute. "There, do you feel more relaxed?" Yes, I told him but did he think I wasn't relaxed? Do I look when I come home like I'm not relaxed. "No, you look happy" he said (whew - I was beginning to get worried.) "I just thought that after a long day you could use a little extra relaxation."

Obviously, we have been giving Q massages since he was a baby. He is a wound up kind of guy and it always helped him go to sleep. And now this week I see we were giving him more than a massage. We were teaching him how to take care of the ones he loves. And what else is a super hero but someone who knows how to look inside the heart of the people they love and respond with kindness and love.

Are we raising a superhero? I think our little superhero is raising us.

Lessons from Q

Q & J 3 years old


Y and I were together for 14 years before we became parents. White woman, black man living in the US. In those 14 years race rarely entered our conversations. There were many ‘incidents’ but they didn’t cause much angst or need for conversation. We work hard to change what we can and don’t waste much time on what we cannot. When I became pregnant I was thrilled. It was a long, medically intense time and Q is alive because of the amazing doctors and hospital staff that cared for us. During that time I never considered how having a child would bring race into our lives in a way it had never been while we were a couple. I look back now and wonder at my innocence. There are some lessons, however, that we cannot learn from books, movies, or seminars. There are some lessons that come only on the backs of our children. This, I was unprepared for.

The photo above is of Q and J at the time everything began to change. Look at them. Look at how small, how innocent. Q and J started as infants in the same daycare class two days a week. They loved each other almost from the first. Before they could speak they were friends. J would arrive first, grab two fire trucks and sit next to the door until Q showed up. He would then hand a fire truck to Q who might have said thank-you if only he could speak, but he was about a year old and J a year and a half so instead they giggled and played and squabbled all day long, no words necessary.

When we would show up at the end of the day neither of them were ready to come home. One look at us and they would run laughing in the other direction. On the five days Q didn’t go to daycare he would wake up and say the name of the daycare hopefully and when I would say brightly “no, it’s a mommy/daddy & Q day!” he would look faintly disappointed but always try to cover it up with a shy smile as though he didn’t want to hurt my feelings.

One day when they were three years old (as they are in the photo,) Y arrived to pick up Q. They were running in circles when J ran up to Y and said “Y, how come your skin is brown?” Y looked at him and said, “J, how come your skin isn’t?” J raised his little eyebrows, smiled and went back to running in circles with Q. J had already internalized the fact that in his world, white was the ‘norm’ and brown was ‘different.’ Q began to feel this too and began to talk about it. He was three years old when he first told me that he wanted to have my color skin. Once he said he was angry at God for giving him brown skin.

One afternoon as we drove home from the daycare I noticed he was unusually quiet and had a serious look on his face. He was 3 ½ at the time. When I asked what he was thinking about he said that one of the children had asked something about why Q’s skin was brown and that one of the teachers had said because we were all made different to make the world a more beautiful place (or something like that. I cannot remember exactly but it was a very positive message.) “Oh that’s nice sweetheart.” I said. He turned away from the window he had been looking out of and with real frustration he said as he looked at me in the rear view mirror “No it’s not Mommy. It’s stupid. I’m different, they’re all the same.”

That was my different/same turning point. I realized in that moment that being white and never having suffered from being ‘different’ I always looked at it as a positive. But if you are a young preschooler and all you want to do is fit in or feel at home when you are with your friends or in school or your place of worship and you are the one that stands out, then different is not nice. Different is something you want to shed so that others can begin to look at you just for you. You want to belong and be noticed for something like singing or building blocks, something you can feel proud of because you can control it. You want to feel as comfortable in your own skin when you leave home as you do when you are home. Positive messages of difference are lost on you.

I understood that I was oblivious to what he was experiencing and that I would have to catch up very quickly. I knew too that it would be our responsibility to help his current and future preschool teachers learn some of the lessons that Q was teaching us. There is a time and a place for learning about what makes us individuals and unique but I now believe that in the early years we need to start building on a foundation of what we have in common. We are all family to each other, we are all related. That’s lesson number one.

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I have been tagged by C. at http://www.habeshahouse.blogspot.com/ I did not know what this meant so I went back to her site and it says:





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Who I am today

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An Ethiopian Adoption Blessing

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http://www.adoptioncubed.com/

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Random Weird:



1. I do not sleep well and I have never slept well. The problem stems from the fact that my favorite hours in the day are 8 PM - 2 AM and then 5 AM to about 9 AM. Those are my most creative hours. When I was very young I would wake up so that I could hear the first bird begin to chirp. So it's always been there and I know it will always be. I do not nor will I ever sleep well.

2. I drive fast. I like to drive fast. I drive 120 miles a day and I DRIVE. While I drive I listen to really loud music until I worry about my hearing or the soon to be loss of it. Then I turn on Democracy Now with Amy Goodman until the things she reports on make me so mad/sad that I turn back on my really loud rock music and no longer worry about my hearing loss because there are many more things to worry about than that.

3. When I was 19 and she was 23 I traveled with my best girlfriend (more the big sister I always wanted and never had) Tracy Brooks for three months. She chose the itinerary; we would follow spring as it arrived in Europe. We started in Greece in March and ended in Ireland in May. We saw the Forum in Rome covered in wisteria vine. Everywhere we went people were throwing off their winter blues and heading outside to stroll in the sun. One's first visit to Europe should be in the spring when the air is clean and the locals are so so happy to have the tourists back. Before we set out on our voyage Tracy told me to buy all my clothes one size too big because we were going to eat our way through from the South to the North. We did. When we got off the plane in NY more than 3 1/2 months after we had left Tra's mom shouted out from behind the rope barrier in JFK "Well, I can see you enjoyed the food!" She was right. We did.

4. My favorite birthday was when I turned 20 and I was back on Nantucket for the summer. Tracy said we were going to a restaurant with friends but in reality she made me a spectacular spring meal. There were peony petals on the table and the herb bread was baked in flower pots that were tied with a ribbon. It was wonderful to have someone work so hard just to make a meal special and memorable. Men get this treatment rather regularly but woman not so much. The colors, tastes, scents and even the texture of the air of that evening remain vivid in my memory.

5. During a low point in my romantic life when I had had a couple of dates with men I found homely in face as well as spirit I vowed to my best friend over a few glasses of wine that I was going to ask the next good looking guy that I saw out on a date. My theory was that even if I didn't like the guy at least he wouldn't be bad to look at and I would get out of the house. A few minutes later a good looking man walked into the cafe and put on an apron to start his bartending shift. I couldn't ask him out right away because the only way to speak with him in the busy cafe was to take our bill up to him in order to pay it. When we finally finished our wine I went, paid the bill and with a few people waiting behind me to pay their bills I asked him out. August 12th 2008 was the 20th anniversary of that meeting. Being shallow can pay off. Never forget it.

6. Once for this handsome bartender's birthday I made his favorite pie (lemon merangue) in a heart shaped pan and then put the pie in a box lined with tin foil and wrapped with wrapping paper and ribbon and we drove out into the country for a late fall picnic. We laid out our blanket and I filmed him on an old super 8 film camera as he took out the birthday box and tilted it up for the camera to see how nice the bow was. When it came time to open his present he was shocked and delighted that it was his favorite pie. He took the knife, cut through the merangue and began to laugh. Not what I was expecting. "What?" I said. "That's so sweet. You put it in a heart shape pan and the merangue looks so perfect but you forgot the lemon filling!" I grabbed the box to investigate and sure enough - pie crust and merangue but no filling! "I put filling in!" I said. "Where is it then?" He said. This was not turning out the way I planned. Finally we tore apart the box and there was the filling, between the box and the tin foil lining. The car ride had warmed up the lemon into a kind of lemon soup and when he tilted the box to show the camera it literally gurgled down to the little point of the heart an into the lining of the box. Truly. It did. All was not lost. We scooped up all the lemon, drippled it on top of the lemon and sliced it all up into pieces. Yum.

7. One summer morning, 12 years after our trip to Europe, in a house on Nantucket surrounded by lavendar plants I sat awake with my dear friend Tracy and 5 other friends. It was just before dawn when the first birds began to sing and a soft breeze brought the scent of lavender to us. In those moments between the restful dark quiet of the night and the busy light warmth of the new day Tracy's soul finally was freed from the body it had been tethered too. It was a sweet and terrible thing and remains along with me becoming a mom the most important event of my life. We are rarely granted the privilage of being with our dear ones at the moment of their passing. It is one of life's greatest blessings. The morning she died Tracy was 35 and she is forever in my heart 35. I think of her every single day and cry more often than I will say here. I cannot believe she does not know my wonderful Q. He, however, experiences her love all of the time. As we work, Q and I in the kitchen baking and creating recipes. As we eat each and every meal with lit candles set on the table. As we walk in gardens of lavendar and I tell him that one day when he graduates college I will give him as a present a trip to Europe and he will not make his itineray based on monuments and museums but rather on a season and on the timing of the blooming of flowers and the spring song of birds. Of all the things to know about me, this last one is the only one that matters.

For Quinn

Angels sing and dance amongst us as children sit at a counter and ask for a soda, as a woman riding on a bus and does not get out of her seat, as a father wakes up from his mid afternoon nap to have dinner and go to his second job. Angel's trumpets blare as tens of thousands of marchers quiet for a moment to listen to a man with a dream. Angels hover humming over a jail cell that holds the man who will leave the jail a leader and will take his people in one direction before he travels to mecca and changes course which will cause eventually his assassin to load his gun and take aim, while his own children watch. Angels hum, whirl, twirl, dance. Sing lullabies and laments year in and year out as babies are born, grow up, grow old and die. Tonight Amerca's native son walks out on blue and even the angels skirts still as they turn to watch and listen to a dream unfurled.

Where are you in this picture?

Photo from Rita Willaert's Flickr site.

I study these photos each day to try to understand what our child will have lost. I look and I look and I look and still, what will I be able to tell this little boy or girl who comes to us? You come from beauty. You come from love. You come from a neighborhood. You come from a home. Your parents, your grandparents, your aunts and uncles and neighbors, they all loved you. They all miss you. They all remember you. I look at this picture and I see neighbors I might know with their children standing as we do in line at the co op or coffee house. I see the children laughing and goofing around, happy and looking up at the adults to see who is watching them. I almost always find myself. Here in this photo I am wearing a black scarf on my head that has a white diamond pattern. I have my hand on my son's shoulder and he is leaning in to me and looking up and smiling and if you look you can just barely see that I am smiling too down at him in happiness and wonder. And there I might be if fate had not put me here. I might be standing in line in Ethiopia. I wish everyone well in this photo. They are so beautiful. I am in awe.