Personal Blog of Author Kathryn Thompson
Over at Parenting I’m talking about surprises.
For Valentine’s Day I was surprised with a fabulous day of love, topped off with a nice case of food poisoning. Dan and I are both laying around in yorchville today and I’m afraid to eat anything because I don’t care to know what it will look like coming back up the pipeline.
Another good suprise is that my internet may be coming back on as early as Tuesday. Hurrah! I’ll be so glad to get back into the 21st century.
We had our prelude to Black History Month in January where we learned all about Martin Luther King, Jr. and how to get people to be nice by giving them a sharp civil rights to the kidney.
This month we continued the celebration by playing GEEBEE’s Black History Memory game. I have pictures of us playing the game but… you know… the internet being down and all…
So the game arrived in the mail and the kids were stoked. You could send them a package of lentils in the mail and they’d be excited because it was a PACKAGE! They were pleased. I decided that the best way to teach them about black history was to tell them about these amazing people without bringing up the issue of race.
I wanted to raise them to be colorblind. So I told them we were going to play a game about heroes. The box includes a matching game and a booklet that gives a little bit of background about what made these artists, historic figures, scientists and inventors important. For example. Do you know anything about Buffalo Soldiers besides that they were dreadlock rastas, stolen from Africa, brought to America, fighting on arrival, fighting for survival? I didn’t either but now I do. The game also has a small section on culture where we learned about the history of Kwanza.
We started the game about heroes with no mention of their race and I was thinking I was pretty smart. My thought was that their accomplishments were pretty impressive on their own without the caveat of, “Oooo. Look what she accomplished even though she was black!” I wanted to just say, “Oooo. Look what she accomplished! What a great woman!”
But as we continued to play, I was truly affected by their stories not just because they were amazing people but because they were amazing people despite the way they were treated. The handicap was not the color of their skin but the way people treated them because of the color of their skin and that’s a lesson that needs to be taught. I decided to bring race to the forefront of the game.
My kids need to hear about race relations and they need to know that amazing men and women worked their way out of slavery and then went on to make a positive difference to the world. They need to know that Harriet Tubman was not content with her own freedom but worked to help thousands of others as well. They need to know that these people were black and how they were treated because they were black and they need to work to never let something like that happen again.
The sad thing is that it’s still happening. People are not considered equal in this country, not truly. Every time I fill out a form that asks for my race, I feel twinge of discomfort. I am Caucasian. My race shelters me and makes things easier for me in ways I’ll never fully understand and how is that fair?
I wasn’t honestly sure how much of the teaching was getting through to them as they enjoyed collecting matches and laughing together and only half-listened to the stories I was reading between turns.
But when we finished Laylee touched me on the arm and said, “I’m glad I wasn’t alive when there was slavers. I wouldn’t ever want to have been alive back when people cared about skin whether it was light or dark.”
I’m sad that she will grow to find out that some people do still care about skin but I’m glad to be teaching her what I think about it. If I raise the kids to be blind to differences in skin color, then someone who’s less blind to those differences will get the chance to teach them and I’d rather have the chance to let them know that their only “racial intolerance” should be towards inequality.
You can find this and other Black History games and puzzles at Wal-Mart this month or at Pressman Toy.
My internet is dead.
Remember me? I’m Today’s tech mom.
Well yeah.
I don’t have internet access at this time. My internet’s been down since Saturday and my ISP is telling me it will be several days before they can even come look at it. The original service date was 2 weeks from when I called but they’ve squeezed me in for early next week. HOW THOUGHTFUL!
So we tried to switch companies but the only other high speed internet company in town has been so flooded with people switching from the company we’re currently with that they have completely saturated their infrastructure. They are not accepting any new accounts unless one of their current clients cancels their service.
No. I’m really not kidding about that.
So no online bill pay. No fixing my crazy blog header. No looking up things when I say, “Oh. I’ll just look that up online.” Limited email access on my phone where I can read my messages 8 words at a time and type responses with my thumbs. No IMing or webcam with Dan. No blogging or commenting on blogs though I can read your sites on my tiny phone screen… but let’s be honest, I won’t. I’m typing this at Eve’s house, heaven love her. She is my technological benefactor.
I am amazed at how dependent I am on technology. It’s quite pathetic actually. I miss you all. Please don’t be mad if I haven’t responded to your email or comments. My thumbs hurt real bad.
On a positive note – For the last few days I’ve been reading actual print books and cleaning my house. It’s sort of like a mini vacation… without the little umbrellas in my drinks.
Since I’m working on a goal to be more positive, I thought I’d start by giving myself a virtual pat on the back in the next installment of what seems to be becoming a series on why I am the best mom ever to live. [read more at parenting.com]
Even the sweetest kid can be a Snarkity McSnarkle Pants sometimes. It’s just expected. We may roll our eyes and move on or try to correct the attitude. Sometimes we just lock ourselves in the bathroom with some lemon bars and a good book while they snark themselves into exhaustion.
For the past several months Laylee has been experiencing a lot of angst. To an extent I think it’s normal. Like Magoo’s recent too cute PMSing over every little thing, I think it’s mostly just a stage. But then there’s this little part of me that wonders if I’m raising a cranky little pessimist. I’ve tried all kinds of “techniques” to help get over the problem and honestly there’s been a lot of improvement.
I’ve tried being more attentive to her before she gets bent out of shape and we’ve helped her overcome most of her perfectionist tendencies. Beneath her sweetness, there’s still this smoldering frustration and worry that she carries around to an extent that I don’t think is healthy for a 4-year-old. She should be happy and fairly care free and not so quick to anger.
So on Sunday I was fasting, as members of my church are wont to do on the first Sunday of the month. We go without food and pay special attention to our prayers and devotion to exhibit our faithfulness to God and our willingness to put physical things aside and let the spiritual take center stage. Honestly I frequently have a super hard time putting the physical completely aside when my stomach is yelling in my face, but I understand the reasoning behind the practice and I’ve had a few wonderful experiences.
Anyway, I decided to dedicate my fast to asking my Heavenly Father for help with Laylee and her sadness/frustration/angst/snappishness. As I was kneeling down to pray, the words were not fully out of my mouth when my prayer was interrupted by the clear thought, “You need to be more positive.”
“Okay,” said I, “Thank you for that. Now about Laylee. Please help me to figure– ”
The thought came again only stronger, “You need to be more positive and watch the kind of things you talk about in front of her. On the phone. To your friends and Dan. Your negativity and pessimism are getting to her. If you change this, she will be changed.”
I was sort of taken aback. My fast had just begun and I hadn’t even completed my prayer and I was already getting an answer to my question though not the answer I wanted to hear. I think of myself as a fairly positive person but when I really thought about it, I could remember way too many conversations where I was critical, overly dramatic in a negative way or “humorously” sarcastic. Kids don’t get sarcasm. They hear mommy being mean to someone and they just feel the negative vibe.
So I talked to Dan and “we’re” working on it although honestly he doesn’t have much to work on. It’s hard to stop because it’s such a habit when I’m chatting on the phone to just be flippant or gloom and doomy. I’m actually annoyed by myself.
The key for me really is to try to think positive thoughts and try to speak in a more positive way even when I don’t think the kids are listening. It’s not like I have a switch I can flip on and off. It’s something I need to work on consistently.
So yesterday was the third day of this new plan and it shows just how much work I have to do. I’d been pretty positive all day, trying to get the kids excited about the world around them, a regular Pollyanna run amok, but with more personality. As we were driving to the grocery store, we were exclaiming over the beauty of the clouds and the sky and OH MY! Isn’t that the neatest thing? I really started getting into the spirit, caught up in their enthusiasm for the beautiful sunset. I felt for a moment that no one could be as lucky as I, two beautiful children, a great marriage, a lusciously cloudy Seattle sunset and a trip to the grocery store. What could be better?
Fast forward an hour as the kids had lost their minds and I wasn’t far behind. We made it out of the store alive only to have all kinds of rioting break out upon entrance to the van. They’d been picking at each other all through our shopping, as if to say, “ARE YOU INSANE TO TACKLE GROCERY SHOPPING AT LOSING OUR MINDS O’CLOCK IN THE EVENING??!!”
When they got into the van, their quarelling became unmanageable and so I turned the stereo up to eleven to block out the noise and proceeded to drive home. When Laylee confronted me about hurting her ears and giving her a possible “ear affection,” I told her that next time she could plug them but that since I was driving I couldn’t plug mine to block out their fighting and loud music was the next best thing. I guess if she really doesn’t like the music then next time I can just yell repeatedly “SERENITY NOW!!” at the top of my lungs.
“Oh,” she said. “Hmph.”
Oh hmph indeed. We glared each other down and I vowed to be more positive today. And I was. We’ll see about tomorrow. Baby steps.
HELP! We’re planning what will possibly be the most magical week of our princess-obsessed lives. I know a lot of you have been to Disneyland recently and I’d love to hear your suggestions and tips to have the most fun possible for the most reasonable cost.
We plan to fly down and stay in a hotel.
We want to be in the park for 3 days.
We want our brains to explode all over the park with the joy of it.
We want to have enough money left in our bank account afterwards to buy food for the rest of the month once we get home.
…because I won’t let him look through the viewfinder of the camera WHILE I’m taking his picture.
…because he can’t find his FUDDY GUY! (Anything from a clown to an astronaut to the demonic bionical happy meal toy with the red glowing eyes is a “funny guy” according to Magoo.)
…because his spoon is the wrong color.
…because when he said “yes” he really meant “no” which of course meant “yes” except today because it didn’t and I dared to misunderstand his meaning.
…when I move him back to the crib after he escapes from his bunkbed. As he cries, he yells, “I WANT MY CHANCES!”
…because these feet aren’t really skid proof and the linoleum is less forgiving than he’d like.
…because everything fun is “dangerous.”
…because he’s two, the cookies are “hid” and life is pain.
We miss Dan a lot. You see, he works all day… at an office… far far away from our raucous good times. Sometimes he doesn’t make it home in time for dinner and we think about him and talk about him and set his place at the table just in case.
A couple of weeks ago we finally got our webcam hooked up and working so I decided to video conference him in to our evening meal. We sat the laptop on his placemat and initiated a web call right before we said the prayer. Then we started to eat while he worked, showing him bites of food in an effort to entice him home. It worked. It’s possible he came home because he could no longer get anything done with the sounds of our dinnertime filling his office.
It was so fun to have him “with us” that I’ve been connecting to him with the web cam frequently throughout the day. We’ll say hi and smile and wave a lot and then I’ll leave the camera running as I go about the day. He turns the volume down so he can get some work done and then periodically glances up at us to see what we’re doing. The sound of his fingers hammering away at the keyboard is comforting to me and it feels almost like he’s here with us. The sound of a keyboard is the sound of Dan.
Every once in a while he uses his view of the house to tell Laylee not to eat so close to the computer or to call out to Magoo to stop whatever he’s doing or face the most dire of consequences.
When I’m making dinner, I position the camera in the kitchen so he can have his own personal cooking show if he cares to glance up.
To me, this kind of big brother bonding is AWESOME. However I’ve spoken to a couple of other moms who were not so keen on the idea of having a live video feed of their day being broadcast to their husbands at work.
What do you think? Would you do it? Do you do it?
Good thing it gets dark super early around here lately so we can party “all night” and still get a good night’s sleep.
This week I went to the aquarium with Laylee’s preschool class and a group of helpful high school students who received extra credit for accompanying us. While they ran around after my kids, I experienced something strange and wonderful.
Personally I prefer the chaos of the little people over the peace of the little fish but it was nice to have a break in the middle of the week.