Pictures that make me happy

My two superheros. They both wear these t-shirts pretty much all the time. I find myself doing laundry simply to keep these shirts in circulation. They are playing together more and more these days...when I catch them both giggling and squealing with laughter my heart simply swells to bursting.

I found the above shirt waaaaay on sale at Nordstrom. It suits my boy perfectly. The front has Sesame Street characters in superhero outfits and says, "Keeping the Street Safe." But the back of the shirt is what sold me...

A detatchable cape! What the what! We are ALL about capes in this house. Elijah squeals with pure joy whenever I pull this shirt out of the closet.

My boys.

Court!

This morning felt like Fall. The windows were open all night and I woke up to a slightly chilly house and the promise of my favorite season on the horizon. I am reminded of moments like the picture above...enjoying the pumpkin patch with my two-and-a-half baby girl.  

These pictures make me start my day with a big smile on my face and an acute awareness of how incredibly lucky I am.

Hovering around: a helicopter mom dilemma

Every once and a while one of the parenting magazines has an article on "the helicopter parent." Of course, what they really mean most of the time is the helicopter mommy. When I read those articles a part of me says, "well, I'm not like that, am I? No, I'm certainly not that bad." And then another wee voice in my head says, "Um, maybe I'm like that just a leetle bit?" I do my best, I really do. I work hard not to project all of my social insecurities (and there are many) onto my gregarious little L who is naturally outgoing and bold. So let me tell you why this morning was so damn hard for this recovered-helicopter-mommy:

This morning I had a serious mommy-fail. Some friends of mine and their tots meet at different playgrounds every Thursday morning. Today I went to the wrong one. Totally wrong and waaaaay to far away from the correct playground to make it there in time to get any playing done before the lunch/nap portion of our day. So, I decided that we'd just stay where we were and enjoy ourselves. Thankfully, this particular park has a small fenced-off area with toddler-sized equipment AND as we were getting ourselves settled two other moms both with kiddos ages 2 & 4 arrived. It seemed too good to be true: fenced in, age-appropriate playmates, shade, benches...I was in heaven. 

It started out well. The other two 4-year-olds were both boys, but L generally gets along better with boys anyway. They both commented on how cool her Superman shirt and cape were, she agreed that yes, they were indeed cool, and then they were off having a great time. E was relatively sedate, sucking down his diluted apple juice and enjoying the fact that I was actually letting him climb up the toddler slide (another mommy-fail, as he slipped and fell...my bad). Me? I sat there thinking how this hasn't turned out so badly after all! Sure, I really needed wanted to see my friends and their beautiful babies, but at least we were having a great morning enjoying the weather and getting some quality playground time. Then I heard it: "Naa naa naa naa naa, you're a rotten eeeegggg!" Sure, the content was relatively harmless, but I quickly realized it was 100% directed at my girl. Both of the older boys were running around a bewildered looking L, pointing at her and saying the above phrase in that annoying, sing-songy way that makes my hair curl and my fists clench. Poor L looked confused and on the verge of angry (she was starting to whip out some of her Kung Fu moves as if to block the hateful little song), so I called her over.

L: "Mommy, those boys are calling me names!"

Me: "I know sweetie, but doing Kung Fu is not how we deal with that. You need to tell those boys to please stop calling you a rotten egg. Tell them that it hurts your feelings and you'd like them to stop."

Good for me, right ('cause it's all about me, y'all)? I didn't intervene. I attempted to give L the tools to deal with this herself. And she did. She marched back into the fray and each time the boys circled and pointed she loudly declared, "Please stop calling me that! I don't like that!" What did the boys do? They added new lyrics: "Naa naa naa naa naa, you're a poopy on the potty."

What pissed me off the most? Both of the boys' mothers were SITTING RIGHT THERE, happily chatting away while their sons singled out and taunted my daughter. I may helicopter my own children from time to time, but it would take a lot for me to intervene with anyone else's child. But dammit was I close today. The thought of confrontation in any form gives me the dry heaves, but I was sitting there formulating what I was going to have to say to these to clueless women. I had a few options:

Option 1 (polite but firm): "Excuse me, but your son is calling my daughter names and it's really hurting her feelings. Could you please ask him to stop?"

Option 2: "Woman, quit texting on your freakin' phone and gabbing away with the woman next to you about how early your son started walking/talking/reading...and for the love of God PARENT YOUR BRATTY CHILD OR I WILL."

Luckily it didn't come to that. One of the women finally stopped talking long enough to realize that her son was calling my daughter a poopy on the potty (oh, and he was now joined by his younger 2-year-old brother, isn't that charming) and called him over. I sat there, thrumming with excitement, expecting a very stern reprimand. What did she say? In that oh-I'm-so-amused-by-your-antics voice she said, "Oh honey, are you being the playground bully?" WTF??!!

I know, I know,  we all have our own parenting styles. Call my old fashioned, but  in my humble opinion, name calling, pointing, and taunting are NOT EVER OK. Especially when all of it is being directed at one poor, singled-out child. The above mom of the name-calling ring-leader seemed to take the "oh, boys will be boys" sort of attitude. I'm sorry, just because he has a penis does not make name calling and taunting somehow ok and even slightly amusing. 

Has L ever been mean to another child? Sure. But I can assure you that if it was in my presence, L was pulled out of the situation, scolded, and then told to go back and apologize to whomever she had offended. 

In the end I didn't hover and L handled the whole situation very well. She simply chose not to play near them anymore and we left the playground not long after. She's been talking about the incident all morning and it's maddening to see how two little strangers have hurt my daughters feelings, leaving her so confused as to why they would be so mean. I have no profound response for L's questions and can only tell her over and over that sometimes kids can be mean, and the best thing we can do is first ask them to stop and if they refuse, don't play with them anymore.

As for the mommies of the playground taunters? I'm disappointed. I'm frustrated. I'm tired. I spend 24/7 dealing with my own children, I wish I could go to a playground or any other public play space and not have to deal with the aftermath of other parents phoning it in (literally...if I see another mom texting away while her child wreaks havoc I will LOSE IT) because they seem too busy or too distracted to discipline their child. Again, I know this is coming out very judge-y, but right now I'm angry. I can't tell you how many times I've had to play with someone else's 4-5 year-old child at the pool while their mother/father/grandparent lounges on a beach chair and reads. Honestly, it happens almost every time. Not even addressing the safety issues of letting a 5-year-old swim totally unsupervised, I certainly did not schlep my two kids, towels, snacks, toys...etc. to be your kid's babysitter/playmate at the pool.

After all of that venting, my dilemma is this: I can avoid helicoptering my own kids, but what to do when someone else's child is misbehaving? Not just misbehaving, but hurting your child (either physically or verbally) and the parent of said child isn't stepping up? Would you fly your helicopter into their airspace?

Hair Part II: Good Hair = Good Mommy?

I recently devoted an entire post to my daughter's hair. Even as I type that it seems mildly ridiculous. I mean, there are far more important parenting issues to be discussed, right? Well, maybe. I think I speak for many transracial adoptive mamas when I say that, to some degree, I measure my success as a mother of a brown curly girl by the current state (an length) of her hair. Before bringing L home I read a bit about the care of curly hair, checking out pictures, imagining the cute styles I would create. After L joined our family I realized I was way over my head. So, I followed blogs on haircare & styles, read articles, tried a million different products, and slowly started the hair styling ritual we have today. When her hair was shorter I learned how to do puffs, create ruler-straight parts, and attempt the occasional coil or twist style. Now that L is 4, I've advanced to cornrows, twists, braid and twist-outs, you name it, we've tried it. And products? I honestly don't even want to think about how much time and money I've spent on finding that perfect product (hint: it doesn't exist). When women of color compliment L's hair or even her hairstyle, I practically glow with pride, eager to run home and tell my husband of my recent hair triumph. When a woman at the grocery store started asking my what products I used, I pretty much skipped the entire way home. She, a woman of color, was asking little old moi for product advice!!

Throughout this hair journey, I've frequently questioned why I spend so much time not only doing, but thinking about doing L's hair (it's one of my favorite things to think about when I can't sleep).  When did I start believing that my success as a mother was somehow related to L's hair? Whenever I thought about writing a blog post about the social issues that surround the care of my daughter's hair, I felt completely overwhelmed. The topic is so tricky and potentially polarizing I hesitated every time I went to sit down and write. Okay, I chickened out. But no longer! I will dip my tippy toes into the fray. I will start out by saying that, as a white woman, I absolutely do not pretend to understand the relationship a woman of color has with her own hair. I am speaking, rather, to the judgement passed on mothers based on the condition/health/style (or lack thereof)/length of their daughters' hair.

What got me all fired up? I read this article by Allison Samuels for Newsweek. In the article, Samuels slams Angelina Jolie for allowing her daughter, Zahara, to walk around "sporting hair that is wild and unstyled, uncombed and dry. Basically: a 'hot mess.'" She goes on to add that "to many, she'll be just a little black girl - and a black girl with bad hair at that." I can't even begin to articulate how this article made me feel. Sure, Samuels may be directing her comments to the mother, there is no denying the fact that she wrote cruel things about A FREAKIN' 4-YEAR-OLD GIRLS HAIR. Unacceptable. There is simply no excuse. Samuels frequently uses the words "neat," "in place," and "nice" to describe the ideal, and words like "wild" and "unruly" to describe Zahara's hair. I very much resist the idea that L's hair when in its natural curly state (meaning, not manipulated in any way past some leave-in conditioner) is somehow wrong. That is the texture God gave her and it's beautiful. Is it wild? Sure, in the most wonderful sense of the word. And let me say one other thing: I often put much more time, effort and love into L's loose hair than when it's in cornrows. Daily conditioning, finger detangling, styling...etc. "Wild" loose hair does NOT mean hair that has been ignored or is somehow unkempt. At least not in my experience.

And what of the accusations leveled at Angelina Jolie? Is she to be labeled as a bad mother because her daughter's hair is found to be socially unacceptable? Samuels makes her opinion clear in this follow-up article along with the insinuation that Madonna is a better adoptive mother for making sure that "Mercy all the attention she needs from head to toe and inside and out" because Mercy's hair is most often in tidy cornrows. Clearly Samuels does not take into consideration that many Ethiopians have a hair texture that does not take to cornrows very well at all. The times that I do L's hair in cornrows are few simply because her curls do not hold the style for more than a few days.

Now, on one point I do agree with Samuels: all transracial adoptive parents need to put in the work to understand all aspects of their child's birth culture. That includes history, religion, and yes, grooming. Yet Samuels' idea of what constitutes "acceptable" hair just doesn't sit right with me. In this second article, she attempts to clarify that her definition of unacceptable hair was "uncombed, unconditioned, and unbrushed." Yet the language she used in both articles to describe both acceptable and unacceptable hair indicates (at least in my opinion) a major bias against curly hair in its natural state. My L loves to wear her hair (or as she likes to call it, her mane) big and free. There is nothing "neat" or "in place" about L's hair when we style it loose.

I want my daughter to LOVE her hair and all that it can be: big and curly, twisted, braided, in puffs and piggy tails, up or down, intricately styled or wash-and-go. I do take considerable time to make sure L's hair is healthy and well-maintained. I do frequently worry what African American women think of L's hair and I definitely bask in the glow of their praise when she is complimented by women of color. But I worry that I'm inadvertantly feeding into this bad hair/bad mommy syndrome. I like what Latoya Peterson wrote in this article: "We can help shap a world in which she [Zahara] doesn't feel pressured to relax her hair to conform, nor does she feel deficient if she decides to wear her hair the way the way it grows out of her head. We can shape a world where a decision to relax one's hair is inconsequential as a decision to dye or cut it." I really hope my L grows up in that world.