Always Being Bad Cop

No one wants to be bad cop all the time, right?  Well, welcome to single parenthood!  Whether you are divorced or have lost your significant other due to death or your significant other travels a lot (I will include you in this, my friends) or you have made the choice to go this road alone—no one wants to be the heavy all the time.  Well, maybe I shouldn’t say NO ONE!  I am sure there are some people who don’t mind being the disciplinarian ALL THE TIME!  But that is a different story all together, right?

However, when looking at Team Williams’ discipline path, it can be tough to feel like you are the only voice saying things like: Please be careful!  Please use both hands!  Please don’t touch the stove!  Please hold my hand!  Please climb into the car!  Please go potty before we leave!  Please sit down on the couch!  Please pick up your cars so that Mommy doesn’t step on them!  Please turn off the light!  Please keep the water IN the bathtub!  Please use your fork and napkin!  Please put your shoes on before you go outside.  Please stay out of the street!  We wear our helmet when we ride our bike or our scooter, right?  We don’t hit, do we?  We don’t scream unless we are hurt, right?  We use our nice words with our friends, right?  We listen and pay attention when teachers are talking, right?  Please say ‘excuse me’ when Mommy is talking!  We don’t throw sand because it could hurt our friends, right?  And on and on and on and on!

I am sure that married/co-parent people still have someone who is the more “dominant” parent when it comes to discipline, but since I don’t live in their homes nor does my son, I have no clue how they do it.  I can only wing it in our home and hope that the plan I have in place, right now, is working/shaping him!  And, do I automatically become a nag simply because the only voice he hears as a yay or a nay is mine?  Am I giving the right balance of “sure!” and “heck no!”?

Always being the bad cop sucks!!!

Would love to hear your thoughts/input/opinions!

Treyvon Bandwagon

So, you know I had to do it, right?  I know that this blog post won’t be about anything that y’all haven’t already heard, read or seen in the media, but still, as I sit here listening to my 4 year old son singing “Twinkle, Twinkle” in his room, I can’t NOT say something.  I am sad, frustrated, wounded and a little scared!

I know what African Americans have gone through in this country.  I know the history of this country and how minorities are treated today.  All I have to do is look at my own community and I can tell what’s going on.  I first heard about this story and obviously, I didn’t want to jump to conclusions.  As someone who has worked in the prison system and the daughter of a civil servant (retired fireman), I generally, think that police and the like do their due diligence!  I didn’t want to automatically think anything like this was race based.  I didn’t want to think that it’s another Florida death where the accused murderer got off.  I just didn’t want to assume anything. 

However, over the past few weeks, I can only think about what this inaction and confusion and finger pointing means for my son.  It also makes me think about our community and what our “friends” REALLY think about race and race related issues.  I have read so many posts on Facebook and Twitter and heard people’s opinions about how it was or wasn’t racially motivated.  I have read how people don’t “see” race, so they don’t understand how others can just assume that this was racially motivated.  I have read people getting mad and even incensed about people of color gathering around a cause and being frustrated or hurt or confused.  I have seen how some people just want to “sweep” it under the rug and get upset when we don’t just “walk in love!”

Well, I too am confused.  I too am frustrated.  How do I, a white woman who is OUTRAGED by this, explain this kind of thing to my son?  I know the simple answers and I am not looking for advise, but it does make me think!  Clearly, K and I are not having this conversation today, but someday, we will—this I know for sure.  How do I explain why talking about race is tough for some people but we do it all the time? 
I know that most of my questions (these and the other ones roaming around in my head) will work themselves out and when the time comes, I will be able to have a dialogue with K about such things.  I trust myself on that one.  I also feel that  even if I don’t have an answer for him, we can figure things out together or I will point him in the right direction or to the person who I hope can help him.  These are conversations that can wait for now, but this is a conversation that I need to add to the ever growing list of things that I know we will need to talk about; things we should most certainly talk about: Martin Luther King, Tsegaye Gabre-Medhin, Malcolm X, Rosa Parks, the Freedom Riders, Thurgood Marshall, Zora Nealle Hurston, Colin Powell, Alvin Ailey, Robel Teklemariam, Frederick Douglas, Sojourner Truth, Medger Evers, Langston Hughes, President Obama, Nelson Mandela and the like!

I don’t know… maybe this is just me brain dumping—it most likely is.  But please, parents, let’s have these kinds of talks with our kids.  Let’s open the doors of conversation about race and race related issues—not forcing them, but dealing with them.  Let’s celebrate how different we are, in a good way.  Let’s also put politics and religion and whatever aside and be outraged that this kid was killed. 

Things I Never Thought I’d Have to Teach My Kid

In my naïveté/ignorance, a list has grown of things that I never thought I would have to teach my lovely son.  I am not sure if I skipped the books on such things or if I was just so caught up in my adoption process that I didn’t think about the “after” he comes home part of parenting.  I mean, I thought about feeding him, disciplining him, getting him into school, and things of that nature, but…here is a beginners list of things that I have learned recently.

1.  How to brush teeth.  I mean, do you remember when you were taught to brush your teeth?  It’s just something that I have “always” known how to do. 

2.  How to be a friend.  While this might seem like a no-brainer.  I have found myself (with the input from Miss Debbie and Miss Kelsea) saying phrases like, “Being a good friend means we share!” and “A good friend allows ____________ to be in the front of the line some of the time!”  While we all know that we have to teach our kids to share, it’s also about teaching them that one of the reasons we do that is because we want to be a friend.  The Bible says—if you want friends, you have to show yourself friendly.

3.  How to chew.  This might now be the case for some of you, but my son came home at two years old and didn’t know that he had to chew his food.  Much of what he was given to eat was very thick broth/stew like!  He didn’t have to chew chicken or pasta.  He didn’t know that you couldn’t just swallow things like this whole.  Along with this goes…

4.  No biting.  While he did go through a biting phase (which I am told is normal), but I had to stress the difference between chewing your food (see above) and not biting your friends.  I frequently used the phrase “Teeth are for food!  Not friends!”

5.  How to properly wipe your butt after poop!  I knew I would have to change diapers but I hadn’t thought through the whole, you are now potty trained and you need to wipe your own butt thing!

6.  What the definition of spicy is.  Sweet Jesus this one is difficult to explain!

7.  We can throw sand at the beach, but not at school or at the playground.  It’s just not safe at the park or at school, but on a white sandy beach in Hawaii—sure, go ahead!!!

8. …more to come!

“I just want you to fix my worm”

As with most parents, we say things like “don’t pull so hard on that _______________!  You don’t want it to break!” or “Please be careful when you stretch that _____________________!  You don’t want it to break do you?”  Well, K got a glitter worm in circle time, at school, the other day!  He immediately wanted to hold that little worm ALL the time!  And because it’s “stretchy” he pulls on it and stretches it for hours on end (no, seriously, HOURS ON END!).

Well, this is what happens when you pull on a worm too much—it breaks!  He was distraught!  He was sad!  He was almost despondent!  There were REAL tears…it’s a friggin’ plastic glitter worm, Son!  Really?  Real tears?  But I can’t say that to his face in the middle of a worm crisis.

Initially, he didn’t say anything, but I noticed the silence.  And as all of you know, when you have a child—silence CANNOT be a good thing (unless they are asleep).  He had been chatting up the worm, asking it was it ate, and then answering for it.  He had created a dino-circle for the worm to hang out with them.  And then, silence!

I came into his room and he looks up (with those BIG tears running down his face) and sadly says, “I just want you to fix my worm!”  I want to laugh out loud because he sounds so sad over this glitter worm, but again, that’s not an option!  I sit on the floor and say, “Well, let me see!  What happened?”  He proceeds to try to blame the Stegosaurus and the Velociraptor that are sitting next to him but, it’s futile!  I know it!  He knows it!  He knows that I know that he had pulled and pulled and pulled on it until it broke!

After the hugging and the promises of “I will try to fix it Baby!” we both get up and I busted out the Super Glue!  I told him that he (the worm) had to rest—since when K is sick, he has to stay in bed and rest too, right?

Voila!  Today he took his little, fixed Glitter Worm to school!  Thank ya Jesus for Super Glue and for Mommy’s who get it—you have no choice, but to at least try to fix the worm!

I Am In No Hurry!!!

“I am in no hurry,” said the older lady at the doctors office today!  The moment she said it, I felt like saying, “Really?! I wish!!!”  Sadly, I feel like I am ALWAYS in a hurry.  I feel like I am always late.  I feel like I am always a dervish.  I am jealous of this woman who clearly had time for small talk.  I am jealous of her story time with the receptionist about her travels to China, when she was “your age” (the receptionist can’t be more than 23 years young).  I don’t know that I have always been this person—miss tardy pants.  I don’t think that I have always been in the “you are 5 minutes late” crowd. 

Since I have been blessed with the chance to be responsible for another human being, I have tried to find that balance of getting to work on time—and honestly, I am pretty close now, but it’s been over 2 years.  I have really tried to be on time to birthday parties and events where my son will have fun, but that isn’t always the case.  I have tried to make sure that we have all the “checks” as we head out the door—medicine, inhaler, shoes, jacket, snacks, water, race car, worm, truck, underwear (yes, K left the house once without underwear on—one of the first times he dressed himself and I didn’t check him), etc.   However, inevitably, there is always something that is forgotten and I have to rush back into the house, deactivate the alarm, find it, reactivate the alarm and make sure that K has locked and loaded himself into his car seat. This usually makes us probably somewhere between 3-7 minutes later than we would have been.

Then there’s work—meeting after meeting that I am rushing to.  Phone calls to return, emails to respond to (Lately, I have been getting, on average, 75-90 emails a day).  I give myself 24 hours to respond, but sometimes, I don’t hit that target.  Sometimes, I don’t respond at all, but such is life, right?  NOOOOO!  I don’t like being the person who lets things slip thought the cracks.  Don’t you know that I am Type A personality?  It irks me to no end to not be “perfect” (one of my many admitted flaws/quirks).

Yet, as we all know—there is no perfection when it comes to parenting.  It’s all about doing the best with what you got.  Sometimes it’s just enough to be stoked that they (the kids we are blessed to raise) made it through the week with no major injuries and no heartbreak.  Sometimes it’s a big sigh of relief to realize that we both made it through the week alive and well!  When it comes to being a working parent, aren’t we all just happy to make it to work without smelling like crap, pee, moldy milk, re-kisses of my own lipstick on my shirt, or his pizza that spilled down my leg onto my just back from the cleaners work pants!  So I will quietly envy this woman’s declaration of free time to chat it up and have the receptionist take her sweet time looking up if she had a next appointment already booked.  Yes, I will envy that she had time to burn and talk about how 75 is the new 50.  I will covet the fact that she is in no hurry whatsoever!

"It's Natural... Everybody Poops!"

Scenario: K in the bathroom a LONG time.  He usually asks for help by this time, but there is just grunting and deep breathing happening in there.  I open the door to ask if he needs any help.

Me:  You need any… (I see his head almost between his legs while he is on the toilet)  What are you doing?
K:  (Very matter of fact like) Trying to see my poop as it comes out of my booty.
Me:  (No response)…
K:  It’s ok Mommy! It’s natural.  Everybody poops!

*Thanks Son for that revelation!  I might never have known that, if you hadn’t told me!  Love this kid!

Teen Couple and Tongues

Scenario:  In line at Disneyland waiting to get on Pirates!  Teen couple in front of us FULLY making out.  His hands on her boobies and serious groans as well as “I love you so much” flying back and forth!

K:  Mommy, why don’t we kiss with our tongues when you give me kisses?  Like that!!!

Me:  Um… well… that’s a different kind of kissing.

K:  But we could do it like they are (pointing at the couple STILL making out).

Me:  No Baby, we can’t.

K:  But why?

Me:  *After a LONG pause… When you are an adult we can talk about it, ok?

K:  (tapping the boy who is STILL groping his girlfriend)—Excuse me!  Do you have to go potty?

TMG (Teen Make out guy):  Uh, hey… no, why?

TMGF (Teen Make out girlfriend):  Oooooh!  He is so cute!!!

K:  (Pointing to his crotch) She’s touching your penis and my Mommy says that when I grab my penis like that, I gotta go pee!

TMG and TMGF say nothing, but just smile and turn around and quit making out!  They ask to be on a different boat when we get to the front of the line!

*Oh to be 16 again, but my son is right, if she’s gonna grope your junk in line at Disneyland, maybe y’all need to take it to the bathroom!  Hrmph!

“What is your son’s ‘actual’ name”

My neighbors have shared a wall with us for about 6 months. While I wouldn’t say that we are “friends” we are most certainly friendly.  I know their names, I know what they do for a living, I have met their adult children, I know where they lived before they moved to Orange.  I know they are HUGE Green Bay Packers Fans.  I know a lot about them.  I have to admit that I don’t think they know as much about me, but I attribute that to me just not talking about myself to people too often!

However, one thing I do brag on is my kid.  Given the chance, even if you don’t wanna hear about him, I will give you the K-man update!  Clearly, since they live next door to us, they have met him and have engaged in several “conversations” with him.  Their dogs (that probably weigh no more than 4 pounds a piece) have “attacked” him on several occasions and Josie and Danny have patiently, at the end of their LONG work day, watched K ride his bike in circles, when he asks!

What’s so funny is that Josie, the wife, asked me the other day, by the trash bin, “I know this might sound funny, and I hate to ask this, but what is your son’s ‘actual’ name?”   I kinda laughed out loud because just in the 3 minutes it took us to walk over to the trash bin, unlock it and put our trash in while trying to watch K ride his bike, I had called him about 3 different things.

For those of you who spend any time with us, you know this is true.  I have so many nicknames for this kid it’s a miracle he even knows his name…  So here’s a list, just off the top of my head—I am sure there are more:
Kwali-bear
Yeh-nay Konjo (My handsome)
Konjo (handsome)
Gobez (smart/witty)
Jeg-ih-now (brave)
Yah-nay-lij (my Baby)
Yay-nay-mar (Sweetheart)
Sa-hi (Sunshine)
Kwali Robel-yay
Bugger boy
Moco Man
Fatty
Mr. Williams

Mixed into that are my basic terms of endearment/encouragement/instruction for him in Amharic:
Tiroo-sirah (good job/good boy)
Nah-fee-kay-ha-lo (I missed you)
Ee-ba-kah (please)
Aye-zou (it’s ok)
Eh-wud-dih-hah-lo (I love you)
Eh-bak-eh-tuh-ka-fell (please share)
Tuh-ka-met (Sit down)
Tuh-neh-sah (stand up)
Tuh-ten-kah (Be careful)
Yih-kil-kil-now (That’s not allowed)
Eh-zee-nah (come here)
Eh-kah-fen (Can I give you a hug)
Samen (Can I have a kiss)
And so on and so on!

So, thank you Josie, my new neighbor, for asking the question that I am sure so many other people have thought, but never wanted to ask.

Band-Aid, Shmand-Aid

Parents of toddlers get it!  I know you do!  My kid seems to be in constant pining for a band-aid.  Please tell me that yours is (or was or you know will be) the same way?  Please confirm that this isn’t a fetish for only my child (*and I know that there are worse things he could be begging for.)!  One of the things that I wish people had warned/educated me about when I was thinking about adopting was to buy stock in Band Aids!  Why not!  I would have made myself a LOT of money by just letting my son be who he is—a love of the band-aid!  Every random bump or bruise or scrape or scratch needs a band-aid.  Every “injury” (and I use that term loosely) needs immediate consideration and attention!  Bust out the triage center for Mr. Williams! 

While I habitually oblige him, I am almost mad at myself for doing so.  Does he need at least, no really, one band-aid day for some insignificant thing that happened to him while he was sitting on our soft couch?  Why, yes Mama, he does!  Does he need the Buzz Lightyear band-aid and the Lightning McQueen one after scraping himself with his own fingernail?  Oh yes he most certainly does.  Does he need to only keep the band-aid on for about 87 seconds before taking it off and claiming a full healing and restoration to the effected area?  Oh, why not.  Who wants to be restricted by a darn band-aid!?

While my kisses for these owies and whatnot are also part of the gig—it’s the band-aid that he is really after.  Yes, I have tried the “Band-aids are only for blood!” routine and that worked—NOT!  Yes, once when he had a stomach ache, I put band-aids all over his belly.  Yes, I have put band-aids on his head (by request) when his head has hurt!  No, it’s not causing me any harm. No, he probably won’t be psychologically jacked up if I do or don’t give him band-aid for his “wounds”.  Will this lead to not just a band-aid obsession but a “wound” obsession?  Oh sweet Jesus—might be time for an intervention!

The Reverse Missionary

*I read this a while ago and have wanted to share it!  Thank you Alise for sharing this message with me.  And now I share it with you, my friends. 

When I start thinking about missionaries, I think about people are sharing Jesus with people. A missionary is someone who knows the gospel message and whose life goal it is to tell that life-giving message to anyone who will listen. I’ve been in the Church long enough to know that you don’t have to go to Africa to be a missionary (though it totally helps your missionary cred), but missionaries have a group they’re out to make sure to tell the story to. The unsaved. 

I’m a Christian and my husband is an atheist.

So we all know who MY mission field is, right?

Yeah, not so much.

I’ve met a lot of atheists in the past two years and one thing I’ve found about almost all of them is that they know the story. They know who Jesus is, they know what Christianity teaches, they know what we believe. They’ve visited our churches, listened to our songs, read our holy book. The message is not the problem.

We are.

We, the Church. We who talk about grace, but are quick to cheer when the bad guy gets his. We who talk about talk about forgiveness, but would rather hold a grudge. We who talk about desiring persecution for His name’s sake, but make sure that we do our fair share of persecuting of “the other”. We who talk about God’s acceptance, but are loathe to share our filth with one another.

And I can look at this and point to all of the reasons why we suck, but I think it boils down to one thing. We don’t believe that God really and truly loves us the way he says he does. And when we don’t believe it, we can’t live it, not really. We serve a God can do “immeasurably more than we ask or imagine” and yet we place limits on how much he can love. We place them on ourselves and as a result, on others.

So my mission? To show love. God’s wide, long, high, deep, immeasurable love. Love that is wild and free. Love that reaches further than we can think, further than we dare to hope. Because when we get that, deep in our bones, we don’t have to worry about making sure people know the gospel.

For more from Alise, visit her blog “Alise… Write!”,

Lingo of the K—Quartet

Cheesy Weesy—Cheese-its

Octopus Pasta—small/skinny pasta

Purr-eee-to—Burrito

Par-ah-tay—Karate

Old Cars—Cars the Movie 1

New Cars—Cars the Movie 2

Shrek with the baby—Shrek Ever After

Shrek and the Dragon—Shrek 1

Woody and Buzz—Toy Story 1

Zurg—Toy Story 2

Woody and Buzz with the Bear—Toy Story 3

Life Saver—Light Saber

Con-fuk-shun worker—Construction workers

Ribble-ing—Dribbling

Star Wars: The Legacy Continues

I grew up on it.  I loved me some Luke Skywalker!  I know the deep desire to be able to ride on the Millennium Falcon.  I know the thrill of seeing Darth Vader for the first time!  However, here I stand, at close to 40 years old, and seeing my son fall in love with it for the first time is WONDERFUL.  He saw one of the “new” (AKA the sucky [personal opinion] ones that are the prequel) ones at my parents house and became OBSESSED with Darth Vader.  I searched for the “real” ones, and found out that since I don’t have a blu-ray player, I couldn’t just walk into a store and buy them.  Well, thank goodness for Amazon!  I bought all three for $40 and so K’s journey into Jedi-hood began!

Since I popped in Star Wars, A New Hope, he has been a Star Wars junkie. He carries his “life savers” (as he likes to call it) around the house (thank you B and R for buying him one—each) fighting the “bark” side.  Yes, my son has 2 of them!  He has a “vintage” Star Wars shirt that he loves to wear, even when it’s dirty.  He tries to talk in the Darth voice as much as possible (which can become annoying) and LOVES to “sing” the Darth Vader theme music even when Darth is not even on the screen.

All of these things are blasts from my past, and I love every minute of it.  I love that K REALLY likes some of the things that I liked when I was a kid.  I like that he is enchanted by space, spaceships, the Force, R2D2 (and by the way, I still have a stuffed R2D2 doll that my grandpa gave me when I was like 7), Ewoks, and yes, even Darth Vader!  Thank you Star Wars for what you are, what you have been and what you will continue to be in the house of Team Williams!

Unique Names

For those of you who know my son’s full name, you know that it’s unique.  I love it.  Well, I hope so, I gave it to him!  However, it seems as if, lately, I have had a slew of students with…distinctive names.  Honestly, they have been unique enough to make me want to blog about it.

—First we have Ciarrah.  It’s pronounced Sierra, but he mom wanted something different.

—Next we have Kristalle—I wanted to pronounce it like the Champagne, but nope, it’s just a regular Crystal. 

—I currently have a Mile-lissa (yes, there is a dash)—pronounced Melissa. When I asked her about it, all she said was that her dad’s name was Miles. Um, ok!

—I have a Demtrius, but he likes to go by Mark.  Oh, ok!

—I recently had a student names Susan, but she liked to go by Precious!

—I also had a student name Ia.  That’s it.  Nothing else.  No, it’s not short for anything.

—Then there was Jerlene.  Not too weird or unique, but kinda is.

—I had a student named Carmela but she liked to go by Kiki or Sunshine. Really???

—I had a student named Tonhetta

There are a few more, but sadly, I didn’t write them down to remember them once the class ended.  I don’t know if it’s just me being overly obsessed with names, what they mean and how people come up with such a name, but there you have it.

Conversation about “dunder” clouds

Scenario:  In the car on the way home from a rainy day!

K: Mommy, are those dunder clouds?

Me:  Yes baby!  And what do THunder clouds do?

K:  They make loud sounds and crash us!

M:  Crash us?

K: Yes!  Dunder and lightning are loud and bright and can crash us!

M:  Konjo, thunder clouds can be loud, but they won’t crash us!

K:  They could though maybe.  They can be scary but we aren’t scared of anysing.  We are brave.

M:  That’s right.  And thunder clouds bring us rain and we love the rain!

K:  Oh yes Mommy!  I love rain! I can jump puddles and wear my boots and… look at that tractor!

*And done with the dunder cloud talk!