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!