Tales of a Square Peg

Early last week, I came home to find two new members of the family:  "Bubbly" and "Tink," the goldfish that Jamie and GG brought home from a nearby pet store.  These were "replacement pets," promised to GG upon the untimely demise of her African Dwarf Frogs -- Irie, Nemo, Adjulasia -- and another one whose name I can't remember.   Jamie's been pushing fish versus frogs since we made that promise, but I would have preferred frogs because I have a silly, irrational fear of fish.  I know they can't hurt me, but it's just something about them -- the unblinking eyes, the mouths that always do that fishy-open-mouth-thing.  It puts me on the brink of nausea.  Sweaty palms.  Passing out even.  Love smoked salmon, but I just can't look at it.  Swim in a lake or a pond?  Forget it.  Need therapy?  Probably.

It isn't funny.  When I was about GG's age, my brothers had two big goldfish.  As goldfish are apt to do, they died after a couple of days or a week, and like most parents, mine flushed 'em when they did.  Well, I couldn't get those fishy eyes and mouths out of my head, and to top it all off, I knew they were there.  In our toilet.  In perpetuity.  I refused to use our goldfish cemetery for at least three months after that.  Luckily, we had two other bathrooms.

Now, I'm a grown-up and we go to the zoo.  The first place GG always wants to go is the aquarium; and I go because I don't want her seeing me being freakish about fish.  Once we're inside, I start thinking "What if there's a fault line in the glass of these tanks?"  "What would it be like to have all those fish flipping around your feet?"  Then my heart rate starts to speed up and by that time, we've got to move on to any other exhibit.  It really isn't funny.

Anyway, GG loved Bubbly and Tink.  As soon as I came home from work on the day of their arrival, she says "Mom!  Dad and me got goldfish!  Come LOOK at them!"  I glared at Jamie, clenched my sweaty palms and followed GG to her room.  There they were.....eyes and all.  I mustered a smile, swallowed hard, glanced at them and tried to divert my attention to the gravel on the bottom of the tank.  "Aren't they cute?!  Just look at their little EYES."  "Yes, hon.  I see them.  Adorable...Mama's gotta change into some comfy clothes now, okay?"  "But LOOK AT THEM!"  "Mom will, hon.  Later, okay?"

Bubbly and Tink lived happily in GG's room.  Every night, she'd read to them; play music for them and put fish stickers next to their tank, so they could look at the stickers and 'be happy.'  So, it was understandable that she was anxious to see Bubbly and Tink when we got home from our weekend get-away.  We walked in the door and she raced to her room, and......yep.  You guessed it:  Bubbly and Tink were gone.  Crossed over to the Other Side.

There were tears.  From all of us.  Jamie and I knew she loved them, and as parents, we hate -- more than anything -- seeing GG saddened by life's harsh realities.  GG and I went outside to talk about it while Jamie took care of things inside.  We went through the "they're in a better place," "it's okay to cry" and the "we'll always have the memories" talk -- like we did when the frogs died.  The tears soon subsided, and we went on to have lunch.

At lunch, Jamie said a "special prayer" in light of Bubbly and Tink's passing.  I don't know if it was tiredness setting in from our road trip, but when Jamie solemnly said "Bless Bubbly and Tink," and then "we know they're with the frogs now," I got the giggles.  Bad.  By the time he got to the part about us finding new pets, I was a step away from going into a full-blown giggle-snorting fit, but luckily, I was able to hold everything in.

Really -- I'm not a terrible mom; and I do, truly feel bad about Bubbly and Tink's sad ending.  And it isn't funny, life lessons haven't been lost here, but -- hey, wait a minute:

Did he flush Bubbly & Tink?  Oh no.....we've only got one bathroom.

This really isn't funny.

• 34 years ago, I definitely didn't plan on going to the grade school that I did, but because of "life happening" -- I met my best friend in kindergarten.  We share the same twisted sense of humor, and throughout the years, even the grief that goes along with living.  She's taught me that I shouldn't take myself too seriously; how to be a kinder, gentler person; and not to sweat motherhood and the selective impact that gravity's having on our bodies as we head toward 40.
• 20 years ago, I had planned that my mom would see my college graduation, marriage someday and children.  But life happened:  I lost my mom to cancer that same year.  But, as hard and painful as that experience was -- and is -- it gave me a renewed hope in my faith.  That I made it through those early years without her, and my life as it is now are a testament to the work my mom had done in teaching me how to "fly" without her.  And our relationship, though interrupted by "life happening" was the model for not leaving anything unsaid.  Mom knew how much I loved her, and I knew how much she loved me; so even now, I don't leave the "I love yous" and "Thank yous" till another day, because (as mom often said) tomorrow isn't promised to anyone.
• 8 years ago, I was tired and had no plans to go out to a birthday party, but after some teeth-pulling by a friend of mine, I did.  Life happened that night:  Jamie and I were introduced by a mutual friend.  Turns out that we both had been at some of the same functions previously, but because we were already into our plans during those times (e.g. dating other people), we had never formally met.  Thanks to that unplanned birthday party detour, I met the love of my life.  Through our marriage, I not only have a partner and best friend, but I've gained a mother-in-law who is truly like my own mom; a sister-in-law who's another forever friend, and most importantly...a chance to develop a new, different mother/daughter relationship with our own daughter.
• 6 years ago, I told my boss that I would be resigning to go into a teaching program that, after a year-and-a-half, would lead to a position with MPS.  Then life happened -- truly happened:  A baby?  This really, really wasn't in my plan.  But GG's birth helped me discover the love within myself that wasn't, at its core, about myself:

This love led the search for a school where GG can find the same kind of forever friend like I've had since kindergarten.

 

It's driven me to help GG fly on her own little by little -- because someday, she'll have to.

 

It helps me teach GG to appreciate each person in her life for every kindness -- no matter how small or how great.

 

And this love guides the way Jamie and I interact with each other, our extended family and our friends, so GG knows what healthy relationships look like.

So my birthday wish is this:  if life is happening right now and interrupting the plans you thought you made, I hope you realize that life is never random or hopeless.  And even if you can't see how your situation will ever work out for good, believe me: it can, it will and it does.

By the way -- I never resigned from that job; I'm still at there because "life happened" at that point in time; and it circuitously lead me here to Milwaukee Moms.

In the very early hours of December 7 2002, my husband and I were in a hospital birthing room waiting for GG's arrival.  Shortly after we put our stuff away, a nurse came to get our information for check in.  I responded to all the routine questions through the waves of pain sneaking up on me – and then the demographic questions came: "And you're....Black?"  As if she couldn’t tell.  C'mon lady...can’t you ask me something like 'When would you like your epidural?'  Once the pain subsided, I obliged. "Yes."  "And you're…. White?" she says to Jamie.  Gimme a break here.  He played along.  "Yes."  "And the baby will be....?"  Gee, I don’t know… Hopefully, healthy?  Finally I said "You mean to tell me that we're starting this already?  We’re already checking a box for a baby who's not even here yet."  She must have seen the exasperation in my face, and finally answered her own question: "I'll just say that the baby is both."  Well of course the baby's both!  I'm the Black Mom and he's the White Dad -- what else could the baby be?  And I didn't think about that whole color/race business again.

So was it time to have a kiddie conversion about race?  Jamie and I decided that it wasn't.  The whole notion of "race" and color (at least the way it's been defined: Black, White) really doesn't make any sense -- especially to a little one who understands black to be the color of her favorite dressy shoes; or that white is the color of the paper upon which she draws.  It really made me wonder how much energy it takes to unlearn those basic concepts and to then reclassify them to mean a person or group of persons -- and sometimes, sadly, the characteristics associated with a group of persons -- whether that means the way certain "colors" sound when they talk, what their socioeconomic status is, or even where they live in our community.  So when race would come up in our house, it was used to describe the physical characteristic of people.  (e.g. Mom, remember that guy in the movie, he had a brown body)  And that whole race/color issue was settled. Whew!

So this is my plea to all the Powers That Be:  Let me check two boxes for my kid!....and I've even got a suggestion for some new boxes: One could say Black Mom and another could say White Dad......that is, until Behr's creative comes up with something better for those labels.

Now it's Your Turn:  When was the first time your child noticed color differences in people; and how did you explain it to them?  Just click on "Add Comment" to share your story.

I think that the the topic of color and race (particularly the Black/White dynamic) is an interesting and fascinating one that's going to be with us all for some time.  If you're wondering how to talk about it with your kids, take advantage of the available resources out there.  Interested in current commentary?  Check out one of the special reports being aired on CNN this month.

Years ago -- somewhere in my early twenties -- my friends and I would make the annual pilgrimage to Summerfest six out of the festival's eleven days.  Essential to our annual ritual was scrambling around to get our "Summerfest Outfits" in the days before we went.  When we finally made it to the festival, the first order of business was snagging the all-important picnic table and then going to the ladies room in rotation throughout the day so we could keep it.  After all, our table would be our dance floor up until closing time.  After dancing the night away, we'd hear the closing announcement boom over the loudspeakers, and head over to Ma Fischer's for late dinner or early breakfast, depending on what we ordered.

Not so much anymore.  Now it's Summerfest A.K. (After Kids)

This year, I didn't go with a bunch of giggling boy-crazy twenty-somethings who were going just to dance and work it out to whatever band was playing wherever a picnic table could be found.  No, I was among a group of parents who, collectively, have six small children.  Now, instead of scrambling around for the Summerfest Outfit the day before, I was scrambling to make sure that I packed everything GG would need for her sleepover at her Godmother's house.  And snagging a picnic table?  We wanted --no, we needed -- a concert where we could sit, so we opted for the Steve Miller show at the Ampitheater. (Okay, maybe we'd stand for the rockin' tunes as long as it wouldn't morph into one of those twenty-minute jam sessions)   And even though we had a few hours before the concert, there was a quiet understanding among us that hunkering down at a picnic table probably meant not moving once it was time for the concert to start.  So we found it best to keep walking...albeit at a slow pace.  This was Summerfest A.K. ...and it also afforded something that had been unheard of in my early twenties:  Eating!  We all ditched our diets and consumed everything from pork and beef on a stick to mini-bratwurst corndogs to haystack onion rings.  Honestly, I don't remember ever eating at Summerfest back in the "Outfit Days."  That's what Ma Fischer's was for.

The concert ended early enough for us to catch one of the "new groups" at the Briggs & Stratton Big Backyard to complete our Summerfest A.K. experience.  I think we went to prove our "coolness," -- that this A.K. business hadn't gotten the best of us, and so we caught the ending of a rap group's set.  After listening, I found out just how cool I'm not, because I like clean rap -- and what we heard was not clean.  (And here I was thinking that I was being a totally rebellious teen when I rocked out to the Clash's "Straight to Hell" during my high school days)  While the profanity-laced riffs were disturbing, it wasn't as disturbing to me as this girl who was 17 -- at most - totally into it, dancing gleefully on a picnic table.  My husband heard what I heard and saw what I saw, and gave me that deer-in-the-headlights look; and I then realized that we had both flashed forward to GG in about ten years:  What is music going to be like by that time?  Are we going to be the dorky parents who "just don't get it?"  And how long will she want us to hang out with her, because heaven knows she can't be dancing on Summerfest picnic tables without us there to protect her from all the Summerfest guys who are there to pick up girls!  

There's this wonderful commercial that says "A baby changes everything."  Well, they do.  The Summerfest experience isn't about The Outfit or hanging around until closing anymore.  And now, it's certainly about more than "date night" for me.  This A.K. experience made me think about the long-lasting impact that we will have as parents on our daughter's life, and it awakened a resolve within myself to:

• Have continual dialogue with GG about self-esteem, peer pressure, alcohol use and all of those things that can cause our kids to get sidelined
• Teach GG to listen to the lyrics of whatever music she chooses with a critical ear, and to learn about what those lyrics really mean

and just as importantly,

• Recapture my own sense of fun, and not obsess or get too uptight about the years ahead.

After all, I know that Summerfest will still be there in ten years with a new crop of kids dancing on tables, GG included.  I also know that if Jamie and I continue instilling the right messages in GG's heart throughout the precious growing years that we have with her now, she'll be okay then.  And in about ten years after her Summerfest Outfit days are over, GG will get married, have kids....and be just as worried about them too....especially after she experiences her own Summerfest A.K. 

Square Peg (in a round hole)

Someone who is different from most people of the same age and situation. [Cambridge Dictionary of American Idioms © Cambridge University Press 2003]

Our personal experiences sharpen (or make fuzzy) the lens through we which we see everything in our lives.  They guide how we undertake our roles of mom, wife, friend, daughter/sister-in-law, employee and whatever else we decide to put on our plates.

I see through the lens of a happily married woman whose husband happens to be another race.  I see through the lens of a working mom who’s insanely crazy about the most precious, precocious little girl who happens to be bi-racial.  I see through the lens of a nearly-forty-year-old woman who still misses the mother that she lost when she was 19.  Most of all, I see through the lens of my Christian faith – and the hopes that I’m “walking the Talk”, even when just talking the Talk would be a heck of a lot easier.

Jamie and I will celebrate our 6^th Anniversary this month – the day after my birthday (I don’t know what I was thinking about when I picked that date), and we have a 5-year-old daughter (GG).  I’m old enough to remember Christmas Tree Lighting ceremonies at MacArthur Park & singing “Up, Up with People” with Mayor Maier, Summerfest (before it was paved), Capitol Court mall’s petting zoo at Easter, and ice-skating at Mayfair Mall.  Our community’s changed a lot since those days, but I’m just as hopeful about its future as I am nostalgic about its past.

So, it’s my hope to share what our world, our community and daily life looks like through my many lenses and that you’ll share what you see too.