Sillinesses

Who is this beautiful, wonderful child? How did I stumble upon a life in which this amazing little person slips her hand into mine and yells "Yay! It's a beautiful day!" She's weird and silly, serious and attentive, observant and absolutely given to the world of imagination.

She is a poet. She tells her her hands are kissing each other in her sweatshirt pocket. She gazes up at the kite we are flying and tells me the birds will be happier now. She cups my face in her two hands and gazes lovingly into my eyes -- with a grown-up kind of wisdom -- and says, "I love you, my mommy. I DO."

Her imagination is a whole world. I bask in the innocence of it, the intensity of it. She tests out ideas: "Maybe, when we catch the leprechaun," (her older brother and sister were making a leprechaun trap the night before St. Patrick's Day), "we can cut him up and eat him?" She consoles herself: when Ali shows up at the dentist, where TK is trembling in the chair because the dentist holds a drill and is talking about getting rid of the brown spot on TK's teeth, TK lets herself fall entirely into Ali's story that this dentist appointment is actually for Purple (TK's beloved little stuffed creature, who has just two prominent and very yellow teeth). In an attempt to make Purple feel better, TK agrees to let the dentist drill. Ali dutifully pretends to drill Purple's tooth.

For a sensible, rule-following little girl, TK's imagination knows few boundaries. She asks sometimes, "But is it REAL?", but she whole-heartedly believes in fairies, in gods and goddesses, in monsters, in the ability of her stuffed animals to talk and feel and listen, in magic. I revel in her widened eyes. I love to tell her stories at night -- I love the way she follows the narrative (better than many of my middle schoolers, better than some adults), the way she wants to talk about it afterwards. One night, I told her a story about a magic door that let us into my grandma's house, where TK got to meet my grandma (who died several years ago). The next morning, TK asked, "When the magic door opens again, we could have a cookie, right?"

Each morning, we talk to the "friends" -- the crowd of stuffed animals TK gathers close to her at night, carries out with her when she wakes in the morning, puts to bed at night. Each night, a different friend has a sorrow -- we are doctor and assistant, interviewing the small stuffed animal, delving into his/her issues (I do all the voices). When we go out during the day -- to school, or for a walk, or to the store -- TK tells me what the friends are doing -- why they can't come, too. Today, they were watching a movie; sometimes they are at the pool.

I'm not capturing her essence in these words. My words fail me. She laughs, and I think I have never heard a sweeter sound. She tells rambling, random stories -- attempting the narrative structure of her older siblings and of her two mothers -- and I love every silly word. "We are full of sillinesses!" she proclaims, and I want to just hug her close and love her and be amazed forever. She reminds me to imagine more, to laugh more, to spread my arms more to the world and proclaim its beauty.

Learning to Love the Skin We're In

My daughter is beautiful. Her black hair sproings and curls from her head, wildly chaotic beneath her purple headband. Her chocolate-brown skin makes any color she wears look lovely. Her round dark brown eyes are twin pools, sparkling with her inner light of playfulness and empathy with every part of the world. When she laughs, she crinkles her nose and throws open her mouth and lets the laugh shake her whole body. Her tiny fingers shape "I love you" for me when I leave for work; she squints her eyes in that loving look I love. I am amazed at her beauty.

So why were Ali and I holding our sobbing three-year-old close one night after story-time, listening to her cry, "I'm not beautiful! I'm not beautiful!" over and over? We glanced at each other with fear. Isn't this too early? Ali's seven-year-old, Katie, has begun to compare herself to other girls, to try to define what is beautiful and what is not about her sweet little body -- but at THREE? We held Mitike closer, murmuring into the perfect whorls of her ears, "You're beautiful, we love you."

Moments before, we had finished reading the last book -- a book about bunnies -- and TK had snuggled close to us, happy. She held her hand against Ali's arm. "Aye-Ay," she pronounced, "you have light brown skin." Ali nodded. Then TK turned to me and held her little arm alongside mine. "And we both have dark brown skin, right, Mommy?"

I wanted to lie. This was the moment of her discovery, and I wanted to lie and prolong her blindness a little more. The research I've read says children begin to notice skin color differences far later than they notice differences such as body size or hair length -- at about the age of 4. My friend John, who spent his early childhood in Africa, recalls that his first memory of difference was not that he was the only pale-skinned child among his playmates, but that some of his playmates had outie bellybuttons. It was only later that he began to realize his uniqueness of skin color; he'd felt like he fit in with his innie.

So I wanted to lie, but I didn't. Mitike is smart, and I saw in her beautiful eyes that she already understood, that she knew -- and feared -- what I was about to say. "No, sweetie, I have light brown skin," I murmured. "You have dark brown skin."

"But Mommy," she frowned, her brow furrowing, "I want light brown skin like you."

"TK, your skin is beautiful!" I exclaimed, kissing her little hands. She wrenched them away and buried her face in them.

"I'm NOT beautiful! I don't LIKE my dark brown skin!"

My heart lurched. Both Ali and I wrapped our arms around our beautiful little fragile child. I murmured a litany of all the many similarities TK and I have: two eyes (both brown!), a nose, two ears, two hands, ten fingers!, two feet. She sobbed, inconsolable. We both need to control everything, I reminded her, we both love to dance in the kitchen, we both love to read books, we -- I paused. Ali jumped in to describe a Sesame Street conversation she saw once between Elmo and Whoopie Goldberg about loving the skin you're in. TK quieted and listened. She loves Elmo. I worried that she'd start crying that she doesn't have red fur, but she didn't. She calmed down and let Ali kiss her goodnight; she cuddled close to me in the darkness.

I told her a bedtime story about Purple Bear (one of her beloved stuffed friends) and his mommy, Green Bear -- about how sad Purple Bear felt to realize he was not green like his mommy, but how he began to realize how beautiful he was as a purple bear. TK only half-listened; she began to cry again when I ended the story. Her last words before she fell asleep: "I'm not beautiful." I responded fiercely: "You are beautiful, you are. I love you, little TK. I love you, love you."

This morning, she seemed sad -- she needed to take more special toys to school than usual. Already, I hate taking her to daycare -- I want to be a stay-at-home mom -- but this morning's drop-off felt unbearable. What if some child at preschool is telling her she's not beautiful because of her skin color? I keyed her teachers into my concerns and then drove to work feeling nauseated. All day, I watched my students of color -- especially the ones with healthy self identities. Do they like themselves because they look like their mothers, or because their parents have guided them to love themselves? What am I supposed to DO?

I rushed into preschool prepared to scoop up a sobbing, melancholy child -- and found my happy, beautiful TK sticking glitter and purple hearts onto contact paper. "Look, Mommy!" She held up her creation, grinning. We played all afternoon and all evening, and then we snuggled into bed again -- tonight, to read "The Colors of Us," "I'm Unique" and "Amazing Grace," all three familiar books shouting the theme that every person should love who she is, no matter her skin color. In the middle of "Amazing Grace," TK looked up at me and grinned, "Mommy, I LOVE myself. Do you want to hold Froggie?"

I hugged her close and shouted, "YAY!" to make her laugh; we finished reading. Tonight's bedtime story was a silly one, with no rhetorical purpose other than to entertain my sweet child. She fell asleep smiling, Purple Bear, Puppy, and Froggie held tightly as usual in her little arms.

I watched her sleep for awhile, her face peaceful, her mouth slightly open. I'm afraid. This is the beginning of her search for her own identity in a world in which her mother and, for as long as we live in Juneau, the majority of the people around her do not look like her -- and I will be a flawed guide. But I will love that beautiful little girl with all my heart, and with all my strength. I'm going to have faith that that will count for something.

So. . . Sometimes We BREAK Rules?

When I pick up TK from preschool the day after Martin Luther King, Jr. Day, one of her teachers crosses the room (with TK, who always deserts whatever toy with which she was playing to sprint pell-mell into my open arms) to give me the daily report. Usually, I hear a funny story -- TK pretending to drive a bus for her preschool friends, TK chasing a "dinosaur" across the playground. The teacher, Ms. A___, who is African American and wears her hair (as TK has observed) in the same beautiful "sproings" that TK does, begins to laugh. "I've got to tell you about how TK responded to the Rosa Parks story we read today," she says.

Now that I've heard the story, I can imagine the scene perfectly. I know my daughter. I imagine Ms. N____ perched on the edge of the rocking chair, holding a children's book about the Civil Rights Movement out for the small crowd of preschoolers to see. Ms. N___ reaches the story of Rosa Parks and explains she was a lady who would not get up from her seat on the bus -- and TK stands up, her brow furrowed in serious concern. "That's not okay!" she calls out. Ms. N___ tries to explain that people like Rosa Parks were actually prevented from sitting where they wanted to by an unfair law, but TK is still standing, her little legs apart, her brow still furrowed. "She was SUPPOSED to get up, right Ms. N___?" Ms. N___ sighs, smiling a little, and then continues to read, explaining to the children that Ms. Rosa Parks was then sent to jail. "Oh!" interjects my rule-following child, "That's good."

As Ms. A___ relates all this to me, she's shaking with laughter, and so is Ms. N___, who has joined us. TK looks up at the three of us and decides to laugh, too, though she doesn't know why. I laugh because my child is so good that she can't imagine a time when the rules are supposed to be broken, but I'm also aware of the strangeness of this moment. Ms. A___ and Ms. N___ (who is Hispanic) are both women of color; both hear the Rosa Parks story through far different lenses than I do. More: someday, Mitike will hear the Rosa Parks story through one of those other lenses, too; someday, Mitike will ask me why our nation -- in its recent history -- would have allowed such racism to be inscribed in law; someday, Mitike will realize that, had she and I boarded that bus, I would have gotten to sit wherever I pleased, and she would have had to choose to sit in the back or to break the law as Ms. Parks and her fellow demonstrators did.

Outside the preschool door, TK and I race each other down the long hallway to the door. At the door, I say, "TK, you know that story about Rosa Parks, the lady on the bus?"

She nods sagely and says, "The lady who wouldn't get up!"

"That's right," I tell her. "She was trying to change a rule that wasn't fair. Some people made a rule that she and other people like her could only sit in the back of the bus, but everyone else could sit where they wanted to." I am not brave enough to talk about skin color. TK hasn't started categorizing people like that yet (the researchers say that kicks in around age 4 or 5); I am "light brown" or "coffee with lots of milk" and she is "dark brown" or "chocolate".

But TK gets it. "It was good she wouldn't get up."

"She wanted to change that unfair rule, so all of us can sit wherever we want to on the bus." Someday, I'll talk about bathrooms and restaurants, cafe stools, schools and universities. Someday, I'll tell her about a man who dreamt of people being judged by the content of their character and not by the color of their skin. Someday, I'll tell her about promissory notes and freedom ringing. Today, we'll just talk about bus seats.

"Mommy?"

I look down at her, so small beside me in her purple coat and her purple stocking cap. She holds my hand and gazes down to the stream that flows beneath the bridge we are walking across. I watch her for a moment, and then answer, "Yes, sweetie?"

"Mommy, at the store, can we please buy yogurt and make it purple and pour in maple seri-up?"

I laugh and sweep her up into my arms, just as the city bus trundles by on the road. I glimpse the people lit blue-white inside, some standing, some slumped wearily into their seats. Mitike and I are walking home today, but if we wanted to take that bus, we could both sit in every single seat in the bus if we wanted to. And we can thank Rosa Parks -- and King, and all those other brave activists -- for knowing they had to break rules to create newer, fair ones. I know: teaching a three-year-old that lesson seems akin to the lessons about rebellion and revolution I'm currently teaching my middle school history students: knowing about necessary rule-breaking is not useful to them yet, since acting upon it will only get them in trouble with the grown-ups in their lives. But someday -- someday -- they'll need this knowledge like ammunition, like fuel, like bread, like a candle that shimmers in darkness. And someday, when my daughter sees someone break a rule because it's unfair, I hope she breaks it, too, as her heart beats wildly to the cadence of "That's not okay, that's not okay, that's not okay."

How Purple Came Into the World

For Christmas, I wrote TK a little story entitled "How Purple Came Into the World". One of my 7th grade students illustrated it, and we gave it to TK together. In the story, the Creator (a feminine deity) saves the color purple for herself. . . until a little girl named Mitike tells her mommy she is sure something is missing from the world. Mitike's observation and her desire to see purple move the Creator to share the color.

TK loves the story. When we finish reading it each time, she sighs a little and then says, "I had to tell her purple was missing, right, Mommy?" She's utterly convinced of the story's truth and -- frankly -- so am I. I didn't notice purple the way I notice it now that Mitike is in my life; I didn't see so many things. For example, I shopped at Fred Meyers and walked right past the sofa arrangements, thinking they were just there to entice buyers. I never realized one could play "Living Room" for an hour and a half on those sofas (TK: "Now, why do all these PEOPLE live in our house?" ME: "I know! And why did we buy all these suitcases?")

I never thought to love tiny boxes of raisins or little cups. I never looked at a large cardboard box and thought, "That is a castle." I never ran out into newly fallen snow, stopped to look at my footprints, and then ate handfuls of the white flakes just because. I never realized stuffed frogs and puppies must be able to see the pictures in a book, too. I never thought about how funny toothpaste is, or about how good it feels to put on shorts on a winter day and run as fast as possible through the kitchen. I never thought to stop mid-run and yell, "DANCE PARTY!" I never stemmed my sadness with a phone call to President Obama on a toy purple phone.

I never thought to notice purple this much. Or maybe I did, once, and then I forgot when I grew up. Maybe being a mom is a second chance to see this way again. I drink in the perspective, thirstily. I'm so thankful for all that TK notices is missing from our world. Price-tagged sofas become a living room; a box of raisins becomes the day's best surprise.

I love my child.

Bedtime Kisses

Last night, just before she nodded off to sleep, TK cups a hand on my cheek and murmurs, "I love you, sweet Mommy."

And tonight, TK whispered, "I'm so glad you're my mommy." I whispered back, "I'm so glad you're my child." I closed my eyes and felt a little stuffed animal belly against my cheek, then heard TK's lowered "Froggy" voice: "I'm so glad to be with you guys!"

Glimpses of You in Late Fall

1. I finish telling you your bedtime story -- part of our ritual, now. You like to add your own parts of the narrative: "and then Froggy said, 'Oh no!'" -- and your own plot twists: "But my Mommy was there, too." Always, though, you quiet down and listen while the story reaches its climax and relaxes into resolution. Then, every night, you sigh with a little smile on your face. "Thank you for the story, Mama" -- and it's as if I've just given you the most precious gift you can imagine.

2. It's Halloween night, and you have excitedly donned a dragon costume to join Tim and Katie and the neighborhood kids in the trick-or-treating tradition. I remember you last year at this time, in America for just two months, puzzled by all the new things you needed to learn. Now you seem to have mastered it. You run up to a house with the other kids, your purple trick-or-treating bag in your hands. The house owner plops a piece of candy in your bag. I expect you to run back to me, eager (like the other kids) to go on to the next house. But you look at me sadly. "Mommy, I'm all done," you say. "I want to give people candy from OUR house." So we go home, just the two of us, and make hot chocolate, waiting for the next doorbell ring, when you can offer the trick-or-treaters candy from the wooden bowl, your face shining with happiness.

3. I leave you at preschool early in the morning and watch you make your way to the snack table. You are wearing your green and purple dragon outfit from Halloween -- I think you love the tail and the claw mittens and the purple belly. One of the preschool teachers -- the one who irks me with her too-sharp voice -- slides your hood off your head. You look dismayed for a moment -- you don't look like a dragon without the hood! I ask why the hood has to come off; the teacher shrugs and says you'll be too hot. You nod -- you even look resigned -- and then walk hoodless to the snack table, where you cradle the hot chocolate I bought you from the coffee shop this morning and the kiss I've just blown to you (you always hold my morning kiss in your hand for awhile, before you put it in your pocket for safe-keeping). I walk to the jeep feeling sad -- tearful. I almost run back inside to scoop you up; I could call in sick; I could quit my job today. But then we wouldn't have rent money or groceries money or fly-to-Iowa money. You have to endure the teacher who won't let you fully be a dragon; I have to be a good grown-up and go to work. Neither of us is fully happy until we see each other again at the end of the day.

4. We've been outside coloring with sidewalk chalk at Gram's house in Des Moines. When I open the door for you, you make a beeline for Gram, who is sitting -- exhausted -- in her chair. You haven't connected with her much since we've been here, and I've wondered if her frailty troubles you -- but now you grab her hands and press them to your round checks. "Feel my cheeks, Gram," you tell her, speaking slowly and loudly like you've heard the grown-ups do. "Aren't they cold?" And Gram grins, cradling those soft cheeks in her wisened hands.

5. You are riding on my back in the baby backpack while we walk home from a hike out Basin Road.
"You know what song's in my head?" I ask you.
"Sing it, Mama!"
And I sing the song you taught me from your preschool: "The leaves are falling down, the leaves are falling down. . ."
"I put that in your head for you, Mommy!"
"Oh, thank you, TK!"
And we sing together all the way home, making up more verses for my head.

6. Your favorite game, lately, is to pretend you are the mommy and I am the baby. "Do you want some food, baby?" you ask me. I play along; you feed me, and then cradle my head in your arms. Then suddenly: "Mommy, how about you be the mommy again? I like that better."

7. At the First Friday gallery walk in downtown Juneau, we see Santa Claus on the sidewalk. This is your first official glimpse, since you were unaware of Santa's existence last year. You gape. Santa approaches and gets down on one knee. "Have you been good?" he asks. You nod wordlessly while he hands you a piece of red and white striped candy. "But, SANTA," you whisper, "I thought you weren't REAL!" Santa grins and gives his beard a good yank. "I'm real," he affirms. "So am I," you say solemnly.

8. How many cups of coffee and milk will we share together in cozy coffee shops, you telling me a long story, me enthralled with the little person you're becoming? I hope for so many that I will lose count.

9. We are climbing the tall, tall slide at the playground in Des Moines, while Aunt Katie snaps photos. I imagine how the photos will look -- me guiding you up the ladder, you looking upward with determination. The metaphor is obvious, but only partly true. So much of the time, you're leading me, showing me how to do this mama thing.

Afraid of Monsters -- Vignettes

1. TK runs pell-mell through the living room, paraphrasing Maurice Sendak in a loud shout: "I AM A WILD THING!" She bares her teeth and wrinkles her nose; she raises both of her little hands in claws. I pretend to be afraid. Ali always jumps up on the couch and mock-screams. Tim shrieks like he's seen a rat. Katie laughs. The Wild Thing, who never goes without her dinner, giggles and then bares her teeth at us again.

***

2. When I turn out the light at 8:32 p.m., TK, after an entire day of being the sweetest girl imaginable, turns into a monster, yelling "NO!" and thrashing around on her bed and screaming "I will NOT go to bed!". I calmly tell her I'm going to the living room until she becomes my sweet girl again; she proceeds to sob uncontrollably and beat her legs and arms against the bed. This continues for ten minutes (while I'm in the living room, trying in vain to have a half-way normal conversation with Tim about the Greek gods).

Then: "Mommy?"

I move to stand in the doorway. "Yes, TK?"

"I'm all done being a monster."

And I snuggle into bed with her, and she nestles close, and I inhale her non-monster scent of olive oil and almond butter lotion, of crayons and cupcake batter.

***

3. I burst through the door of Gold Creek, TK's preschool/daycare, and sweep TK up in my arms. We smile at each other, in love. Then I read the note her teachers have taped to her locker: "Mitike bit another child today." I read it again; I sense TK watching me read it. I meet her eyes. "You are a little girl. NOT a creature. I'm not happy." That's all I say to her, but she bursts into tears, and we walk in silence the entire way home. Her teachers told me the other child was aggressively trying to pull a toy away from TK, that TK -- who is incredibly articulate for her age -- must have panicked and resorted to biting. But I want to teach my daughter never to resort to violence. The silence is serious; it walks between us; TK keeps her little head down. She knows.

At the corner before our house, I stop and lift her up in my arms. I tilt her chin up so her eyes meet mine. Oh, her poor eyes are brimming with tears. "Mitike, my little monster," I say gently, "I love you, no matter what. Okay?"

She nods, and says seriously, "Mommy, next time I'll use my words. I'm so sorry."

We stand in the rain and hug, and then we walk up the hill singing a silly song we learned from a book about a lizard: "Zoli, zoli, zoli, rock is my home, rock is my home, zoli, zoli, zoli." And my little monster looks so happy, singing in the rain, her little arms wrapped around my neck.

***

4. "Mommy! There are monsters on the walls!" TK clutches the covers and points fearfully at the far wall, where her nightlight casts strange shadows.

"Those are just shadows, sweetheart," I mutter sleepily.

"They're bugs! They're bugs, Mommy!" She begins to cry, covering her head.

I stand up and pretend to shoo away bugs. "Go away!" I shout, and then glance back at TK, who is nodding solemnly. I snuggle back into bed with her.

"Sing me a song, Mommy," she murmurs in the shadowy darkness.

***

5. We attend the high school production of "Little Shop of Horrors," which is -- incidentally -- far more horrible than the movie version. I murmured "it's just a puppet, it's just a puppet" into TK's ear the entire show, but she seems a bit shaken when the lights go up at the end (so does our 9-year-old, Tim). "Mommy," she says, her eyes round saucers, "that plant ATE people. That's not okay."

***

6. "Mommy," TK asks me one day as we drive to her daycare, "when you're at work, who keeps YOU safe?"

***

7. TK and I chase each other back and forth across the kitchen and living room, pretending to be monsters, "rawrring each other", as TK calls it. She stops and looks up at me, sudden resolution shining in her dark brown eyes. "Mommy! We just need to stare into their yellow eyes, Mommy," she explains, quoting Sendak again. She grins and grabs the soccer ball. "No more monsters! Want to play this game now?"