The Next Family » Talking About Death
I spoke with Tyler after I picked him up from school today. The conversation flowed smoother than I expected, and I know he is forewarned, but I am sure that as the reality of this sets in he will have questions or maybe some acting out or depression. I asked him if he remembered what was in his body, and he said yes, his spirit, and that spirits held love and care. We talked about how bodies sometimes got old and stopped working or sometimes they could get hurt really badly and stop working, and he said, yes, and then the body dies. We talked about how the spirit is forever, and that when a person dies it is their body, but the spirit doesn’t die. Tyler said spirits are stronger than any bad things and they are even stronger than houses. I asked Tyler where he thought spirits went when the body dies, and he said, up there. I figured I could work with that theory, and I said yes, the body becomes part of the earth and that the spirit goes to the spirit world. I reminded Tyler of the verse in our bedtime prayer…
via The Next Family » Talking About Death originally posted at 2001 November « curlykidz.
Parent Sportsmanship – an oxymoron?
Results suggest that positive spectator and coach behaviors were significant predictors of positive player behaviors. Similarly, negative spectator behaviors were predictive of negative player behaviors, while negative coach behaviors were not.
So if you didn’t already know, I am a volleyball mom. My 10yo daughter plays for Team AZ, a Starlings affiliated club at our local Salvation Army community center. It’s a wonderful program run by some dedicated & passionate individuals… many of them volunteers. Because so many wonderful people dedicate their time to this center and it’s programs, our club fees are only $250 a year, while most clubs charge anywhere from $500 to $2500.
I am incredibly thankful to have a program like this available for our girls… I am proud of the community of volunteers who coach the teams, administrate the program, the girls who put their hearts into the game and the families that support them. Almost all the time, that is.
Today our girls placed sixth in the tournament, winning one of their three games in two sets and losing the other two games in two sets. We had some spectacular highs… a number of aces, better teamwork than we’ve seen during the vast majority of practices, and the highlight of the tournament… my Halle got her first “spike” during a game.
OK, maybe that wasn’t the highlight of the tournament for EVERYBODY, but it sure was for me!
We had a moment that I was BEYOND proud of… Read more…
wild child goes to see big bird…
…but not on Sesame Street!
In my little circle of parents from SoMo, Tyler is one of the oldest children. People have been stressing me out by asking me what I’m doing about high school for at least a year now.
High school? My little shortie? All, um… 65 (maybe) pounds of him?
*shutthefuckup* Read more…
The Next Family » Banking While Black
Scenario: My sitter is black. Priscilla has been babysitting for me since Tyler was 2 mos old. So as not to deal with the hassle of receipts, I pay her by check with the note “childcare” and the dates covered in the memo section. Every month for 3.5 years I’ve written her a check drawn on Wells Fargo Bank. Almost every month for the last two years she has been cashing these checks at the same branch…
The Next Family » Banking While Black originally posted in 2000 at Banking while Black « curlykidz.
The Next Family » Half-Breeds
Last night while at my sister’s band concert someone came up to me during the intermission and complimented me on how pretty my kids are, and I thanked her. Then she asked, right in front of Tyler, who has a mind like a steel trap and never forgets a damn thing, “are they half-breeds?” I sat there in stunned silence, thinking…
Oh, no she didn’t…
Letting go (and moving on)
So a few people have commented about how I fell off the blogosphere right after I met my dad… and while I’ll admit that I didn’t write for a couple weeks because I was trying to sort out feelings that were raw and new, that can only account for a week or two of my absence. After that, I’ve just been very busy with visits to and from family, and wrestling with some very, very difficult personal decisions. I’m not quite comfortable making this chapter totally public quite yet, but I do have the story in a note on my facebook. So, if you’re not already on my FB page, fix that…
Reunions
So a lot’s happened on the family front since last week…
I spent about two and a half hours on the phone with my uncle Friday night, followed by a good four hours with my aunt on Saturday and another hour(ish) on Sunday. Mostly we were catching up with each other on what’s happened in the last thirty-four or so years, and each other’s families and children. I can’t remember what day or hour into conversation that my aunt and I talked about my biological father and where to go with all that.. but she wanted to let me know that he was going to be in PHX over Thanksgiving, thinking it might be more comfortable for me, if he and I were to meet, if it were on my turf, so to speak. She’s a smart lady, my auntie.
So I asked the question that had been on my mind since the first contact. Since she had asked if it was OK with me to tell him she’d found me, should I assume that this is information he wants to know? He wasn’t the one to come looking for me, and he hadn’t had any more children, so I couldn’t help wondering if this was something he’d welcome. So my aunt and I had a pretty candid discussion, and she admitted that he’s not one who deals well with emotion, and tends to withdraw from any kind of intense emotional situations. Based on the things I mentioned already and just kinda putting together this and that from various conversations, I’d already gotten that impression. My aunt had suggested telling him and giving him my number and letting him take the next step. I told her I was OK with her telling him that she’d gotten in touch with me, but asked her to leave it at that. If he asked about or expressed an interest in contacting me, she could give him my number, but I didn’t want him to feel at all pressured by any expectations, hers or mine, real or perceived.I have a dad, and he’s awesome. I’d like to get to know [bio dad], but I don’t want anything that he can’t give freely.
Sunday I got a voice mail from my aunt, to let me know she’d spoken with [bio dad]. She was pretty excited, because she’d expected kind of a non-reaction at first, but that he’d been very interested, asked a lot of questions, and seemed almost excited. She said she thought he’d call, but wasn’t sure when. I was thinking in my mind, that he’d probably call the following weekend. I know it took me from Tuesday to Friday night to really get to a point where I could wrap my head around everything to string two sentences together and have anything resembling an intelligent conversation.
But [bio dad] surprised us both, and called me the next evening. He was visibly audibly nervous and clearly way out of his comfort zone. He introduced himself by name and I said hello… he asked how I was, I asked how he was, and he laughed shakily and said,
Scared.
It made the conversation a lot easier for me, that’s for sure. Shoot, I was just incredibly nervous. But I understood how he must have felt.
He told me right up front at the beginning of the conversation that he’s not real good with people or emotions, and if he said or did anything that I felt crossed the line or upset me to please let him know. I told him that was fair, and not to worry… I’m not one who’s known for holding back her feelings. If you make me mad, there will be no doubt in your mind.
We had a nice conversation, though there was a real awkward moment when he asked me if my children were mulatto, and I had to explain that was a socially acceptable term about a hundred years ago, but today most people consider it a racial slur. He took that pretty well, didn’t get defensive and go for a derail, reworded his question, and then told me that a couple of the other grandkids in the family are multiracial. I got the feeling he was trying to make a connection with me somehow. It was a little misguided, but not ill intentioned, and I don’t think I’ve ever had the “that thing you said was racist” conversation go so well.
He brought up that he would be in PHX for the holiday, and asked if he could buy me a cup of coffee, and I told him I’d really like that. So in addition to that reunion, my uncle Joe and his wife Debbie are driving up on Saturday to have breakfast with us and spend some time together. Two weeks after that, coincidentally my birthday weekend, my aunt Joyce will be in town and we’ll be getting together for dinner.
“Big Fat Head”
Dr 2nd Grade,
Could you please speak with the boy who sits behind Daija about this? Its such a struggle for my girls to maintain a healthy self esteem and racial identity. This isn’t the first time Daija has complained that someone in class made her feel bad about her hair, But its the first time she’s begged me to straighten it…
“Even if it burns me, I promise not to cry.”
I’m pretty upset by this, and so is she.
Attitude of Gratitude
Today will not be a day of rest for me, since I’ll be doing all the things I didn’t get done while I was on the phone for the better part of Friday night and Saturday. But it will be a thankful day…
Today I am grateful for the internets and for Facebook.
They brought me two aunts, four uncles, eight cousins, and two second cousins.
That’s a lotta family to get on a random Tuesday evening.














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