Absolutely Bananas: Seattle mom blog

On skin color

Why would someone throw their shoes over the telephone wire leaving them to dangle? CJ wants to know. Because if you throw your shoes over the wire, you can’t ever get them back.  And if the person didn’t want their shoes any more, why wouldn’t they just put the shoes in the garbage?

As is so often the case, I just don’t have any answers.

“But can’t the wires SHOCK you?” CJ asks me.

“Yes, CJ,” I say, “Yes they can.”

He thinks for a moment.  Then he says, “Another king got shocked.  I know about that… I learned it at school.”

“Mmhmm.” I pretend to understand although really I have no idea what he’s talking about.

A king?  Shocked?

“It’s so SAD.” he continues, then he adds in a whisper, “the white people did it.”

The fog inside my head is starting to lift.

Does he mean…

He continues, “White people are BAD and black people are GOOD.”

I choke as I try to keep the minivan from careening off the road.  Why does he always hit me with this stuff in the car?  When I’m supposed to be DRIVING?

“Martin Luther King!” I shout, “You learned about Martin Luther King!”

of course he did

“YES!” CJ nods vigorously and repeats the name with emphasis “Martin Luther King.”

“He’s not really a king, you know.” I say, “he’s just a man.  King was just part of his name.”

“And also,” I continue, “Not all white people are bad.  Just some.”

CJ shakes his head.  ”No, white people are BAD. They killed… what’s his name again?”

“Martin Luther King.”

“Yeah.  HIM. The white people KILLED him.”

“Yes, those people were bad,” I say, “But not all of the white people are bad.  It’s not white or black that tells you if someone’s bad- it’s how they act.”

I can tell he’s not buying it.

“But mommy, I think if someone is BAD we should call them white people. And if someone is GOOD we should call them black people.”

Suddenly I get it.  When CJ hears black people and white people he doesn’t think of skin color.  He’s thinking TEAMS.  Like Power Rangers.

I don’t want to be the one to introduce him to the world of skin color.

I also don’t want him going around saying that white people are bad and black people are good. It’s a PICKLE. That’s what I’ve found myself in.

“Honey,” I say, “White people are people like us.  We are white people.”

He looks at me in horror. ”We ARE?!”

“Mmhmm.  Because our SKIN is white.”

He examines his arm and then raises an eyebrow at me.  ”White?” 

“Well, maybe not white.  But LIGHTER.”

“Mommy, we’re white people?” he asks in a hushed voice.

“Yes.  And…” I desperately try to think of someone that we know who is black. Truth be told, Seattle is not the most diverse city.  ”You know Barack Obama?  How his skin is darker than ours? That’s what they mean when they say black person.”

CJ gasps in shock.  ”BARACK OBAMA IS BLACK?!”

His world will never be the same and that makes me sad.  I wish that CJ could always see the world without color.  But I’m glad that, in a world WITH color, both black AND white people can be president.

I’m not your punching bag

I am standing at the checkout counter at Nordstrom Rack, happily paying for my purchases, when I feel small fists jabbing into my back.

OW! I turn around to see CJ winding up for another 1-2 punch.

“CJ! NO PUNCHING MOMMY!” I exclaim. The guy at the checkout counter smirks.

JAB JAB!! CJ hits me again. These punches HURT!

“CJ!!!” I howl, “Stop it!”

“But MOMMY,” CJ responds (very seriously), “I’m learning karate!”

X marks the spot. Except when it doesn’t.

This morning CJ captures a little spider in his hands and stores it in a bucket that he covers up with rain boots to keep the spider from escaping.

“I have a PET!” he exclaims in delight.

But, alas, his new pet is a wily little thing, and it escapes.

Never one to give up easily, CJ pulls out his construction paper and markers. I see him on the kitchen floor with his head bent over the paper earnestly drawing.

“Whatcha doing, CJ?” I ask.

“Making a MAP,” he says.

Several minutes later, the map is complete. CJ holds it out in front of him as he follows the dotted line. Past daddy… into the dining room…

“HEY!” he shouts from the living room, “But my spider isn’t HERE!”

I am thoroughly confused. “Huh?” I look at Jay, “Do you know what’s going on?”

He nods. “He made a map to find his lost spider. And then he followed it. Only it didn’t lead to the spider.”

CJ stomps to the table and slaps his map down. “Mommy IT DIDN’T WORK!” he shouts, “HMMPH! That makes me ANGRY!”

So now I have to try and explain to CJ that maps don’t always lead you to where you want to go. Especially when where you want to go is to the location of your escaped pet spider.

Speck-tacular

It’s Seafair in Seattle, which means we have hydroplane racing, Blue Angels overhead, and a whole lot of drunken idiots getting sunburnt and stupid.

Usually Jay and I avoid the madness, except last year when in a fit of stupidity I decided to take CJ to see the Blue Angels from a VERY CENTRAL location.  Which turned out to be a complete and total disaster because the poor child was convinced we were being bombed and probably lost a few years off his life due to extreme terror and stress.

Live and learn, right?

So THIS YEAR Jay says to me, “Hey, I know! We should go see the Blue Angels!”

And I look at him with that classic SERIOUSLY ARE YOU AN IDIOT look and say, “SERIOUSLY?  ARE YOU AN IDIOT?”

He assures me that CJ is a whole year older and therefore the noise and smoke and death-defying stunts RIGHT OVER OUR VERY HEADS will no longer be scary.

Which could be true.

But then again, probably not.

Jay wants to head straight to the park in the CENTER of the action.  But I’ve been there before and there is no way that I’m putting CJ (or me!) through that.

“How about if we choose a more removed location where it’s not so loud,” I suggest.

And so we compromise.  We’ll go see the Blue Angels, but at a safe distance.

When we hear that our 16-year old niece, Veronica, has never seen the Blue Angels (!!), we insist that she come along.

“this is UNFORGETTABLE,” I tell her, “a once-in-a-lifetime experience.” 

We pull into the park and set up on the lawn.  “I think this is a good spot,” I say, looking out across the water, “I think we’ll be able to see them pretty well.” 

Finally the show begins. 

“THERE THEY ARE!” I shout, “THE BLUE ANGELS!”

“WHERE?”  CJ and Veronica look up at the sky expectantly.

“THERE! See those specks?!”

They squint into the distance.  “Um, no…”

“There!  And there!”

Veronica pushes up her sunglasses and uses her hand to shade her eyes.  “Oh, Ok.  I think I see one.”

“Where?” CJ asks. He soon loses interest and wanders off to throw rocks in the water. 

Well, at least he’s not scared.

Although I guess it’s hard to be scared of something you can’t even see.

I hate to have to admit it, but it would probably have been more fun to go sit by a sunny window and watch the particulate matter swirl in the air.

Or to stand on the beach on a windy day and watch as the sand gets kicked up.

WOW!  LOOK AT THE SPECKS DOING ALL THESE NEAT TRICKS!

Maybe we’ll try that next year.

Basic instinct

We’re standing on the front deck of the ferry boat, looking out over the water.

Suddenly, Jay steps back from the railing.  He looks slightly shaken.

“What’s up?” I ask.

“It’s the oddest thing,” he says, “I keep getting the strongest urge to throw my glasses over the railing.”