Monday, January 28, 2008

Prejudice

My youngest son is not prejudiced. He does not care about the color of anybody's skin. He isn't really even fully aware that some people do care and some people are wrong to care. He doesn't know that white people came here from Europe, black people from Africa, brown people from Mexico or South America, he doesn't know that yellow people came from the Asian countries and he wouldn't understand that anyway, because they are not yellow, really.

So he inadvertantly said something this weekend that was probably taken as racist. And he knew something he had said was not quite right, because of the reaction it got. But he can't quite put his finger on it.

Driving home from a goodbye party in Gibbon, Neb., for my goddaughter who is going to study in Australia for about 10 months, my son said quietly: "I think I made one of Tristan's friends mad."

"Which one?" I asked.
"The boy whose sister was in the Snow White costume," he said.
"What did you say?" I asked.
"They were talking about how some scientists say a meteor is going to hit the earth," he said, only he said "earf" because he's having some pronunciation issues. But I love that -- EARF -- pronounced errrf.
"And I said, well maybe it will hit Africa. Who cares about Africa," he continued.
Well, the boy whose sister was in the Snow White costume cared about Africa, being of African heritage. He told my son, "My ancestors came from Africa."

Christopher hadn't said "Africa" for any other reason than trying to say the name of a place as far away from us as he could think of. He wasn't thinking about people who lived there and especially not about what race of people lived there.

But he said it. and it was inappropriate. So I tried to explain why. I'm not sure he gets it yet. But the two boys he had this conversation with (older than him) got it.

"Mom," Chris then asked, "Am I Poland?"
"Are you what," I asked, thinking about the pronunciation issues and suspecting I had heard wrong.
"Am I Poland," he said, "Because after I said that Tristan asked me, What if the meteor hit Poland?"

I explained to my son that he is about one quarter Polish and some of his ancestors came from Poland, but neither his father or grandfather had ever been there, so he was pretty far removed from being "Poland."

Political correctness is a pretty difficult concept to explain to an 8 year old. But caring about other people's feelings is a lesson I think he's learning. He's a loving and fun-loving boy who has many friends from many different ethnic backgrounds. He's still not quite sure exactly why what he said was wrong, but he knows it hurt somebody's feelings, and he's sorry for that.

That's as good a start as any.

Tuesday, January 22, 2008

Today, I am a Chauffer

I hope I spelled that correctly.
A typical day -- drop Chris off at the elementary school; drop Jeffery off at the high school; drive to work, drive to lunch later, pick up Chris at day care, drive to get him some fast food because he is STARVING (his emphasis, not mine. Clearly at 80 pounds the boy does not know what starving means); field request from Jeffery who wants me to drive to the high school, pick him up, haul him to Subway so he can get a sandwich, take him back to the high school so he can watch the varsity basketball game, then come back when the game is over to bring him home.
I can't wait until he is 16 and can drive himself.
My plans for this evening included bath at 6:30 p.m., in bed by 7, reading, hopefully asleep by 9.
Now, i'm wondering -- do i dare get in the tub and drive to pick him up in my PJs? what if there's an accident? will the sarpy county sheriff go easier on me if i'm dressed in my pink flannels?
I know -- i could have said no to Jeffery. But i remember what it was like to not have transport in high school before my dad purchased the Vega. and i know that just 3 1/2 short years from now, he'll be out of my grasp, eliminating even the possibility for me to say "yes" or "no." So I say yes as often as I can. I say no when that's the best answer.
I'll have plenty of time for bedtime reading when he's at college.

Today's Discovery

A vanilla latte with skim milk and sugar-free syrup is worth neither buying or drinking.

more later

Tuesday, January 15, 2008

Cushings Disease Creates a Cushiony Dog

Four years ago we rescued our dog Shiloh from the pound. He was clearly part Beagle (and part garbage disposal -- although that part wasn't so obvious at the pound.)
In those four years he has more than doubled his weight.
I blamed myself.
What is wrong with me, I lamented. Not only do I make myself fat -- I clearly am leading this dog down the obesity path.
BUT, the vet has made me feel better.
"You don't see many 80 pound beagles," he said to me.
OK -- THAT didn't make me feel better.
But then he said Shiloh's symptoms and aggressiveness about food and seeming ability to never be full and willingness to eat used kleenexes and Q-Tips (yes -- it's gross) leads him to believe Shiloh suffers from Cushing's Disease. He thinks.
In order to confirm, I'd have to pay for a $200 test and then $30 to $40 a month for meds the rest of his life.
Note to my husband: If your health deteriorates to the point where you need this amount of money spent on your upkeep, well, let's just say don't count on me, big boy.
Anyway, the vet said I could help Shiloh without the test or meds. Watch his food intake. Feed him diet dog food. Help him get as much exercise as he can tolerate.
And discard the used kleenexes in a safe place.

Wednesday, January 9, 2008

Are Those Your Pajamas? Or Are You Just Glad to See Me?

My cell phone rang at 9:20 on a Tuesday morning. It was a 332 number. Phone numbers from my little town outside Omaha start with 332. That meant either something was wrong with my 15-year-old or my 8-year-old.
Crap.
In my haste to find out who had hit whom, who had said what, or who had thrown up where, I dropped my cell, rendering it inoperable. "I broke my phone!" I cried. Luckily, being at work, there were lots of cooler heads to help me.
"Turn it off and turn it back on," Susanne said.
Seriously, it hadn't occurred to me. In my panic I went right into "I'm screwed" mode.
When the phone rebooted, I had a message. A child's voice, not really recognizable as one of my own, crying and whimpering, "If it says leave a message does that mean she's not there?" Then some school office type noise. Then nothing.
I called the elementary school. Yes, my 8-year-old had called me. They put him on the phone.
Hysterics isn't even a good enough word to describe what he was going through. Sobbing, wailing, all I was able to make out from his rant was: I'm at school in my pajamas.
Now, I personally helped him get his track pants, shoes and socks on this morning. So I knew he wasn't at school in his pajamas.
"Put an adult on the phone, honey," I said.
The nice school lady said my diva -- I mean son -- had approached his teacher not long after school started, upset because he said he was still in his pajamas.
He was wearing a gray sweatshirt type shirt with a Huskers logo on it.
It doesn't look like you are in your pajamas to me, she said.
But he must of persisted, because at recess she let him go to the office to call me.
Truth is, that shirt is not a pajama shirt. But he wears it for pajamas. AND he had worn it to bed the night before. We don't put a clean shirt on him in the a.m. until he finishes breakfast, because he's a spiller. A clean shirt before breakfast just means another clean shirt after breakfast.
That morning, in our haste to get to school on time, get the dog to the vet (more on this in another post) and get mom to the office on time, so she can switch her brain from Mom Mode to Work Mode, thus saving her sanity for yet another day, I neglected to notice that he hadn't changed his shirt yet.
"Why didn't you say something to me," I asked later.
"I couldn't see it," he said.
"What do you mean you couldn't see it," I asked. "You were wearing it."
"Mom," he said, with all the exasperation an 8-year-old can feel for an obviously dumb adult who let him go to school in his pajamas, "I was wearing my coat."
Well, that explains it. He's like some kind of aborigine. If I can't see the shirt, the shirt doesn't exist. Wonder if he thinks my camera steals his soul, too.
Later, on the phone with dad who is working out of town, I heard him say, "This was the worst day of my life."
Jeez -- my kids are spoiled. The worst day of his life? Because he wore the shirt he slept in to school? Wait until college, kid. Somedays, you'll be lucky if you have clean underwear and socks during the same week.
Where do my children get this penchant for hyberbole? The worst day ever. The worst Christmas ever. But I know where they get it.
After the phone call from the school, I put my head down on my desk and said, "I 'm the worst mom ever."