Category Archives: Motherhood

I was a magnificent sight to behold.

You should have seen me: svelte and toned, my body was in the best shape it had ever been in. All those hours and weeks of dogged determination and completing my Insanity program had paid off. My breasts and buttocks sat sumptuously in my high-cut, bright yellow swimming suit, stubbornly defying gravity. Pamela Anderson had absolutely NOTHING on me.

I had just got done swimming 8 laps across the pool and hoisted my perfect body out of the water. My neighbor Keisha watched me enviously, shrouded with an oversized t-shirt, floppy straw hat and wide-rimmed shades. I struck up a conversation with her about natural hair. I have been natural for years now, and she was a recent convert.

“Girl, I just keep it short,” she confessed. “Natural hair is a lot of work!”

I nodded in agreement.

“It is a lot of work,” I replied, “but it’s worth it for days like this. You just can’t hop in and out of the pool when you have a perm.”

It was Memorial Day, and the family was spending the day by the pool before my husband worked his magic on the grill. I had spent the larger part of the afternoon trying to show the girls how to swim, and Aya was the only one putting in real effort. She enthusiastically dove under the water head first and flapped her arms and legs like a wayward crayfish. She barely moved five inches, but at least she was trying…which was much more than I could say for her elder sister. Nadjah refused to get her face wet at all.

“If you’re not willing to get your hair wet, then don’t waste my time asking me to teach you how to swim!” I barked.

She smarted and replied with a tepid attempt by putting her nose in the water. I snorted and turned my attention back to Keisha, who was also lamenting that after 3 years of swimming lessons, her daughter had still refused to submerge herself completely in the water. As we “mmhmmm’d” our mutual disdain for that failure, my beloved Aya went under the water and didn’t come back up fast enough.

My baby was drowning!

“Oh my God, Marshall! Get her!” I screeched.

The sound of my panicked voice carried over the expanse of the pool and only made Aya panic more. She reached desperately for the inflated tube that was just above her head, but she couldn’t get a grip. Her little beaded head bobbed just below the surface. My baby!

Marshall wasn’t moving fast enough. I sprinted past him and shot into the water like a bullet. With three streamlined strokes, I swam to my struggling child and lifted her out of the water. She clung to my neck, eyes wild and face drenched. I clutched her tightly and set her by the edge of the pool. In the distance, dark clouds from an approaching storm began to gather confirming that it was time for our departure. I couldn’t take being struck by lighting and losing a child to drowning in the same day.

As I led my brood home, I felt like a hero. How fitting and symbolic for the day we were celebrating.

*****

Now – Everything I described to you actually happened – except for the bit about my body. That’s not true. I did 10 minutes of Insanity and gave up months ago. I’m still weighing in at 200+ lbs, and I don’t have a high-cut anything in my wardrobe. My breasts and buttocks took on gravity about 4 years ago and lost – and wretchedly so. They are both sad swinging sacks of their former selves.

And I did save my child’s life – though not quite in the way I described. I leapt into the water feet first – not head first – and my movements were less like an arrow and more reminiscent of a lumbering grizzly bear chasing after and attacking its salmon dinner. I am resolute in my insistence that the intensity of my attempt to rescue my imperiled child is not to be diminished by the execution of that rescue, however poor.

As Marshall and Keisha howled with laughter in the background, Aya grabbed my neck and looked at me with bewildered eyes.

“Why is Daddy laughing?” she chattered.

“I don’t know,” I muttered, carrying her to get a towel.

Keisha was clutching her sides when I got back to the pool chair.

“Girl! I wish I had my camera!” she gasped. “That was the funniest thing I’ve ever seen!”

“Huh?”

“She could have saved herself by the time you got to her,” she snickered wickedly. “You should have seen the way you jumped in the pool!”

She could barely finish her sentence. Laughter was choking her. I couldn’t scold my neighbor, so I turned my ire towards Marshall.

“Well…why didn’t you go in the pool after her?”

“You didn’t give me a chance,” he scoffed. “You shot past me before I could react!”

“And it’s a good thing I did,” I said, drying myself off haughtily. “She could have drowned while we waited on you!”

Keisha coughed and cut me off.

“She was in no danger of drowning,” she chortled. “Ooooh! Comedy central!”

“That was like watching Baywatch, wasn’t it?” I smiled.

“Yeah…no,” she breathed.  “I was like watching ‘Not Baywatch’.”

Or Blackwatch, we concluded:  Overweight Black moms at the pool, just trying to keep their kids safe. It’s not pretty, but it gets the job done. Any mother would have done the same. I think.

Last week Marshall and I went to Ray’s on the River for lunch to celebrate our anniversary. Ray’s is located in Vinings, a very shwanky suburb of Atlanta. (And you have to say it just like that: shhwankyyy.) I thought I had been to Ray’s before, but I was wrong. As soon as pulled into the parking lot, it was clear that we had never dined at Ray’s on The River before. We’d eaten at Ray’s Killer Creek, but there are no Bentleys parked in the lot at Killer Creek. There were two Bentleys, side by side, in the parking lot at Rays on the River. Late model BMWs, Jaguars and shiny vehicles of brands unknown to me filled the lot. A number of them sported decals from Georgia Tech, Duke and other prestigious universities from around the South and Northeast.

“I hope I don’t screw up my kids’ future,” I muttered.

“Huh?” asked Marshall. “What are you talking about?”

I pointed to the two Bentleys sitting in the VIP lot.

“You don’t get to drive one of those because of something your parents told you to do,” I said. “That kind of ‘success’ only comes from turning your passion into a paycheck. I just hope I don’t project too many conventional expectations on them…and keep them in this paycheck-to-paycheck cycle we all live in.”

My husband hummed in agreement and led me into the building for lunch.

I can’t speak for all parents, but I assume that many of us fret over the thoughts of our children’s futures. While we can’t wait to launch them out of our houses and into independent life, we certainly don’t want to send them into this nutty world ill prepared. This is the goal for most of us, but certainly not these derelicts. The news this week has been alight with examples of poor parenting, and a number of Black parents (and I use the term loosely)in particular have exemplified levels of idiocy and lousy judgment that one rarely has the misfortune to see.

1. Millions of sperm – 30 kids: Did you see this guy in the news? Desmond Hatchett is a 33 year old man with nearly as many children to parallel his age. The man has fathered 30 children with 11 different women. He appeared in court in Tennessee last week to seek an amendment in his child support payments. He said he needed a break in child support payments. As a minimum wage earner, his payments are spread so thin that a number of the mothers only receive $1.49 a MONTH in support payments. A break in payments, Desmond? Why don’t you give your nut sack a break and stop littering the state of Tennessee with your seed! If there was ever a case for sterilization, this would be it.

Ladies, take a long hard look at Desmond Hatchett and his ilk. Before some man tries to put something ‘long and hard’ in you this week, insist that he wear a condom! Your uterus is not a dumping ground for offspring that he is ill equipped to care for.

2. Wash My Tot dad – This video went viral this week. No, your eyes are not deceiving you: this Neanderthal just put his toddler in a washing machine.

Do toddlers in diapers irritate you? Absolutely. Does that warrant throwing them head first into a high powered metal box powered by electricity that subsequently fills with water (water…which incidentally drowns people)? No. And no again. I am sure that we will see this man again in the news, and hopefully in handcuffs. Again, if there was ever a case for voluntary sterilization, this would be it. Anybody who can’t foresee the possible danger in putting a child in a washing machine has no business producing any more of them.

3. Murderous mom – This one actually broke my heart. Tonya Thomas, a 33 year old mother of 4 children shot and killed them in wee hours of the morning last Tuesday before smoking a cigarette and fatally shooting herself. Her children were 12, 13, 15 and 17 years old. There was a history of domestic violence in the family, but nothing to raise a red flag, at least not to the degree that a parent would murder her kids so coldly and calmly.

There are no other details to explain her actions, and I can draw no conclusions of my own. She may have been on drugs, she may have been depressed, she may have had a temporary mental lapse…only God knows at this point.

My hope is that ALL people will look at these parenting failures and reassess themselves. If you’re thinking of doing something crazy, take a deep breath and just DON’T.

*I typically reserve Friday for frivolity, HOWEVER (!) this one di333, I have to speak on it! Prepare yourself for Bush Woman Mode!

When you’re a parent, life will bring you a whole host of ‘firsts’, as long as you have a child in your life. Some ‘firsts’ you dread, while there are others that you eagerly look forward to. Your child’s first day at school, first kiss, first date, first car wreck and first broken heart usually make the list.

But what about your child’s first dirty slap?

Yesterday I was lying in bed watching Millionaire Matchmaker (which was supposed to be a more sophisticated departure from my usual afternoon with Maury) while I waited to pick the kids up from the bus stop. My friend the Island Lady had already called me during the commercial break, and yet five minutes later my phone was ringing again. Ah. What did she want again?! This time I ignored her call and let it go to voicemail.

“Malaka! Call me back as SOON as you get this message!”

I noted the urgency in her voice, but I admit that urgent matters as they pertain to her usually revolve around the need to vent about something in her personal life. I didn’t feel like hearing it right then. Brad was about to decide which girl he was going to take on his master date. Ah! Why was she ringing my phone again!

“Hey, Island Lady! I was just about to call you,” I lied.

“Find out from your daughter what happened!” she shouted. “I’m so sick of that boy! That stupid little trouble maker! He slapped her!”

I gasped.

“Somebody slapped Kayla?” I asked incredulously. Who dared to slap her child? I wondered what Island Lady was going to do to them. She has an awful temper.

“No,” she growled. “The boy slapped NADJAH.”

My blood suddenly ran cold. I sat up straight in my bed. The hell??

Suddenly I was putting on my shoes and running for my car. The phone was still glued to my ear.

“I don’t know where I’m going, but wherever it is, I’ll call you when I reach there. Island Lady, I’m going to beat somebody and their child today!”

She cut me off so that she could run down the list of this boy’s infractions as she knew them. He was constantly kicking people. He couldn’t go on field trips without his mother because he was so hard to control. The more she talked, the more I hated him. To say that I was pissed would be conservative.

Let’s just fast forward to the event itself, shall we?

My child, my first born child, was helping another student by putting a piece of paper he had dropped back into his backpack. Suddenly, this Adam boy whips around from nowhere and hits her.

“It’s none of your business he shouted!”

When she ignored him, he slapped her harder – so hard that she hit the wall.

Let that sink in for a moment. You see how I’m feeling? Okay. Let’s continue.

Now in the past, I have gotten a phone call, email or written note from Nadjah’s teacher if she spoke out of turn, yelled at another student, or ran out of the classroom in a fit. However this time when Nadjah is assaulted, I got nothing but silence. So it was incumbent upon me to craft an email and request that it be sent to the boy’s parents. It’s probably better if I don’t mention what that email said. Don’t worry, I was cordial.

But that’s what is paining me! I don’t want to be cordial. I want to put on my blowman/soldierman uniform, slather my face with commando war paint and wait for this foolish boy at the playground and lash him myself! However, now that I have joined this vanguard of Negros who has tasked themselves with rehabilitating our tattered Black image, I can’t indulge in my most primal desires and react viscerally.

AAAAHHHHH!!!

Do you know what was even more annoying? The boy never apologized, and Nadjah never hit him back.

“Why not?” I asked, rather bewildered.

“I wanted to,” she admitted, “but if I did that would be fighting and I would get in trouble too.”

Have you seen? Have you seen?!? This is how bullies are made! They know that no one will hit them back!

So now I find myself on this diplomatic course, forced to employ decorum and NOT go and hide in the bushes to lay in wait for Adam. Instead, I have to wear heels and a nice dress to meet these people so that this boy and his family know that Nadjah is not some fiyanga girl that he can just abuse whenever he sees fit. They are lucky this is Roswell. If we were living in Decatur or the Congo this blog would have ended very differently!

Has your child ever been assaulted in school? How did you handle it? Better yet, how would have liked to have handled it? Is there any other mother out there who can feel me in my rage??

I emptied my groceries from my cart and laid them onto the conveyor belt to check out. I had dutifully separated them as the guidelines required. In the past, when I had my WIC approved groceries mixed in with the items I actually wanted, the cashier and I spent an additional five minutes separating and paying for them by the government issued coupon. Beans, rice and peanut butter on one; cheese, eggs and milk were on the other. There was a completely separate certificate for the much needed formula. I was so stressed out after being left to fend for my infant daughter that I was incapable of producing enough milk to feed her. Working a full time job and figuring out life as a single mother afforded me little time or experience to pump the 48 ounces a day that she needed to survive.

I come from culture wherein if one wants to eat, one must work very hard for it. Even the beggar on the street must spend endless hours in the unforgiving sun and dusty heat to earn his day’s wages. In America, success comes by pulling one’s self up by their bootstraps; in Ghana very few are given boots to begin with. After meticulously crafting your footwear (and its straps) from any available raw materials, you can THEN begin the process of self-ascension. That’s why the cashier’s words came at such a blow to me and to my self-esteem.

“You can’t buy THAT peanut butter,” she snapped, her face contorted in disgust.

“Why not?” I whispered. “It’s on the coupon…”

She cut me off.

“This peanut butter has honey in it. The peanut butter you’re allowed to get does not. It has to be plain!”

I didn’t dare argue with her. Her chubby Asian face was twisted in such a rage that any protestation would only provoke her. Not that I would have protested. I was already so ashamed that I was on public assistance that I felt her contempt for me was somehow warranted. I meekly asked her to take the peanut butter off and just scan the rest of my items. I just wanted to flee as fast as I could.

The shame that I felt that day – and for the entire year I was on WIC – was one of the many reasons I found it hard to forgive my first born’s biological father. My feelings were a mix of contempt and longing; Contempt for him for landing me where I was and for myself for wanting him to play a more supportive role. This was something I was supposed to be able to do on my own. Eventually I got married and my college sweetheart saved me and my child from certain poverty. The cost of daycare alone was 60% of my paycheck! That’s why I feel so deeply for single mothers.

The recent ‘War Against Moms’ brought these old feelings to a surface in the last few days. With each side volleying attacks against the other, claiming that each is out of touch with the struggles. I don’t know if either side really gets it though. The conservative right proudly touts motherhood as a job (which it surely is) and thereby crowns women in these upper echelons as saints. The liberal left presents its poster child for motherhood: the impoverished woman who depends heavily on government welfare (through no fault of her own, or course) and is therefore worthy of collective pity.

And then there’s me, and thousands of women like me. No one is championing on our narrative. Women like me are just middle of the road masses, who by some unfortunate circumstance may find themselves in need of WIC or TANF. But because we are neither very rich nor very poor and there is no true political party that represents middle America, it is presumptive that we belong to the latter group. With my WIC checks and Black skin, it would only be reasonable to assume that I would be a welfare queen.

My sense of shame with this perception was so deep that I literally ran out of the grocery store a few days ago. My neighbor has two boys and has a third child on the way. She has been haranguing her fiancé to get married for months and he has so far eluded this trap. According to conservative doctrine, she was right to keep her children. Life is precious and should not be destroyed in the womb. Being a single mother with children so young, she of course qualifies for WIC. I did not know this when she knocked on my door and asked for a ride to the grocery store. Her car had a flat tire in the driveway.

I followed her around as she chatted away about making salmon for the boys and picked up some essentials: bread, milk, etc. We laughed and browsed the aisles leisurely. I didn’t have anywhere I needed to be and I genuinely enjoy her company. All was well until she got to the check-out line.

“I’d like to pay for these separately,” she told the cashier. “These go on my food card, and the others I’ll pay for in cash.”

I felt anxiety rising in me like a volcano. My heart threatened to leap out of my chest. Here we were, two Black women in line with a food card, and dressed so casually too. If we both had jobs, we would have no business being in the grocery store at one o’clock in the afternoon, would we? If we both had jobs, there would be no need for a food card, would there? The old sense of shame overtook me. I fled, telling her I’d be in the car when she was done.

Never mind that every cashier at Publix knows me and my husband.

Never mind that they all know that I am a stay-at-home-mom who has the good fortune to be able to afford her own food.

Never mind that the people at Publix have never treated me the way that that cashier at Wal-Mart did over seven years ago.

Never mind any of that.

There was a good mother trying to feed her children healthy food and I couldn’t even bear to watch her do it because of the stigma attached, and I didn’t want to be associated with that stigma. Now what is wrong with that picture?  What is wrong is that politicians (on both sides of the aisle) have legislated how and when we have our children and when and what they should eat with such breathtaking short sightedness that they did not pause to consider the long term effects on their test subjects. I somehow doubt the emotional aspects of pride and shame in how and when one feeds ones children were deliberated in the halls of congress. And somehow, I think they should have.

Have you ever been on public assistance? What are your views of people on public assistance? Confess all in the comments box, but think carefully before you hit ‘submit’. 

Some days you know your day is going to be shot to hell before you even open your eyes. For me, it all started with a bang.

It all started when Stone, my nearly 3 year old son, walked into the room this morning – which in itself was an innocent enough of an act. In the soft morning sunlight, I could make out the flash of a sleepy smile as he greeted me and thumped over to my side of the bed. He paused and went back to the door. He’d forgotten to do something, his two-year old self said. He reached up and slammed the door shut, causing the walls to rattle and causing his little sister to wake up with a start. She let out a long loud shrill cry of protest. It was only 6:30 am.

My husband got up and went into the shower, leaving me to decide whether or not the baby (who will be 2 in June and not really a ‘baby’ at all any more) would be getting up this early. I ignored her and went downstairs. This was the wrong decision apparently. She would make me pay.

It’s hard to describe Liya’s cry. I’ve tried to many times on this blog, but I don’t think I’ve ever successfully captured the essence of it. It’s a cross between an electric chain saw, a dying werewolf and a newborn piglet all rolled into one. There are so many textures to her scream that it penetrates every decibel known to man. It’s like an arrow being shot through your skull. I did an about face and went and got her out of her crib, just to make it stop.

Part of the difficulty of having two children so close together and so young is that you generally can’t understand what in God’s holy name they are gabbing on about. While Stone should be fluent – or at least nearly so – in English, he has been afforded the luxury of remaining at the toddler phase of the English dialect by virtue of the mere presence of a younger sibling. You would imagine that the pair of them might exhort each other to grasp the Queen’s English and execute it proficiently, but instead they are perfectly content to babble and giggle with one another while unleashing mayhem upon my poor crowded house.

Once I carried Liya down the stairs for breakfast, Stone soon followed. That’s when the screeching began anew.
“Shheerios! Shhheeriosss!” Liya howled in a sound that was both guttural and pitchy.

I poured her some Cheerios. That’s what I assumed she wanted. She knocked the entire bowl onto the floor and squalled in displeasure.

“Noooo!! Shhheerios!!!!!”

%##&*@# little girl! I gave you Cheerios! What else do you want!

When I gave Stone some Rice Krispies, she made a dive for his bowl. Ohhh…. “cereal”. She was speaking in generic terms, not exact. I should have known. But can I be blamed? She should have a better grasp of the English language by now. Her eldest sister certainly did.

Speaking of her eldest sister, I had to turn my attention to her by fitting her head with a crown we’d made the day before out of cut up Cheetos packets and a DSW bag. We had to come up with a costume made entirely of recycled material.

“I don’t have a shirt to wear, Mommy,” she said with concern.

Crap. I’d forgotten to put that load in last night. You mean out of all the clothes I’ve washed there wasn’t a single uniform shirt among them? As luck would have it, there was not.

Fortunately, their school is celebrating Earth Day all week, and since they are being asked to recycle, I pulled out a uniform shirt that is no longer on the approved list. Now that’s recycling.

With the bigger two off to school, I turned my attention back to my smallest pair. They were fighting over a fork with which to eat their cereal. Why couldn’t they understand that the mechanics involved in trying to get a Rice Krispy onto a narrow fork require more skill than either one of them possess at this stage? I took the fork from them and offered them each a spoon. That’s when Liya responded by dropping the entire cup of “shherios” onto the ground. That’s when I knew she had to go.

With every muscle of her sinewy 27 lbs frame she fought me, but I managed to lay her back in her crib. The solitude made her calm and blissfully quiet. But the effects of that door slam would wear on into the day.

Taking advantage of the quiet, I got into the shower to try and wash away the film of sweat that was covering me. I was in mid-scrub when I heard a faint tapping sound. Kind of like glass against glass. Would could that be? Sopping wet, I got out of the shower to behold Stone tapping my drinking glass of water against my television.

“No!” I gasped. “No, no, no!!”

He giggled and hopped into my bed, throwing the covers over his head. His diaperless but cheeks rubbed against the pillow case, leaving all manner of chocolaty surprises for me to discover later, I am sure. When he leapt out of the bed, he called for his sister to join him in my closet (when did she get out of the crib?) so that they could play “tunnel”. She began her play by pulling at my husband’s work shirts. I ignored the sound of a quiet rip and finished my shower.

It is not yet noon and I’ve already cried three times this morning. I feel as though I’m defeated before I’ve even had a chance to cook lunch. The sad part is, I can’t even take them to daycare because Liya’s hair is undone…and I just don’t have the fortitude to wash it this morning. Have you ever wrestled a talking wildebeest?  And the pundits want to say this is not a “job”.

Bah!
M.O.M moms – how’s your day going so far? What have your kids done to make your day miserable memorable this morning?

Some days are better than others. Most days leave me feeling beaten and looking bedraggled. I am constantly at the mercy of my two toddlers, as their disposition often sets my day.

I know, this is a deplorable state to be in. After all, what self-respecting Black woman allows a 2 year old to determine her agenda? The very idea is blasphemous! If no one else, a Black woman should be able to keep her child in line, right? Are we not renowned for ruling with iron fists and steely gazes? The truth is, all the bravado Panther and Tiger Moms exhibit in public is only attributed to long, hard years of struggle at home…the beginnings of which are spent lying on the ground in a fetal position, wailing in defeat.

My day begins much like other mothers’ around this nation, if not around the world. I wake up, put on a robe, and head to the kitchen to make breakfast. Notice, I have not washed my face or brushed my teeth yet. My first concern is getting my kids their breakfast. Once the older two are safely off to school, I am free to turn my attention to the younger two. In the olden days, I would drop the big kids off so that my husband could have more time to groom himself and possibly sleep in a few minutes longer. Unwashed and smelling like sour bread (and looking just as palatable) I prayed that my car would not stall or run out of gas on the way. That all ended when my husband caught sight of me coming into the house one morning. He compassionately offered to drop the girls off before heading to work, and I happily accepted.

This of course gave me more time to deal with Fric & Frac, also known as Stone & Liya.

Most people don’t know what I have to endure to pound out a single blog post. This morning for instance, I have just emerged from the shower and am typing from a secure location – sopping wet. I have ten more minutes before the children come looking for me. I have to think and type quickly.

Once they have their paws on me I will be at their mercy for the remainder of the day; or at least until they’ve fallen asleep at noon after a morning spent tormenting their mother.

Since she wakes first, Liya generally sets the tone. At 22 months, she is entering a phase that closely resembles a temperamental teenager. She’s moody, aggressive, and unpredictable. Like many teens, she is a poor communicator, so I’m never certain what she wants. I find myself wiping spills of water when all she really wants is milk.

Oh Jesus. My sister just called me and pilfered valuable writing time! after a hastily whispered conversation, she informs me about some new shoes she’s wearing to work. How marvelous for her. I wonder if I’ll get to wear shoes today. My days are often spent barefoot in the kitchen…or barefoot outside retrieving my little darting darlings. Stone, whose body bears an uncanny resemblance to his name, is the hardest to coral. I generally have to bribe him with a cookie, which only adds more girth to his frame. It’s a vicious cycle.

Back to what I was saying.

One of the biggest battles between my children and I is over food. When their requests for bites of my hastily assembled meals are refused, they go from polite insistence to unrepentant seizure. Helplessly watching four hands pluck the choices bits of meat or sweetest fruit from my plate, I can’t help but wonder if this is what a villager feels like when a marauder comes into their camp. I feel so powerless, held at bay by their double sided imp and cherubim faces.

My children undress me in public. I have lost track of the number of times I’ve had a skirt lifted or a nipple exposed while speaking to a cashier or teller at the bank. In the beginning I was horrified, but since my dignity and self-esteem are in the garbage, I hardly take offence to public nudity…especially not my own. Still, I am aware that I have a duty to society, and try to use the drive through wherever possible.

“Oh! Your children are so adorable! Would they like a lollipop?” asks the bank teller from the safety of her desk and monitor, 20 feet away.

“Yay! Yoyipop!” they cry in unison.

Refusal will only bring a meltdown, so I relent. Sometimes it’s just easier to say yes.

“Yes please,” I say sweetly to the teller, cursing her inwardly as she sends  the candy down the plastic chute. The whore either has no kids, or has forgotten what it’s like to have toddlers hyped up on sugar.

As we drive away I cannot open the plastic wrappers fast enough. My only consolation is that I will gain three or so minutes of silence while they eat their confections before becoming bored with them and abandoning them altogether. I will find the discarded yoyipops, a month later, covered in lint and floorboard dirt. I will then curse the teller all over again.

Sometimes I am overwhelmed by it all, and the pressure forces me to the sofa. Maybe if I take a moment to collect my thoughts and reinvigorate my spirit, I can carry on? This, of course, is not to be tolerated. My children do not like to see me resting. They make their displeasure known by clambering all over me, at times pulling or beating me, occasionally sitting on my face and often passing gas on the object on which they are sitting. I want to cry sometimes. There’s no point hiding. They always find me. And when they do find me they scream,  irritated that they had to come look for me in the first place. Indeed they are better at crying than I am.

So what am I to do? The only thing I CAN do I suppose: Endure. They are so young. Surely they do not understand the pain they are causing their mother?  Deep down, somewhere deep, deep, DEEP in their little hearts, they love their mother, and plan to repay her for months of lost sleep and weight gained.
Okay gotta go! Here they come!!!
Happy Friday, one and all.

And when they were departed, behold, the angel of the Lord appeared to Joseph in a dream, saying, Arise, and take the young child and his mother, and flee into Egypt, and remain there until I bring you word: for Herod will seek the young child to destroy him. – Matthew 2:13

When I hear news like the murder of Trayvon Martin it makes me want to do like Mary and take my son and run all the way back to Africa.

America has a long and sordid history of hostility towards Black men and boys, and Trayvon’s murder is another tragic link in that chain of violence. Some people have fooled themselves into thinking that just because we have a Black president (mixed race if we are to speak accurately) then we’re in a post-racist society. I don’t know if these people recall the results, but Mr. Obama only won by 53%, hardly a landslide, and hardly an indicator of living in a society that does not look at many aspects through the lens of race.

If you have not heard about Trayvon Martin, here is a summary of events:

• Trayvon left his father’s home around 7pm to get a bag of Skittles and an Arizona iced tea during an NBA All Star game.
• He returned to his father’s gated community and encountered George Zimmerman, a 28 year old neighborhood watch crime captain
• Zimmerman reported to police that someone suspicious was in their neighborhood
• Soon after he made the call, he approached Trayvon and shot him in the chest, telling police it was in self-defense.
• When police examine Trayvon’s body, they find $22, a can of iced tea, and a bag of Skittles.
• Trayvon was 17 and now dead.
• GeorgeZimmerman has still not been arrested.

I presume that the reason he remains free is because law enforcement is hesitant to “ruin a good man’s” life, never mind that he took the life of another man’s son.

I talked to my sister about it, and she had not heard about the case. She has a son who is about to turn one in a few months, and like me has put careful thought into plans for his future – even down to his mode of dress.

“Man, it’s not right. It shouldn’t be this way!” she decried. “Why should a Black boy be restricted in what he wears? How does a shirt suddenly make him a threat?”

“I dunno, but there’s something about a Black man in a sweatshirt that instantly makes him menacing!”

“Yeah…or if he’s armed with Skittles. There’s a real threat to society.”

There was a pause in our conversation while we mulled over how we might keep our boys safe in the future. If we dressed them for comfort, say in a pair of sweat pants and a hoodie, there would be the possibility that either could be shot by a frightened White guy because they “looked suspicious” and like they “didn’t belong” in their neighborhood. However, if we dressed them in argyle and sweater vests in order to look more preppy and mainstream, there would be a high possibility that they would get beat up by other Black boys for looking “soft”. What are we and our sons to do?

“I’ll take the beating,” concluded my sister. “I’d rather have my son come home with a few bruises than in a body bag.”

I hummed in agreement, noting that I have to remind myself that if he must go out unaccompanied, he must do so in a pair of Sperry’s. No one would shoot a boy wearing Sperry’s.

Have you raised a Black boy successfully? Were you able to shield him from the pervasive racism that pollutes our society? How were you able to accomplish that? Please let me and other concerned mothers know your secret, because at this point all I want to do is holler and throw up both my hands.

It is my sincere hope that the justice system of Sanford, Florida does the right thing and prosecutes George Zimmerman to the full extent of the law. He deserves a lengthy jail sentence for his violent and unjustified vigilante act. I hope they will, but I fear they won’t. We will see in time if my reasons for that fear is unfounded.

In the interim Trayvon’s mother is asking for help. Click here to sign her petition.

It’s been nearly two weeks and the Sanford Police have refused to arrest George Zimmerman. In their public statements, they even go so far as to stand up for the killer – saying he’s “a college grad” who took a class in criminal justice.

Please join us in calling on Norman Wolfinger, Florida’s 18th District State’s Attorney, to investigate my son’s murder and prosecute George Zimmerman for the shooting and killing of Trayvon Martin.

For the last two weeks Nadjah, my eldest, has come home with a bad behavioral report from school at least 3 out of 5 days a week. It has been absolutely maddening for me. As long time readers of the blog know, Nadjah is not a hooligan, but she’s no saint either. She’s capable of her moments. These “moments” have just been more consistent and frequent than I care for of late.

The behavioral report tracks 6 markers:

1)      Completing assignments

2)      Being quite through transitions

3)      Obeying the teacher

4)      Respecting and showing kindness for other students

5)      Caring for school property

6)      Speaking only when appropriate

If they succeed in all these areas, they get a star at the end of the day, and at the end of the week the students with the most stars get a treasure from the classroom’s treasure box. She consistently violates 2, 3 and 6, and rarely gets to participate in treasure box. She’s a talker, and always has been. To my shame, some of that talk includes backtalk. Any African mother will agree that backtalk from a child is a cardinal sin, and never to be tolerated. Somehow, my sisters on the continent have managed to quell this desire in their children, where as I have failed to do so. Therein lies my shame.

As it turns out, Nadjah took a departure from the norm and violated rule 4 and 6 yesterday. After 15 minutes of investigation, I discovered that she had struck another student in class for laughing at her. Last week she threw a chair because she did not get a star, and as punishment, my husband made her write “I will have self control” 50 times. The punishment obviously had very little effect.

“Why did you hit the boy, Nadjah?” I growled.

“Because he was laughing at me!” she wailed.

“Did he hit you first?”

“No…”

“Did he hurt you physically?”

“No…” she moped.

“Are you supposed to put your hands on another student for any reason?!?” I said deliriously.

“No!” she sobbed.

She knows what’s right. As far as I was concerned, she was willfully being disruptive. This was worthy of a spanking. I was incensed, envisioning myself taking my child upstairs and beating respect into her. I told her to get her homework done and get ready for a spanking.

  Her eyes welled up with tears and she choked her way through her assignment, with far more efficiency than I’d seen previously. Homework usually takes 30-45 minutes for Nadjah to complete. Yesterday she was done in a record 10. I was not prepared for this level of productiveness so soon. The time to whop her came faster than I expected.

I chickened out.

I didn’t want to beat my child; I truly didn’t! I wanted to reason with her and make her understand the error of her ways so that she could consciously change them. In a stroke of brilliance, I gave her an opportunity to save us both. It was a warm pre-spring day yesterday and all her friends were outside playing. She looked desperately at the door, listening to their laughter and playful screams. I hoped she would make the right choice as I uttered my next words.

“Nadjah, I’m going to give you a choice,” I said menacingly. “I’m either going to take you upstairs and spank you and then let you go outside, or you’re going to have to read a book and do a report and stay inside.”

“I’ll do the report,” Nadjah said without hesitation.

I breathed a lot easier.

“A wise choice,” I told her.

Nadjah hates to read, but she hates to write even more. I figured this was a fitting punishment – making her do something she loathed – and I stalked off to make sure that the big kids did not hurt the babies while they played outside.

A friend of mine was over to visit and watched the whole match unfold. She shook her head disbelievingly before giving her opinion, which is generally welcome.

“You’re so soft,” she scolded.

“Huh? What do you mean?” I asked.

“Given the choice to have someone put their hands on you or to read a book, ANYONE would choose the book!”

I stared blankly at her.

“That’s not true,” I said in disagreement. “When I was a kid, I would much rather have taken the beating and been set free. I hated being cooped up in the house with my parents. Given the choice between a spanking and a grounding, I chose the spanking every time. I value my freedom far too much.”

My friend said I ought to take a poll.

“I’m sure you will find that you are in the minority,” she contended. “And you forget: Nadjah enjoys your company. Making her hang out with you is no punishment at all!”

This shocked me, and actually nearly brought me to tears. Only a few people know that I have a less than cordial relationship with my own mother. I haven’t spoken to the woman in years. To put it into context, my mother did not find out about Nadjah’s existence until almost 2 years after she was born. The circumstances of her birth were difficult enough, and I chose at the time not to complicate them with what I anticipated would be a less than desirable reaction from my mother.

Inwardly, I expect – and fear – that my relationship with my children will turn out very similar to that of my siblings and our mother…which is none at all. Instinctively I know that by not disciplining my children appropriately is doing my children in doing them a disservice in the long run. I would be okay with my children not loving me for this, but it would devastate me for them to grow up hating me. There is a subtle difference.

Fortunately my husband came home and added some balance to my leniency. He told her she could have no TV or outside play for the next two weeks in ADDITION to a daily book report.

M.O.M Squad: Think back to your days as a kid if you can. Would you have taken the beating, or done the report, given the choice? Would you laugh at your mother for even having this internal dilemma? Over to you. As always, I can’t wait to hear your thoughts.

After making so much progress, my son has reverted and returned to taking a dump in his diaper. This may not sound like a big deal to you, but when you consider that he is a 36 lbs individual who consumes portions of food fit for boys 3 times his age, you can imagine that he makes a very impressive dirty diaper.

For about a week he would dutifully inform us that he had to the potty, and we were thrilled. Suddenly, his cordial announcements of “I go poo-poo in de pottie!” ceased, only to be replaced with a silent – and pungent – advertisement by way of his soiled pants.  Our attempts to get him to conform to his old habits were stubbornly rebuffed. I can only surmise that this was for two reasons:

1)      There was no profit in it for him, since he did not get a reward for going to the toile ton his own and

2)      He had no choice but to create his own reward system by punishing me. I have caught him grinning and giggling on more than one occasion when I have had to splay his legs to clean up the massacre.

Desperate to find a solution, I have wracked my brains to devise a way to make him WANT to go to the bathroom on his own accord. I know that calling my parents or anyone of that generation is futile. I don’t remember being potty trained, but I can imagine that the secret of my success was motivated by not getting my a** whipped. An a** whipping is the go to solution for anyone over the age of 60 when it comes to child rearing. Child won’t eat? Whip his a**. Child won’t come here when you tell him to? Whip his a**. Child won’t tell you when he has to go poop? Whip his a**! The promise of/fear of  pain is probably a good temporary motivator, but I’m a “new age” mom who doesn’t care for this particular “old school” tactic.

I have given it a lot of thought. Like many things in this modern age, I believe technology can serve us greatly in this area.  There should be a potty training app. Why not? There’s an app for everything else! Here’s what I think might work for my Stonie.

I propose the creation of an app based on your child’s favorite characters. Stone, like many boys under the age of 5, is highly partial to Cars and Thomas the Train. He also likes dinosaurs, but I don’t think pterodactyls and T-rexes have any place in the toilet.

So, you place the child on the toilet first thing in the morning and put an iPhone/iPad/iWhatever in their hands. You click on the app and wait.

 “Hey buddy! It’s time to use the potty!” chortles Lightning McQueen. “Why don’t you go ahead and take a piss in my Piston Cup?”

The child giggles. It WOULD be fun to pee in something so shiny and apparently valuable.

“Go on! You can do it. Here, let me show you how it’s done,” urges Lightning. The animated hotrod then begins to simulate the sound of water trickling into the toilet, and just like that, your two year old is peeing in the toilet! Anticipating your child’s success, Lightning whops a congratulatory “KACHOW!”

There has been no screaming, no crying, no bribing and everyone is happy.

  Now that’s the easy part is out of the way, it’s time bring out your big guns. Thomas, who is described on his show as the “cheeky one” on his show Thomas & Friends, instructs your child on the fine mechanics of loading and offloading…his poop, obviously.

“You see that dark hole down there?” says Thomas in his condescending, snobbish English accent. “That dark hole down there in the toilet is the tunnel. Go ahead. SQUEEZE! Put your poo-poo in the tunnel!”

I for one know that this terminology would resonate with Stone, because my son has actually referred to the toilet trap as a “tunnel” – a tunnel that he has fished several items from.  I believe the key is to engage the child’s imagination. If you can get your child to picture himself succeeding at what you’re asking him to do, then you can get him to do anything! Is that not the way it works in our adult lives too?

The other option is to let him walk around with his pants full of poo, but as you can imagine, that has more negative consequences for me than it does for him. At the end of the day, I still have to do the laundry.

I know there are developers out there with kids reading this right now. This is possible, isn’t it? Then why haven’t you done it yet?!? It’s because you don’t care. Only a parent or someone who spends their days knee deep in poo would understand. This is a sincere cry for help. Answer it!