something to think about today...

I recently read "The Help" Kathryn Stockett's first novel, which just hit the New York Time's best seller list. "The book features two black housekeepers, Aibileen and Minny, who work for white families in Jackson, Miss. Their worlds are turned inside out when Skeeter Phelan returns home from college with pesky questions about segregation in the South. She asks questions like: Why are black maids subordinated so much they can't use the family bathroom, and yet they're trusted to care for that same family's children?"
It was a fantastic book in my opinion and has left me thinking a lot about my own thoughts on racism. The book has caused quite a stir as you can imagine I think more because a white woman has tried to write from a black woman's perspective...never looked upon highly in certain people's minds. Check this out for more opinions: http://www.npr.org/templates/story/story.php?storyId=120966815&ft=1&f=2&utm_source=feedburner&utm_medium=feed&utm_campaign=Feed%3A+NprProgramsATC+%28NPR+Programs%3A+All+Things+Considered%29

I was at a Christmas party a few weeks ago and sitting around with about 10 women in their 30's. We got to discussing our thoughts on interracial dating b/c one of the women has an adopted daughter from China. We were all white women. The statements made seemed to all come from the same past experiences that in high school interracial dating was frowned upon although black boys and white girls often flirted that was the end of it. But we noted that now it seemed to be more prominent although if we were honest with ourselves and looked at our social bubble it consisted of almost primarily white people. The conclusion from most everyone was that as "Christians" we had no reason to tell our children they couldn't date or marry a person of different race because we believed that God had created everyone equal and loved each person the same without seeing their skin color; so how could we tell our child any different.

With more adoptions going on in my social community, especially from other countries, I am proud to see a growing range of skin color amongst my children. Our church is predominately white and even the boys' school only has a few children in each grade of a different race, although it is a public school. I recently made jokes that Elizabeth had such a hard time adjusting to her preschool caregiver because she was an older black woman and I hadn't exposed my daughter to anyone of color before at great length. I'm very happy that she is getting this exposure and that my boys don't seem to note any difference when playing with a child of a different race. My husband and I have talked about making more of an attempt to expose them to people of different races though. Actually more adults then children even. When I look around myself and see that I have all white friends and even Nate works with all white people at the University. Our doctors are white and the people we worship with are white. What am I teaching my children? Equal but separate still?

Nate has a cousin who married a black woman from Atlanta. I would lie if I didn't admit that when they first started dating there was "talk" about the sweet lady and wondering what the guy was doing. But that was really only by certain older people and once everyone met her we all fell in love with her. I love that my boys have never once asked why she was "brown skin" (as Eli calls it).

I remember growing up in a very small Southern town the separation between blacks and whites was so clear. The blacks lived on one side of the town and the whites seemed to overtake most of the other. If you were caught driving out of the "black streets" you immediately had a line of gossip trailing you. We were all friendly enough with each other but lines weren't crossed very often.

Another memory I have is being best friends as a young girl, early elementary school, with a black girl. I remember asking my mom if I could invite her with my white girlfriends to a sleepover and of course my parents told me yes. But she didn't come or I ended up not inviting her...I don't remember; but I know she never came to my house. We didn't remain friends for long though...was it the pressure of the separation of races or just two girls that grew apart?

I had a close girlfriend in high school who became involved with a black boy in our class. We all knew the secret but she did everything possible to hide the fact from the public b/c of fear that her parents would find out. To this day I think she would die if her mother found out about it.

Nate and I were discussing this topic yesterday and we both wondered how long racism would still ring so strong in America? Will it be when our parents' generation has died and no one is left who actually lived through the separation of races in public places, etc. Or is the seed of hatred so strong that it will continue to be harvested among the next generations by some families. A friend of mine has felt led to adopt a child from a country where the skin color is dark; but her father told her is she did he would never love that child or accept it into their family. Will this deter her from following God's lead? No, she has hope that her father will see the hatred in his heart for other races for what it truly is...evil and that he will learn to love the child.

I suppose that is what it will take for those generations where racism is being passed down. Someone standing up to the hatred and calling it what it is...saying no longer will they allow it to be pushed down to the next generation. I guess we can and should all do our own part in raising our children to love with their hearts and not their eyes, to accept everyone no matter what their skin color is, to not judge or have preconceived thoughts about others.

Read the book. It is a good story of love, hatred, Southern towns, prissy women, hard working women, women who want to change things that seem unchangeable and those that will do whatever it takes to keep things the same.

The Help...

Christmas break...it's interesting.

It's Sunday morning. I'm at home. Everyone else, except sister girl, are at church. Like usual! But I do have plans to attend the Christmas program by the choir that I hear is excellent (and that I haven't seen in the 4 years we've been here!)

Christmas break...it is interesting. Thank goodness I have all my shopping done or I think I might truly be admitting myself into the psych ward right now. Things I don't realize until school gets out and there is no where in particular to go...
1. How small my house is when two boys insist on pulling out every pillow and sheet to make their super hero houses and run around attacking each other with plastic light sabers.
2. How sister girl doesn't play with anything but loves to pull everything she can get her hands on down or out or off their original setting.
3. How many hours of the day I walk behind little people telling them to clean up what they got out and then bending over to pick up all their stuff b/c they never seem to get it all up.
4. How many times I tell myself "a messy house shows that someone is having fun!" (not the mother!)
5. How many fun projects I want to do with my kids so they don't look back at their childhood and only remember their mother constantly cleaning up their messes.
6. How long it takes to prepare and then clean up a 10 minute art project with your children & then how they often forget they even made anything.
7. How pitiful my tree looks during the day but then night comes and I turn off all the lights in the house and sit down for a minute and look at the glow of the tree and take a deep breath and can be thankful!
8. How different my children are: Eli constantly wanting me to play some imaginative game with him (I've been a bad super hero, a dinosaur, an animal hunter all in the same day mind you). Ian can find a drawer of chords that go to electronic devices we have thrown away years ago and make an hour of fun out of them; or spend an hour with a screwdriver taking apart an old electric razor of Nates only to put it back together and decide to play barber shop shaving the fur off his stuffed animals (which I gave permission to - I was going to throw them away anyway). Elizabeth although waddling around the house and constantly looking for chances to throw something in the toilet if a distracted boy leaves the bathroom door open also is acutely aware of every brothers' move and if she hears pain filled screams from one of them (usually about each half hour) she quickly is at the victim's side patting his back and looking big eyed into his face eager to give a kiss which ALWAYS brings much laughter and stops the tears instantly. She will be my peace maker in the house - I can already tell!
Nate is trying to focus on finishing grading about 200 research papers but b/c he prefers to do everything but the before mentioned he can usually be found wrestling with a boy, holding a baby or yes, watching an iron man cartoon that we just discovered on netflix! I asked him if he was ever diagnosed with ADD? He didn't answer me.
Me? I'm trying to not yell at anyone - yes, that is my daily goal these days. I do find myself saying "ya'll are making me crazy! I promise you my head is about to spin off and I'm going to go crazy mamma on you!" Which brings about much laughter. (In which I respond...."I'm serious people!") ha ha ha...no really I am!
I keep telling myself I will sit down each day and do something real spiritual with the kids to keep our focus on Jesus this Christmas season but haven't done it yet - (although we did drive through a live nativity last night and talked about each part of it). I have managed to dance a lot to Christmas music with the kids in the kitchen (my favorite past time) and play those before mentioned games and let them tear apart my living room. I'm reminding myself if I had a bigger house I would just have more rooms to clean up. I'm reminding myself that my kids care more about being with me then doing things. I'm reminding myself that one day soon enough they will be asking if they can 'drive to someone's house' and I will be sitting alone in my clean living room missing the good old days when they were under my feet.

So, as I listen to the Sunday praise music in my kitchen and type while Elizabeth sleeps off another cold and the boys are at church I'm thankful for my crazy life. I'm thankful for a Lord that I serve who gives me the energy to do it again and again each day when I think "really again?" I'm thankful for a Christmas season to spend time with my kids in this tiny house and make memories for their little brains to look back on and smile. I'm thankful for a God who loves me so much that He smiles down on me when I'm losing my head and getting the crazies just as much as He smiles when my house is perfectly clean and my kids are perfectly behaved (well I don't know if that ever happens at the same time).

Merry Christmas!

What have I been doing lately?

Why have I been crazy this month? Because for the first time I advertised my canvases at two open house type things and got orders. I've never known what it was like to have multiple orders at a time. And with a deadline.

So my kitchen table has become my workspace permantly. We eat where we can at night.

My free time? Don't have any!

But am I excited? Couldn't be more! Blessed I say. I have actually sold enough to pay for almost all of our Christmas expenses.

Proud am I? You bet!

It's a cake thing...

I admit that I have a birthday fetish. I have to have a cake. There have been birthdays in the past (quite a few I'm sad to say) where I did not have a cake and I was so sad. Tears kind of sad. I guess I haven't outgrown the childhood desire of having that special cake and the candles and everyone singing to you on your very special day.

But this year...I got a cake. And not just any old cake. A "Julia's" cake. Now, I knew the minute I saw this cake coming out of the laundry room with my three sweet boys (Nate included) carrying it all lit up that I wouldn't be able to put a dent in the thing. And I knew that it probably cost more then any present my sweet husband got me. But my love language was touched tonight.

And I will now be bringing that cake to preschool for all those dieting women to help me eat so it does not stay another day in my kitchen for me to eat alone! (my husband does not eat cake...especially chocolate!)

Oh, and the hat? I think it is Nate's desire to keep me young - I did turn 34 this year! =)

I'm kindhearted but clever...

Same day as last post. Three hours later.

I loved on him. I oozed with kindness and warmth. I brought him a hot rag for his head. I cooked him warm soup. I cut up his apple. I sat and read (his science book) with him.

Then...when he perked up enough to play with his little sister and was asking about when "his free time would be since he was missing recess" I smiled and said, "Okay, let's go to school now."

He couldn't say anything - even he knew he was feeling better.

So, off to school we went...no tears, only a little anxiety over "what will everyone say when I come in late?" and "where will my class be?" The usual Eli worries.

I'm home again (too late to go to work) and very proud of my motherly wisdom in retrospect. That doesn't happen often so let me gloat for just a minute.

Oh wait...where is Elizabeth?

The view today

The view from my eyes...
Woke up and got to cuddle my sweet sister girl in my warm bed for a little while before the morning hit me between the eyes. What was that? Oh crying from the living room because Ian had gotten one of Eli's shirts and put it on. Daddy thought it was okay since it fit. Wrong! Momma had to jump out and intervene (didn't start the morning off good for marital relationships) and make Ian take the shirt off, find a new one in HIS OWN DRAWER and then explain to husband why it was important that the boys have their own clothes so "this" doesn't happen every day!

Hear Eli moaning from the couch about his head hurting again. (he has a horrible sinus infection that WON'T GO AWAY EVEN AFTER I THREATENED THE LITTLE BUGS THAT I WAS ABOUT TO CRAWL IN HIS HEAD AND CHASE THEM OUT WITH FIRE ANTS!) sorry about that...
Sit Elizabeth on floor and hope one of the three males in the house will keep an eye on her while I run to fix myself for work (yes, preschool - that job I haven't quit yet) only to hear the boys both moaning from the kitchen b/c they are being made to eat some new concoction my sweet husband (who is in charge of making breakfast) has decided to cook - let's just say it involved wheat bread and melted brown sugar - may sound great but tastes, well I took one bite and threw it away. So then I hear an angry man voice telling little whining voices to eat it and be quite (that is what we do in our house, don't you?) More crying...then quite... Hey, where is Elizabeth?

Then more exchanges between husband and wife about bad attitudes (on my part of course) and a few tears from me I think concerning what to do with sick Eli - send to school or not? Frustration levels are high at this point...Elizabeth has a runny nose (we did a happy dance just a few days ago b/c we realized she wasn't sick anymore - oh, yeah wow! Elizabeth is actually healthy for the first time...oh, wait now she has a runny nose again!)

Find Ian 'brushing' Elizabeth's teeth with his toothbrush! (Did I tell you Ian has a runny nose too?) Some screaming from the mother...a lecture to Ian - don't put things in her mouth! Lecture to Eli - can you please try to tough it out for just a little while at school? Lecture to Daddy - why did you make brown sugar and wheat toasts for breakfast? Lecture to Mommy - could you please get a better attitude?

5 minutes left to get out the door - mommy hasn't had breakfast or coffee so priorities here...Mommy makes herself some coffee to go. Throw together Elizabeth's lunch for preschool - step over Eli laying on the floor - yell at Ian to please put on shoes!

Run out to van - Eli's fading at this point. Stop the van in driveway and have real heart to heart with oldest son! "Are you really feeling horrible or are you nervous that you will feel sick today and not be able to come home?" Eli - "I'm nervous."
Once I hear that I squeal tires down the road and we are off.

Eli starts to fade the closer we get to school... now I hear crying, head is hanging on the seat, "I'm going to throw up!" comes from the back of the van.

I get to the school parking lot. Ian gets out. Mommy is in a state of anger at this point not knowing what to do! Eli breaks down and puts on full drama show to convince me that indeed now he feels sick not just nerves. I growled a few things (can't remember if they were audible at this point) and squeal tires out of the parking lot.

Call preschool partner in crime..."I'm going back home with Eli - if he acts like he feels better he's going to school and I'll be there later...."

Drive into garage, pull runny nose Elizabeth out of van (she is laughing at her pitiful momma at this point), send Eli to his bed (who is going most gladly!) and grab that cup of coffee I haven't drank yet.

So, I'm here venting...what to do with a child who legitimately has a bad sinus infection. The feelings a mother has when she is trying all means possible to get her child well and nothing is working (I know I need to give it more time - just started a new "herb" and have a 3rd antibiotic in my back pocket to give later if necessary).

So, I'm here...remembering the words of my sister "there's nothing in second grade he can't learn later".

So, I'm here...