 |
05/11/12
OK, forget self-indulgence; this blog has now officially crossed into the territory of shameless self-promotion. Well, maybe not self-promotion, exactly, but promoting something that is very dear to my heart and very important to me.
My daughter is currently attending pre-K at a wonderful new charter school. Morris Jeff Community School is the only elementary school in the area that is pursuing accreditation for an International Baccalaureate curriculum. In the past year, Ruby has learned a lot of words in several African languages as well as American Sign Language, along with becoming proficient in Spanish. She has studied math, phonics, animals, the five senses, the differences between wants and needs, modes of transportation, simple machines and communities. She has taken a...
|
 |
05/04/12
There comes a point every summer, usually in about late July or early August, when I become more or less incapable of coherent thought or productive activity because my brain is melting from the heat. It is not that hot outside yet, but late pregnancy (37 weeks tomorrow!) is having the same effect on me.
I won’t claim that this blog ever rises much above navel-gazing – but you can expect that to be about 10 times worse in the weeks to come. I apologize in advance.
It’s just that when there is a tiny human kicking and stretching and hiccupping in your midsection, it becomes very difficult to think about much else besides said tiny human.
These days, I’m primarily fixated on her position. Ruby was breech, and so I keep expecting this baby to flip...
|
 |
04/27/12
I tried reading her Stuart Little first. Nothing doing: “Mommy, this needs way more pictures,” she told me. Knowing how much she likes animals and how much I like E.B. White, I next tried Charlotte’s Web. That met with slightly more success, but a few pages in, she stopped me and said she’d rather read something else. I tried again with Little House on the Prairie, but she started throwing a tantrum before I could even open it up. “Mommy, I’ve told you: NO CHAPTER BOOKS!” So I sort of gave up.
And of course, as with everything else related to kids, Ruby recently decided she was ready for chapter books – on her own terms. We read our first full chapter of a chapter book last night, at Ruby’s insistence, and she was sad when...
|
 |
04/20/12
In addition to opening my eyes to many other things – how I’d been taking for granted the simple joy of tying my own shoes or comfortably and effectively shaving my legs, how nasty DHA supplements taste when you burp them up, how incredibly imperative it is that I have a sour watermelon snowball every single day – pregnancy has opened my eyes to just how much we can change over time, and I don’t just mean physically. Throughout my three pregnancies, I have evolved a great deal.
With my first, which sadly ended in a miscarriage at 14 weeks, I was incredibly naïve. I fully believed that I could get through the whole nine months with only my primary care doctor; it didn’t even occur to me to call an obstetrician until I was about eight weeks in. I...
|
 |
04/13/12
One of the strangest things I’ve noticed about parenting is just how pervasive it is. Ruby is now so ingrained into my life that I actually retroactively insert her into memories. “Where was Ruby when I was at that campaign rally?” I wonder vaguely about an event I attended a full two years before she was born. Or I try to remember how I juggled a full semester of college courses with three different part-time jobs, forgetting entirely that I had so much more free time when I wasn’t spending hours playing Barbies and watching "Strawberry Shortcake" DVDs.
And so last week, when Ruby was on spring break and headed to St. Louis with her dad for a much-anticipated visit with her paternal grandparents, I was completely beside myself. I had originally...
|
 |
03/30/12
Every Friday morning, without fail, Ruby will tell me, “Don’t forget my popcorn money, Mommy!” And although I never have and never will forget her popcorn money, the truth is that I definitely have mixed feelings about it.
The back story on all of this is that Ruby’s school recently bought a popcorn machine, and every Friday at dismissal, they sell bags of popcorn to students for $1. The money raised goes toward the school, with the ultimate goal being to raise enough to take the kids on a school bus to City Park once a week to play since the school really doesn’t have much of a playground. I think this is awesome. But I am such a bleeding heart that it tears me up to think of all the kids whose parents can’t afford to buy them popcorn every...
|
 |
03/23/12
It’s been a year now.
The milestones we use to mark time in New Orleans are different, but it definitely isn’t as simple as winter, spring, summer and fall. Every year, Bayou Boogaloo and the New Orleans Wine & Food Experience make me realize that the anniversary of my sister’s death is approaching. Jazz Fest means it’s time to remember my brother’s birthday; Mardi Gras and Ash Wednesday, my grandfather’s and aunt’s deaths, respectively. I have so many memories tied in to things like Tales of the Cocktail or the People to Watch party or the Junior League Kitchen Tour (which is this Saturday). And now, my friend Jim’s death is forever linked, in my mind, to Hogs for the Cause (also this Saturday). This is notable mostly because...
|
 |
03/16/12
Every time I write about race, I swear I’m not ever going to do it again. But then something like this happens, and I suddenly find myself wanting to discuss it.
For those of you who don’t want to follow the link, here is the issue in a nutshell: Dig ‘n Dips (which is kind of a gross name in the first place) has chosen to use Disney princesses to promote its candy. Fine. Great. I can’t argue with that as a marketing decision because my 5-year-old goes absolutely apeshit for anything – anything – with a Disney princess on it. The issue is that they chose sweet blond Aurora to represent vanilla and Tiana, the first black Disney princess, to represent watermelon. Oof. I can’t muster up enough passion about this to actually be mad, but I am...
|
 |
03/09/12
This pregnancy is different in almost every way from my pregnancy with Ruby. The main way, of course, is that I am not pregnant just weeks after a second-trimester loss, when I was still reeling with grief and fear, as I was with Ruby.
Then, too, I have many fewer complications: With Ruby, I was diagnosed as hypothyroid and anemic, and she had three different Down syndrome markers. This time, thankfully, none of those applies.
I think the biggest difference, though, is that I now have Ruby to occupy my time; when I was pregnant with her, I spent my free time Googling every possible bad outcome, reading blogs about stillbirth (PSA: Don’t do this), obsessively counting Ruby’s kicks and having periodic hormonal meltdowns. This time around, I am still given to...
|
 |
03/02/12
My first jazz funeral was Blue Lu Barker’s, which took place during the last month of my senior year of high school. I was actually enough of a nerd that I protested when my dad insisted that I skip school to come with him to the funeral.
“But, Dad,” I remember whining, “I have a calculus quiz, and I’m on deadline for the newspaper.”
“You have got to be kidding me,” he said. “There is no part of your education that could possibly be more important than going to a jazz funeral. I can’t believe I let you get to the age of 17 without you attending one, but I am fixing that right now. No daughter of mine is going to Missouri of all places without having been to a jazz funeral. So, no, you are not going to school...
|
