Unsinkable

Happy Halloween!

Dillon and I celebrated by choosing one item from his trick-or-treat spoils for dessert while Rose was taking a bath.  He chose skittles, after carefully perusing each one.  This kid doesn't know much about candy.  It is quite possible (though I can't speak for the activities taking place with his grandparents) that the last piece of candy he ate was around Easter.

We just don't buy it.  I love it, but love being able to fit into my jeans more, so (with the exception of the occasional Take 5 checkout line weakness) I don't buy it.

So to Dillon it's kind of a big deal that he gets to eat this candy on Halloween.  And I sit at the table with him to observe the proceedings.  He opens his little 'treat-sized' bag of Skittles, with approximately 20 Skittles in it, and then sorts them according to color (thank you, Montessori school!).  Then he tastes each color and tries to identify the corresponding flavor (he got all of them right, except for red, which despite my suggestion that it was strawberry, he believed was cherry-apple). 

I asked him for a purple, which is my all-time favorite Skittles flavor. (Those that would suggest that it tastes like grapes are, I am afraid, sorely mistaken.  It tastes like purple.)  He cheerfully gives it to me, then gives me his other purple one as well.  Then, as he tastes each color, he tells me, "you'll LOVE this one, you just have to try it!"  

I initially protest that I don't want to eat his candy (in truth, I have already been eating his candy- the chocolate ones I know he doesn't like) because I don't anticipate we'll let him eat anywhere near the amount he brought home from trick-or-treat, so he should enjoy the ones he does eat.  But he really likes sharing with me, so I break down and eat the ones he gives me, commenting on the tastiness of each one along with him.     

It was really touching to me.  We never let him eat that crap.  And when we finally do let him have it, he basically splits it with me.  It was nice. 

I had pretty bad allergies when I was a kid, and I remember having a lot of bloody noses.  If I think about it, I get the taste of pennies in the back of my throat.  For that same reason, I couldn't take the iron pills I was supposed to take after I got pregnant and had D, they made me retch (happy thought, I know)…

But so far, I've been lucky enough to not have to sweat that with my kids.  Until today.  When D was playing with a pal out in the yard and had an accident involving a misappropriated soccer goal slamming into his face.  He cried initially, but stopped the second I suggested going into the house to wash up.  But when he stood up (he was laid out flat on his back) his nose started to bleed.  I kept it together and took him into the house to do the 'pinch your nose closed thing'. Rose came in with us and gave him a little pat to make him feel better, but at that point he was mostly upset that he had to come in the house and miss the end of the beautiful warm day.

He mostly didn't want to sit still.  Kept asking, "Can I get up yet?" and I kept trying to explain that his nose won't stop bleeding if he's up and running around…

So he might have two black eyes tomorrow, but let's hope not.  If so, put in a good word for me with the social workers! 

So I just finished reading "I'm Chocolate, You're Vanilla: Raising Healthy and Biracial Children in a Race Conscious World, a guide for parents and teachers."  Long title.  Simple ideas.

It's a pretty good book, though it doesn't talk about the biracial stuff nearly as much as I'd like, particularly my particular issue of interest, that my son can "pass" easily as white.

But this researcher who wrote the book asked a lot of kids about their perspectives about their race, etc.  And she talks about different developmental stages and what that means with regard to race.  She asks the kids "what are you?" and then talks about why they answer different things, etc., and how we can give our kids healthy perspectives on race by using that information.

So I try my own experiment at the dinner table tonight.  I ask Dillon, "what are you?" with no prompting or prior discussion of race, so he has no clue where I'm going with this.  I've been talking to Chuck about the book, though, so he has an idea.  But Chuck has to hide his smile when D looks up at me, smiles sweetly, and says "I'm a lover!"

Me: And?

D: Dreamer…

Me: What else?

D: Big Brother!

Me: But if someone asked me about you, what would I tell them?

D: I'm a good chef!   And a superhero!

Me: But if someone asked what race you were, what would you say?

D: OH!  Mixed!  DUH MOM!

Me: But mixed what?

D: Mixed KID!

Chuck: You know how yellow and blue make green?  What are you mixed with?

D:  Black and white!  But my dad is really brown.  And Rose is Black.  But… (seems kind of lost here)

Me: But maybe she's more cinnamon-colored?

D: Yeah!  

This leads to getting the cinnamon out of the cabinet and smelling it, and then everyone putting some into their various beverages (milk, coffee, water) to taste.  Altogether a reasonably successful experiment.   

Dillon ate meat yesterday.  Not too much, just an errant bite of pepperoni pizza.  Hot lunch is all choices these days, occasionally one of the choices is vegetarian, so D gets to buy lunch with the regular kids.  Only he's never seen pepperoni pizza before, so he picked that instead of the grilled cheese sandwich that I had intended he eat when I armed him with a lunch ticket.

He only ate a bite before his teacher, who is also a vegetarian and is aware of Dillon's vegetarianism, told him it had meat and gave him the grilled cheese sandwich instead.

He was a little worried about getting sick or something, but no problems there…  I think Chuck was the most upset, but we're pretty confident it's not going to happen again.