A pw protected post up at the other blog:
https://lbbreadandroses.wordpress.com/2016/02/23/snarkfest-2016/
Tuesday, February 23, 2016
Sunday, February 21, 2016
Dorothy Day is my Patron Saint
It's complicated, of course, with her not canonized. But, then I'm not Catholic. Dorothy Day: a difficult woman, a single mother, a side-switcher and fellow traveler, a woman with more vision and devotion than sense.
What I hate these days: "lifestyle blogs" I read blogs through bloglovin which I find to be a serviceable blog feed that unfortunately thinks I want to read a bunch of crap blogs that will teach me how to style my blood diamonds and such. I just made the mistake of clicking on a lesbian mom lifestyle blog, which was the worst: how to spend a million dollars on baby crap so you can achieve just the right look of simplicity. I have only myself to blame for that click.
I've had occasion to realize how lucky I am to live in this apartment, not only because we overlook the park and the corner store (it is still a bodega if it's owned by moroccans who advertise "Spanish Food!), but because as LB and I walk to Whole Foods on Saturday morning in the other direction is a stream of older people taking their carts and bags to the Saturday food pantry at the storefront church down the street. And we know how lucky and rich we are in a very tangible way. Every time someone asks us for a dollar or a bus ticket, I get to have a real conversation with LB about who has and who doesn't have, and what it means to share or not share what we have.
Wordpress: So I have my wordpress site that I use for pw protected posts, but now I can't pw protect because they did some update that took that away. Therefore you and I were denied a good rant and some adult topicing. PG version. I took a 6 month dating hiatus, which got a little complicated and then not complicated at all.
What I've been watching: Formation. Again and again. I'm fascinated and I wish I had students so I could make them watch and deconstruct. Pro: vernacular black history, pop/protest crossover. Anti: Black capitalism as the path to liberation.
LB: an absolute love even when she drives me crazy. She's finally wearing a winter coat. She seems to have more energy lately. She's writing-her name and then nonsense words, but it's all good. Among our adventures, we went with friends to a vintage duckpin bowling alley with LB's boldest friend and LB had great time doing some kind of modified running man while bowling very, very slowly.
School pic: this is so LB, smiley and holding back just a little.
Weather: a little snow, a little extreme cold, but not really that bad-thank you higher power. I picked LB up early when daycare closed due to snow, and I had the genius idea of bringing LB home in our sled. What kid doesn't like a sled? After standing outside for five minutes arguing about whether she would get snow on her butt, she finally sat down, but whimpered the whole way home. And of course we didn't have her snow pants, so I'm sure she was cold.
Holidays: incredibly painful. But LB looked lovely for our fancy Christmas Eve dinner.
Work: good but stressful. I had good grant news after busting my ass for weeks and weeks, but some how good news just leads to higher anxiety. I probably need more exercise.
What I hate these days: "lifestyle blogs" I read blogs through bloglovin which I find to be a serviceable blog feed that unfortunately thinks I want to read a bunch of crap blogs that will teach me how to style my blood diamonds and such. I just made the mistake of clicking on a lesbian mom lifestyle blog, which was the worst: how to spend a million dollars on baby crap so you can achieve just the right look of simplicity. I have only myself to blame for that click.
I've had occasion to realize how lucky I am to live in this apartment, not only because we overlook the park and the corner store (it is still a bodega if it's owned by moroccans who advertise "Spanish Food!), but because as LB and I walk to Whole Foods on Saturday morning in the other direction is a stream of older people taking their carts and bags to the Saturday food pantry at the storefront church down the street. And we know how lucky and rich we are in a very tangible way. Every time someone asks us for a dollar or a bus ticket, I get to have a real conversation with LB about who has and who doesn't have, and what it means to share or not share what we have.
Wordpress: So I have my wordpress site that I use for pw protected posts, but now I can't pw protect because they did some update that took that away. Therefore you and I were denied a good rant and some adult topicing. PG version. I took a 6 month dating hiatus, which got a little complicated and then not complicated at all.
What I've been watching: Formation. Again and again. I'm fascinated and I wish I had students so I could make them watch and deconstruct. Pro: vernacular black history, pop/protest crossover. Anti: Black capitalism as the path to liberation.
LB: an absolute love even when she drives me crazy. She's finally wearing a winter coat. She seems to have more energy lately. She's writing-her name and then nonsense words, but it's all good. Among our adventures, we went with friends to a vintage duckpin bowling alley with LB's boldest friend and LB had great time doing some kind of modified running man while bowling very, very slowly.
School pic: this is so LB, smiley and holding back just a little.
Weather: a little snow, a little extreme cold, but not really that bad-thank you higher power. I picked LB up early when daycare closed due to snow, and I had the genius idea of bringing LB home in our sled. What kid doesn't like a sled? After standing outside for five minutes arguing about whether she would get snow on her butt, she finally sat down, but whimpered the whole way home. And of course we didn't have her snow pants, so I'm sure she was cold.
Wednesday, December 2, 2015
Child of the 2010s
"I hope I don't have a nightmare. I had a nightmare that there was a gun and bullets. I hid, so I didn't get dead. All the kids have to hide. Some kids didn't hide and they got bullets [insert list of kids who hid or didn't hide]. Teachers don't have to hide, they're magic. They don't get bullets. Kids aren't magic, they have to hide."
"I hope I dream about a unicorn, about riding a unicorn, and I ride the unicorn wherever it wants to go."
"I hope I dream about a unicorn, about riding a unicorn, and I ride the unicorn wherever it wants to go."
Tuesday, December 1, 2015
Giving Thanks
My first holiday without my little big girl. I felt her absence, but I was okay. And helped along by a jewish/french/korean extravaganza with lots of wine. And dinner at North on Wednesday night. If you visit Providence, eat at North, it's amazing.
And then LB and I hung out from Friday to Monday:
Playing and having a pre-holiday pastry:
A visit to the Children's Museum, which was fine but not entirely successful. In unfamiliar situations, I realize how reticent LB is. I think things would have gone better with a friend:
Followed by exhaustion:
And then LB and I hung out from Friday to Monday:
Playing and having a pre-holiday pastry:
A visit to the Children's Museum, which was fine but not entirely successful. In unfamiliar situations, I realize how reticent LB is. I think things would have gone better with a friend:
Followed by exhaustion:
The next day we went with a good friend to visit a good friend on a farm-with a horse, and cows, and chickens, and a fat cat named Hunter!
Then on Sunday, an improptu playdate at the park, and then the first night of advent:
Sunday, November 22, 2015
A Year Without Tamir
This morning LB woke up next to me, "Mama, it's morning, it's morning." "Why don't you get up and play, I'll be up in a minute." And she did, I got up a half hour later, and she was dressed, waiting expectantly with a stuffed unicorn under her arm-only five hours early for our playdate. I made breakfast. I argued about the number of shows a child should watch.
What didn't I do this morning? I didn't wonder if she would be safe on our playground. I live in the world of white mothers.
In another world, Samaria Rice should be arguing with her son about church clothes, or telling him not to eat so fast.
In this world, she is mourning a child she will never hold again.
Tamir Rice, a black child murdered on a playground by a police officer. A family mourning. A child buried. But no charges. No trial.
If we don't disrupt this world, we perpetuate it. We raise our white children to perpetuate the structures of racism, and to make the choices that leave a black child dead on a playground.
Petition: Justice for Tamir Rice
"A Bronzeville Mother Loiters in Mississippi. Meanwhile, a Mississippi Mother Burns the Bacon."
Showing Up For Racial Jusice
What didn't I do this morning? I didn't wonder if she would be safe on our playground. I live in the world of white mothers.
In another world, Samaria Rice should be arguing with her son about church clothes, or telling him not to eat so fast.
In this world, she is mourning a child she will never hold again.
Tamir Rice, a black child murdered on a playground by a police officer. A family mourning. A child buried. But no charges. No trial.
If we don't disrupt this world, we perpetuate it. We raise our white children to perpetuate the structures of racism, and to make the choices that leave a black child dead on a playground.
Petition: Justice for Tamir Rice
"A Bronzeville Mother Loiters in Mississippi. Meanwhile, a Mississippi Mother Burns the Bacon."
Showing Up For Racial Jusice
Wednesday, November 11, 2015
Diaristic
No time to compose, so I'm just going for it.
Providence doesn't really seem to celebrate Veterans' Day in any big public way. That seems like a shame. I thought there would be a parade I could take LB to.
I figured out to check out e-books from the library to my phone, which means I've been reading much more. Best so far, A Little Life. I'm not sure I can exactly recommend it, because it really is devastating and has graphic scenes of horrible abuse. But it's also an amazing story of friendship, which I feel like gets short shrift compared to romantic love.
Locally, a school resource officer took down a student at Tolman High School in Pawtucket, a few weeks before the SRO took down the student in South Caroline. And then, protesters in Pawtucket, mostly students, were pepper sprayed by police. Even locally, the issue doesn't seem to have gotten much traction. The ACLU has complained, and I guess that and $2.00 will by you a coffee at Dunkin Donuts (which will not say #blacklivesmatter). I don't really know what to do, but I guess I'll settle for writing a letter to our new interim Superintendent of Providence about student discipline and cops in schools.
LB went for her annual check up today. 3ft 5in and 33.5lbs. And I got a referral to a child psychologist (although maybe a parenting coach is what we need) because, yes, it's that bad. And, she seems to have stopped eating fruits and vegetables. I got her to eat 5 frozen blueberries tonight. And she wouldn't have anything to do with the shrimp I made a special stop to get.
It was a long wet slog to the doctor, and for some reason I thought it would be better to just take LB to work with me (officially I had the day off) than slog her back to school and then me in the opposite direction to work. But then all my co-workers came to work, and it was a long round trip walk.
My parents visited and left their usual odd assortment of foods, including a huge bag of frozen waffles. I was too cheap to buy strawberries, so I sauteed some pie apples in butter, added brown sugar and half/half and vanilla, and I'm planning to do waffles with apples and whipped cream.
I've started writing class again, which is awesome, but we got a vicious assignment this week, involving translating a passage from a novel we love and then writing letters to the (dead) author.
I've been looking for some good coverage of MU. Too much of what I've seen, reduces the issue to a response to racial slurs on campus, and clearly there is much more going on. I'm so impressed that Ferguson and #blacklivesmatter has given activists, and the dissatisfied but not yet activists a vocabulary to express what's been wrong for so long, and a path forward. The kids are alright.
Providence doesn't really seem to celebrate Veterans' Day in any big public way. That seems like a shame. I thought there would be a parade I could take LB to.
I figured out to check out e-books from the library to my phone, which means I've been reading much more. Best so far, A Little Life. I'm not sure I can exactly recommend it, because it really is devastating and has graphic scenes of horrible abuse. But it's also an amazing story of friendship, which I feel like gets short shrift compared to romantic love.
Locally, a school resource officer took down a student at Tolman High School in Pawtucket, a few weeks before the SRO took down the student in South Caroline. And then, protesters in Pawtucket, mostly students, were pepper sprayed by police. Even locally, the issue doesn't seem to have gotten much traction. The ACLU has complained, and I guess that and $2.00 will by you a coffee at Dunkin Donuts (which will not say #blacklivesmatter). I don't really know what to do, but I guess I'll settle for writing a letter to our new interim Superintendent of Providence about student discipline and cops in schools.
LB went for her annual check up today. 3ft 5in and 33.5lbs. And I got a referral to a child psychologist (although maybe a parenting coach is what we need) because, yes, it's that bad. And, she seems to have stopped eating fruits and vegetables. I got her to eat 5 frozen blueberries tonight. And she wouldn't have anything to do with the shrimp I made a special stop to get.
It was a long wet slog to the doctor, and for some reason I thought it would be better to just take LB to work with me (officially I had the day off) than slog her back to school and then me in the opposite direction to work. But then all my co-workers came to work, and it was a long round trip walk.
My parents visited and left their usual odd assortment of foods, including a huge bag of frozen waffles. I was too cheap to buy strawberries, so I sauteed some pie apples in butter, added brown sugar and half/half and vanilla, and I'm planning to do waffles with apples and whipped cream.
I've started writing class again, which is awesome, but we got a vicious assignment this week, involving translating a passage from a novel we love and then writing letters to the (dead) author.
I've been looking for some good coverage of MU. Too much of what I've seen, reduces the issue to a response to racial slurs on campus, and clearly there is much more going on. I'm so impressed that Ferguson and #blacklivesmatter has given activists, and the dissatisfied but not yet activists a vocabulary to express what's been wrong for so long, and a path forward. The kids are alright.
Saturday, November 7, 2015
Birthday
Yesterday was LB's birthday, and I spent a lot of it crying. Because I didn't wake up with my daughter. Because 5 is so old. Because my only child is 5. Because all of the celebrations I spend with my daughter include the person who treated me so terribly.
The good: LB had a fun party with a tiny bouncy house, and the theme was chaos, and there was a hello kitty ice cream cake, and fun was had. LB was good at being a five year old and blew out all her candles.
I feel raw. Sad. So thankful to have a living child. Everyday I'm thankful. So sad to have a child that I love fulltime, but can only hold half the time.
The good: LB had a fun party with a tiny bouncy house, and the theme was chaos, and there was a hello kitty ice cream cake, and fun was had. LB was good at being a five year old and blew out all her candles.
I feel raw. Sad. So thankful to have a living child. Everyday I'm thankful. So sad to have a child that I love fulltime, but can only hold half the time.
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