What a Day

I hate being late. 

Now that I’ve been married for over a year and have had a child for five months, being early or even on time is a foreign concept to me. I mean now I have three strikes (let’s play into stereotypes) against me. 

One, I’m black; common knowledge that I will be exactly on time. Two, my husband’s black and a male; common knowledge that time management is low on the priority list unless it is a life or death situation. Three, it is common knowledge that having a child makes you excusably late. No matter how I try to trick my husband and myself and/or Darren; we never seem to leave on time. Actually, we always miss the mark by ten or fifteen minutes. Talk about frustrating.

What’s more frustrating is living in the country and being late; completely different concept than being late when you’re living a city. Living in the city and being late, means ‘oh, my alarm forgot to ring, but it only takes me ten minutes to get to work.’

Being late in the country: ‘Oh, my alarm forgot to go off AND it takes me a HALF AN HOUR to get to work. AND I have to make a TEN minute detour for a FIVE minute drive to daycare?” Insert expletive it you think it’s necessary. 

On to the lighter side of things, Darren peed our bed this morning. 

While this is not as comical as Darren’s I-just-got-circumcised-and-tagged-Daddy-and-myself-in-the-eye situation, it is funny enough. Darren and Daddy have yet another ‘Peeing Story.’ It kinda goes like this.

5:50 a.m. Daddy and Darren wake up together and cuddle.

5:55 a.m. Daddy strips Darren of diaper and bottom half of his pajamas to change him, but leaves the fan running.

5:56 a.m. Daddy walks out into kitchen (supposedly to get a diaper) and bids is lovely beautiful wife good morning. He exits to the bathroom.

5:58 a.m. Mommy walks in to the bedroom to find her son smiling and happily aiming a golden arch onto the sheets. She exits to retrieve a diaper and on the way turns off the fan, the probable explanation for why he is peeing.

5:59 a.m. to 6:12 p.m. Mommy diapers and dresses Darren for the day, Dresses herself, leaves the peed on sheets to change later, feeds Darren a container of peaches and rice, gives Darren a bottle and puts his sweater on him. She thinks she’s the world best multitasker. 

Fast forward to 11:15 p.m. Mommy is typing her blog for the day. Daddy is watching TV and relaxing.

11:27 p.m. Mommy realizes Daddy has gone to bed on the peed on sheets. She debates for a while and decides to leave well enough alone. If he survived having pee in his eye he’ll survive laying in it for one night. 

 

Upcoming: Learning to cook in the country. 

                 Learning to cook a good apple pie.

Stayed tuned for my: Country Mama’s Menu!

check out this mommy blog that I enjoy!

            The Mommy Blog

Good Hair

This is how I can tell I am a mom. I walk into work with my hair straightened and down, with the comments I get you would think I look like a gremlin on a regular basis.

“Hey, superstar” My boss.

“Hey, girly! Look at you!” Cindalicous.

“You’re hair looks nice.” That kitchen girl.

“I don’t know when I last saw you with your hair down. It looks good!” some random co-work from another store.

What a boot of confidence, but do I really look that bad on all the other days?  Don’t answer that.

The hubby is always telling me “you need to get your hair done.” (sad right?)

Well here’s the skinny everyone, I am going to be taking the biggest hair adventure over the next year. Are you ready? I am going NATURAL!

I know a big question mark may be forming your heads, so let me explain. From now until I decide I am through with this phase of my life, I am not going to chemically straighten my hair. Do you the crap can melt a pop can? Just watch Chris Rock’s Good Hair. It will change your life. It will change your hair’s life too; even if you’re not black.

Supposedly, I have that ‘good hair.’ You could have fooled me, but I am trying to become a believer. 

Darren on the other hand, that boy has some GOOD hair. His hair is so good he’s a local celebrity. I technically should be carrying hair sanitizer for how many people touch his hair. I take him up town and they’re not even fazed by the fact we’re the only black people who live in a ten mile radius. They just want to cop a feel and the little stinker just soaks it up. He’s a lady’s man in the making. Part of me is proud; the other sensible side is trembling about the reality of that statement.

There are downsides to this hair thing. Like the fact he pulls it when he mad. No joke, he hooks on with both hands on each side of his head and yanks. Which makes him more upset because it hurts, which makes him pull harder; it’s quite the comical vicious cycle. 

He also has started pulling my hair (big surprise right?). His death grip has been perfected too. This pared with the fact he thinks it’s a toy to put in his mouth it’s quite the comical vicious cycle.

“Darren, you are going to have to let go.”

“Eeeeeeeehhhhhhh.” He holds on tighter.

“Seriously Darren.” (I do talk to him like his squeals are understandable adult conversation.)

“Ok you’re done. Let’s find your walker,” I am untangling one hand at this point. His other hand still has his prize in it.

“EEEEEEEEEEEEEEAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHH.” Translation: GGGGGGGIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIMMMMMMMMMMMMMMMMEEEEEEE.

This also means I am successful. He is a safe distance away in his walker, look peeved and raising his arms up to me.

“AAH HAHAHAHA.” He’s about to break out in tears. 

“You’re ok.” 

“AHHHHHHHHHH  HAHAHAHA EEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEAAAAAAAAAAAHHHHHH.”

“Ok, let’s cuddle.” I am such a push over.  I pick him up and bury my nose in his curls. I mean, could you resist a face like this?

More hip-hop than country…today

Last night we had the BIGGEST thunderstorm I have ever experienced in my 23 years. And I have been in storms in the country. They can be comforting. Hearing the rain on the window panes, watching the flickering of lightning emphasized by the boom of thunder is usually a pretty good experience.

Until it starts hailing. Then the wind picks up and you can watch the plexi-glass window on the door flex in and out. Then it’s downright scary. The pounding thunder becomes the beat of your heart in your ears. And really all you can think are two things ‘if this house blows away, we all blow away,’ and ‘I forgot how storms go when you are out in the boonies.’

Then you wonder what that dripping sound is. The water is leaking from the old enclosed front-porch window, which really for us is glorified storage space. Thankfully, we only have a mattress and box spring out there and few other chairs. Unthankfully, we discovered they are wet. 

Fine, I can deal with this right? How bad can it be? Besides the fact I am terrified there’s an F5 tornado coming our way and we can’t find a radio station with a decent weather reports. Oh, and the DirectTV doesn’t work. The hubby is speechless.

“What’s wrong?”

“So every time there’s a storm cable doesn’t work?”

“Um…yeah,” I am secretly enjoying this moment because I know he’s on the brink of a big discovery. He’s slouched in the corner of the couch thinking it all through.

“I feel like I’ve been hoodwinked.” (I am enjoying this even more because he did say hoodwinked)

“Why?”

“No one told me that it wouldn’t work when it storms.”

“It makes sense though it’s a satellite, the storm is interference. Besides there’s no football on.”

“I know, but my phone still gets service.”

“Yeah that’s because the phone signal is ran off a tower…that’s on the ground…not the same thing.”

It makes me smile just writing about it, but I wish this was the end of our storm story. Fast forward to five the next morning. We discover after a call from my mother that we, like she, have a great deal of water in the basement and the roads are flooded.  Oh, and we have two huge trees that have been knocked down. On the upside I am stranded at home with Darren and I discovered a field of mushrooms sprouted in our yard over night. 

Now how country is that? 

Why am I doing this again?

The hip-hop life? I must be insane. I am scouring my brain for why I am deciding do this blog ‘thing.’ I mean spewing my guts to hopefully sympathetic readers is really the ‘in thing’ right now. But either way I want to be heard, and not by my husband who gets this distant look in his eyes when I talk about most things. He’s so supportive. 

As for the title, it’s fitting and very tongue-in-cheek. I am undoubtedly the whitest black girl you will ever find. Being raised in southern Minnesota it’s to be expected and as my husband likes to point out, (all too often) ‘Baby you’re still learning how to be black.’ I am sure the look on my face what he can do with that comment.

To push the contradiction further, we live smack dab in the middle of nowhere. The nearest town is ten minutes away and has a population of around 200. If I need groceries, there’s a half an hour drive into town. I love it. My husband, the city-slicker, is learning to love it. He has his moments of uncertainty though.

“Baby, we need to get a dog.” (This said on our third night at our farm place.)

“Why?”  Not that I am opposed, but the comment came out of nowhere.

“It’s so dark and so quiet. Anyone could just walk up on a nigga with no warning. At least with a dog it’ll warn us or something.” 

A few nights later it was, “Baby, its pitch black out there. You can’t see anything. It makes a nigga not want to watch Signs anymore.”

Sometimes I am sooo in love with his blackness.

Obviously, my husband and I come from completely different backgrounds. This makes raising our son Darren interesting, exciting, and frustrating at times, but definitely a laughable experience. Our rearing conversations are always marked with ‘My mama never did that and I survived,’ or ‘those are girl jeans, they don’t have pockets on the butt," and random quotes popular black movies.  All of which (and many more) were punctuated with me rolling my eyes and insisting ‘it will be ok.’

So maybe I am insane, but I am in the process of raising a family that is culturally aware. I figure if I can shape some identity for them out of the confusion of my own existence so be it. So stay tuned for the not-so-politically correct moments in my life and be prepared to laugh. This is bound to be hilarious.