HONEYSMOKE

This gorgeous photo was taken by Carrie of studiobluimages. Nadia was tired from one of her first professional photo shoots. Sleep like an infant this weekend. Have a good one. Lights out.

http://www.flickr.com/photos/melvinlewis

There are plenty of hair products for children, but I don’t see the need to have a shampoo and conditioner for me and another set for the girls. It’s just another way companies separate you from your cash.

When we’re out and about, parents of curlies often ask how I maintain Simone and Nadia’s hair.

Here’s the answer: We’re a sulfate, silicone, and paraben free family.

Sulfates are drying. They are harsh detergents and strip oil from the hair. Silicone is like a plastic and gives the appearance of shiny, healthy hair. Some silicones also are difficult to wash out of your hair, unless you use shampoos with sulfates. If you don’t apply silicones to your hair, there’s no need for sulfates. As for parabens, they’re just controversial. If it’s not needed, why bother. The bottom line: None of those chemicals are needed to achieve beautiful hair.

Sunday is hair day at our house. I wash Simone and Nadia’s hair with castille soap, put a dollop of conditioner on their hair, and then detangle with a wide-tooth comb. I start detangling at the ends and work my way up to the roots. When I am finished, I leave in the conditioner and allow their hair to air dry.  In the mornings, I use hair milk to help tame the frizzies.

The castille soap costs about $6 for an 8-ounce bottle. Conditioner runs about $14, and the hair milk goes for about $12. All three will last a long time, as long as they are kept out of reach of little hands.

http://www.flickr.com/photos/this_is_ben

My mother loved to tell a story about a bath I took with a little girl I had asked to spend the night with me.

We were 4 or 5 at the time. This little girl — no one quite remembers her name— and I took cues from Mom.

“Don’t forget about your ears.”

“Make sure you wash your arms and legs.”

“Clean between your toes.”

A ring of dirty, soapy water clung to the inside of the tub. While we bathed, the little girl, who was white, checked me out. She noticed that no matter how many times I wiped the washcloth across my skin the color didn’t wash off.  For perhaps the first time, she had noticed how different we were. She was perplexed. So, in a way, she had to say it.

She just had to say: “I didn’t know you were that color all over.”

Her voice pitched high on those last two words, Mom told me, and the statement had all the sincerity of a child who didn’t understand the weight of her words.

Mom repeated the little girl’s words over and over again in her mind and then she laughed inside. I guess the little girl thought I was dirty, but that didn’t stop her from wanting to play with me.

Race is a social construct. All you have to do is talk to children or think about your own childhood to discover this truth.

http://www.flickr.com/photos/brettjohn

The dynamics of our household changed dramatically the day Simone realized she could tell on Nadia. Since then, our youngest has been accused, slandered, and blasphemed.

Simone learned the finer art of tattling in preschool. She had spent a year in a class filled mostly with boys who apparently started their young lives by pushing, shoving, and stomping anyone who got in their way. As a result, Simone began all of her tattles on her sister with the word, “he.” She was so excited with her newfound power she could sometimes barely unleash the offense, sputtering “he, he, he” before letting us know who had played in the milk, or wrote on the wall, or whatever seemed to be going wrong in our home at the time.

It took a while, but Simone discovered her sister is indeed a she. We, meanwhile, found a way to describe her dispatches. We are the proud parents of the Simone News Network: The Most Trusted Name in Tattling.

SNN’s updates, if you want to call them that, come without notice and spare no one.

“Daddy forgot to put a swim Pull-up on Nadia.”

“Mommy passed the McDonald’s, and we had to turn around.”

“Nadia is stinky.”

Simone even marched up to her preschool teacher and said, “I need medicine because there’s something wrong with my pee.”

I can only imagine what else she is reporting to her preschool teachers.

Mommy says Daddy doesn’t listen to her.

Daddy says Mommy talks too much.

Nadia and I play with our toys when we’re supposed to be sleeping.

Simone, it turns out, is pretty accurate. When I heard about the Swim Pull-up Debacle, I asked Ken about it and he got defensive.

“Yes,” he said, “I forgot the Pull-up. She didn’t have it on for a whole 12 seconds.”

Yes, I thought to myself, but it was 12 seconds I wouldn’t have known about had I not received a report from the Simone News Network: The Most Trusted Name in Tattling.

One by Kathryn Otoshi

We borrowed this book about bullying from the library a few months ago, and it quickly became a favorite. Readers learn Red is a hothead who likes to pick on Blue, a quiet color. Yellow, Orange, Green and Purple don’t like it, but they don’t tell Red to stop. None of the colors says a word, until One comes on the scene and teaches everybody else how to stand up to Red. The book reinforces counting and colors, while teaching little ones how to accept each other’s differences.

Simone and Nadia enjoy the colors and the numbers, while I appreciate how a simple message can be used to address complex issues. I have no doubt we will borrow this book again and again.

Vacation Bible school received the thumbs down in 2008.

For reasons we don’t fully understand, Simone wanted no part of it. Tears rolled down her cheeks during class, and we received more than one report of bad behavior. One day she kicked off her shoes in frustration and was sent to time out.

I admit I worry more than I should and had thoughts of years of bad behavior that somehow were linked to vacation Bible school. Well, she never really took to the Bible, I could hear myself explaining. That should have been our first clue.

This year, I braced myself for similar outbursts, but they never came. Simone looked forward to Crocodile Dock, the theme for this year’s program. She told us about the burning bush and God’s light, and I exhaled when she told me she had fun.

The other surprise: The message hadn’t changed since I had gone to school, but the delivery sure had. Simone wore a T-shirt and a name tag and brought home something new every day. She showed off little plastic trinkets called Bible buddies and even stuffed a turtle called a Comfy Critter so that she could give it to any child in need of a lift.

Thank goodness, vacation Bible school is behind us, but that only means something else will challenge us in the near future.

v9fz82×6u3

http://www.flickr.com/photos/whitand/

This time next year, Simone will be counting down to her first days of kindergarten. By then, we will have come to a decision about this thing called school. Ken and I chose our latest home with the school district in mind. There’s a school nearby, and it’s one of the best in our area. Still, I have an issue with its diversity and have scoped out two schools – one of them church-based – as possible options.

I can’t believe I’m even considering a private school. Ken went to public school and is a graduate of Christian school. I am a product of public schools and spent the majority of my journalism career covering them. I am all too familiar with the intricacies of desegregation, standardized test scores, and school funding. We know parental involvement plays a role in a child’s success and understand reading is a gateway subject. Armed with that knowledge, public school would be the best choice.

Still, sending the girls to a private school would mean we could keep them together. Private schools have more flexibility with curricula and tend to have fewer discipline problems with students. On the downside, sending the girls to one of the schools would guarantee Ken and I would never buy anything for ourselves ever again.

Diversity is weighing heavily in the decision. Some private schools are poised to offer a more diverse student body, one that represents the world. I am not convinced diversity is something that can be taught; you have to experience it. As a child, I lived in seven states and two countries, Germany and Iceland – the effects of which cannot be measured. I broke piñatas with kids in Texas, ate Ysa – the best fish I’ve ever tasted — in Iceland, and left a pair of shoes outside my door in Germany so that St. Nick could fill them with candy. My mom never met a stranger during her short life, which means I’ve been to more authentic cultural sit-downs at Filipino, Thai, Mexican, Puerto Rican, German and African homes than I can possibly count.

I grew up on military bases, where I played with boys and girls of different races and ethnic backgrounds and then attended public or Department of Defense, or DoD, schools with them. Our parents weren’t afforded the opportunity to choose their neighbors, and kids, at least back then, played with pretty much anyone who had a jump rope.

I can’t replicate any of these experiences for Simone, though I would like to take her and Nadia to as many far away lands as we can afford. I can, however, put her in a diverse setting, offering the opportunity for such experiences. We’ve got a year to make up our minds.

There’s nothing more comfortable than a hardwood floor. Sleep like a toddler this weekend.

Have a good one. Lights out.

I am an equal-opportunity parent. Again, no names have been changed to protect the innocent.