Playtime with Daddy

One of the more recent things that brings a smile to my face is watching my cub and his father play together. It is the most precious thing in the world. It's funny. When the cub was a small baby it used to frighten me to watch my husband play with the baby. I'm sure all mommies know what I'm talking about. Men don't seem to have the same worries as women do when it comes to playtime. I felt like my husband would hurl our cub into the air. My heart would literally stop beating. It didn't matter that my son was giggling hysterically and absolutely loved that he was being hurled into the air. I believe that is now why his favorite play person is daddy. My cub absolutely could care less about playing with me. That's not what mommies are for evidently. He doesn't bring me his ball to kick around with him. I can't carry him around on my shoulder.These are special for daddy. Oh and when he does give mommy some charity playtime the giggles are not the same as they are for daddy. Were talking on a scale of 1 to 10 with 10 being giggles for daddy, mine are a 2. If you are sensing a little bit of mommy jealousy you're right. There is a little drop of green there but it's always erased by the joy it brings me to watch the two of them. Yep one proud mommy over here.

So one of the games my cub loves to play is chase. He absolutely loves being chased around the house. It usually goes that one of us will hide behind a door or an object and once the cub is near we pop out and say boo. The cub laughs hysterically then starts running. We chase him pretending it 's difficult to keep up with him then we finally catch him and hug him, more laughing. When we release him we turn and start running (more like pretend to run) until we can hide behind a door. When he enters the room we pop out and say boo and I think you get it. I've included a clip of the family fun.

Small Moments=Big Impact

So, Valentine's Day is always supposed to be a big deal. You're supposed to really wow your significant other with luxurious gifts. The bigger the bear, card, flowers, or box of chocolates the better, right? Oh and make sure the restaurant is at least two stars above your normal dining selection. If said criteria is left unmet on Valentine's Day then someone failed at properly celebrating the event. This has never been true for me and not because I couldn't find a chap willing to do that and more. I realized very early in my life that the small things matter most to me. My Husband is the type of man that usually makes a decision on what to get me the day before the occasion. For example, my birthday is Christmas Eve. The Husband usually has a eureka moment on December 23rd. The same is true of anniversaries and oh yes Valentine's Day. But I must admit, although last minute, it's always amazingly the perfect gift. I used to think to myself, "He has it easy. I'm the simplest girl to please". You can buy me some gummy life savers, starburst, and a card and I am over the moon. I think in my simplicity I may actually make it difficult. It's hard to wow someone year after year, 10 years now, with small moments. Well, once again the Husband managed to bring the biggest smile to this little lady's face.

The advent of the cub has seriously changed our dating and outing routine. Heck, our budget too. Thankfully my mother-in-law agreed to watch our little one so we could celebrate Valentine's Day.  The Husband found this small family-owned Mexican restaurant not too far from our house. I LOVE Mexican food. Shout out to the Groupon people. I was excited. Date nights are spread out right now in the Lawrence home, so this was a much needed night out. The food was incredible and we were loving the ambiance. Suddenly, a voice came over the music announcing free Salsa lessons right there in the restaurant in just a few minutes. My insides exploded into Fourth of July fireworks. I have been nagging the Husband to take Salsa lessons. All the Latino blood flowing in his veins and he has an aversion to dancing in public. I mean let's be stereotypical for two seconds....you are Latino. You are supposed to love dancing. I gave him my puppy dog eyes and begged. Useless! He wasn't budging. We continued eating and began laughing as the older couples made it to the dance floor and attempted learning Salsa. I'd settled in my heart that we would not be joining them and continued to enjoy my evening. Well, didn't I tell you my Husband always manages to wow me. Out of nowhere he says let's join them.This small gesture, not luxurious or flashy, meant more to me than anything on any shelf in any store in the world. I knew the internal price he was paying for the smile on my face and believe me I plan to wear this smile proudly.

Been gone for a minute....

Well, it's been quite a while since I've sat down at the computer and blogged. My cub wasn't even one yet in my last post. Life got a little hectic for me. I've had so many topics I wanted to share and life lessons I've learned. Some are still lingering in my thoughts so hopefully I will share them soon. In the meantime. Here is a photo update of the cub. After all he is the only reason you pay my blog any attention.

Racist or Not...This is Dumb

So it has been quite a while since I posted and to think that my first post from my hiatus will be about an ignorant, at least in my opinion, blog I had the opportunity to read is a little depressing. The problem is I felt so moved by what I read I couldn't think of anything but taking fingertips to keyboard and pounding out my thoughts. Those that have the privilege or misfortune of knowing me know that I believe every one is entitled to his/her feelings, beliefs and opinions. I hate when someone tells another person how to think or feel because there is a reason that individual drew the conclusions they did and those experiences and feelings should not be undermined. This, however, does not mean that the feelings and beliefs of others don't anger me because if that were true you wouldn't be reading this post. So, below is the link to the upsetting blog that prompted my need to post.

http://dailykenn.blogspot.com/2012/12/how-to-manage-black-communities.html

The first few sentences sum up the gist of the blog:

• The best way to manage black people is through family planning.
•  The objective isn't to control blacks, but to create a black community that is self sufficient, relatively crime free, and not dependent on white people.
• Aside from our national neurosis that compels us to embrace denial as a high moral attribute when applied to America's black culture, the obvious fact is that black Americans, as a whole, have a difficult time taking care of themselves.

This person honestly believes that we can fix the black community by limiting their reproduction to only the "intelligent". I won't even comment on the list of black people provided as examples of intelligent people that should be allowed to reproduce. Now, to this person's merit I did note that the post was ended by saying this can be applied to other races.

What I find most upsetting is I know this person's thoughts are shared by many and that is disheartening. The black community is not full of thugs, low lives, and degenerates like the media and it's champions like Neal Boortz would have you think. To address the community as one that needs to be treated like you would treat a rodent or pest infestation is abhorrent. My second problem is this individual would reply to me and say' "I wasn't speaking of you because you are obviously one of the intelligent ones". Dependency on government resources and aid (not dependency on white people as stated by this person) is a poverty and education problem. Not only a black community problem. I won't delve into statistics, trends, and studies. I will say that the problem is multi-layered and must be addressed on various levels, starting with education. To me everything stems from education. You know better so you do better. When you do better you feel better. When you feel better you produce better. To do this every child needs access to a quality education. I can assure you there are huge disparities between schools even in the same educational system.

Now, I am both too "intelligent" and insightful to associate this person's beliefs with every non-black person. I attended "predominately white schools" and shared experiences with people that I know in my heart looked to me as a peer and friend and cared nothing about the color of my skin. My community was so nice that I actually grew up thinking racism was a thing of the past and that the few ignorant people that were out there were few in number and some radical crazy group. When I read posts like this one it shows me that we are further from being a unified people than I thought. Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr had a dream that one day little white girls and little black girls will walk hand in hand and play together. I have a dream that one day little girls will play with little girls and all these descriptors that we place on each other-- White, Black, Latino, Muslim, Catholic, Baptist-- will disappear. We use these titles to identify ourselves but the only thing they seem to do is divide us. People commit crime; not races or religions or sexual orientation. Find solutions to fix poverty, crime, hatred, and disease and stop worrying about fixing "the black community".

 Lastly, since when did intelligent people stop killing and committing crimes?