"The Tooth Fairy Left Me a Euro!:" The Benefits of Bicultural Family Life

Hello Meltingpot Readers,

I have a confession to make. The Tooth Fairy in our Kinky Gazpacho household is a bit absentminded. Sometimes she forgets to come. There have been occasions when it has taken the Tooth Fairy four nights before she showed up to pick up a precious tooth.

Lucky for el esposo and I, our children are extremely forgiving. In fact, they usually resort to the naughty or nice Santa play book and assume the reason the Tooth Fairy has been lax in her duties is because of something they've done wrong. I don't exactly deny their assumptions because it usually gets them to correct any deviant behavior they've been displaying without any reminders from me. It's a win-win situation.

Well, the other day, my seven-year old lost his first top tooth. It had been wobbly and dangling for ages and it finally popped out in the midst of a pillow fight with his brother. Needless to say, the excitement for the Tooth Fairy to come was high, as evidenced by his delicate placing of the tooth under his pillow and placing himself flush against the wall as far away from said tooth as possible. "So the Tooth Fairy doesn't have to move my heavy head when she comes," my son explained in all seriousness. (Please note: my kids are 'dentally immature' and at seven and a half, this is only his second lost tooth.)

So, el esposo and I both smiled at this cute child and promised ourselves with a shared look over his head that the Tooth Fairy would absolutely come that night.

But we forgot! I'd like to say it was because something came up, but really, we're just bad.

So the next night, el esposo and I knew we couldn't mess up again. We couldn't disappoint this hopeful child of ours. Once all of the children were fast asleep, I turned to el esposo and implored him not to forget to place the dollar under the child's pillow.
"I don't have a dollar," el esposo said.
"I don't either," I said, panicking. I checked my phone for the time. It was after 10pm. It was freezing outside. And I already had my jammies on. I searched through all of my pockets, the bottom of my purse, but all I came up with was lint and an old piece of gum.
"Can we give him a dollar in pennies?" I asked, eyeing our jar of coins we'd been saving for over a year.
El esposo nixed that idea.
I opened my music box where I sometimes hide money for emergencies. It was filled with money. But it was all foreign from my travels.
"Can we give him a Euro?" I asked, half joking.
El esposo grabbed a coin from my stash. "He's getting a Euro and we'll tell him el Ratoncito Perez brought it from Spain."
(Yes, in Spain the Tooth Fairy is a mouse.)
I didn't know if my son would buy this, but I didn't have any other options.

The next morning, this is what I heard.: "The Tooth Fairy left me a Euro!"
He didn't care that the money was from another country. In fact, when he found out the Euro is worth more than a dollar, he was even more excited. He thought the Tooth Fairy loved him more since she gave him the equivalent of say, $1.25 USD. He promptly added the coin to his piggy bank and announced. "Now I have money for when we go to Spain." And then he started wiggling his other front tooth.

Ahh, the benefits of living in a bicultural household. What does the Tooth Fairy leave your children? I read this great article in the New York Times recently about alternative Tooth Fairy ideas and got a chuckle. You might too.

Peace!

Mariah Carey Goes "Moroccan"

Hi Meltingpot Readers,

Maybe it's because I have baby names on the brain, but I was taken aback by the news that Mariah Carey and her husband, Nick Cannon decided to name their just born twins, Monroe (the girl) and Moroccan (the boy). Say what?

Don't get me wrong, Meltingpot readers, I have no right to judge a person's choice for their children's name, but I'm going to anyway. Why? Because it just seems so wrong, purely from a grammatical standpoint. Apparently Mrs. Cannon named her son after her top floor apartment, a.k.a. The Moroccan Room. It's where Nick proposed and it is decorated in a Moroccan style. Notice, in that previous sentence, Moroccan is an adjective, not a noun. Posh Spice (Victoria Beckham) named one of her kids Brooklyn. Gwyneth Paltrow named her kid after a piece of fruit (Apple), so clearly Hollywood baby names have gone quite loopy, but I think until now, we've obeyed the rules of grammar. I could be wrong. I probably am.

But still, maybe in the post-labor, hormonal euphoria, Nick and Mariah wrote "Moroccan" on the birth certificate, but they meant to write Morocco. Heck, I used to teach Sunday school back in the day and two little brothers in my class were named, Paris and France. I get the 'name your baby after an exotic, significant, special locale,' but can't we at least have those names make a little bit more sense? A little. I mean, think of the consequences. And what will they call the little munchkin for short? It just makes me shake my head, suck my teeth and wonder.

By the way, I'm thinking of naming my baby girl, Menopause, because soon after she's born, that's where I'm heading. What do you think?

Peace!

"Mommy, Are All Asians Good at Karate?"

Meltingpot Readers,

Help me out here. My older son takes karate. I thought he might be good at it because he's super flexible and has a head for memorizing routines. I also thought it might make him a little bit more disciplined with his self-control. So far he loves it. In a few weeks he'll be testing for his yellow belt. He takes karate at the local YMCA and his sensei is an older African-American woman who is like a 6th degree black belt. She rocks. She is the perfect blend of kick-ass and kind.

So, there's a young kid in the class who is mixed. His mom is Asian and his dad is White. This little boy just turned seven, has been taking karate for less than a year and is about to test for his green belt (that's two up from white) and will be competing in a major competition this weekend. And did I mention the child is just seven. He seriously measures only up to my knee cap yet he is by far the best -- and only Asian child -- in the class. Watching him do karate is truly amazing.

So I casually commented to the sensei, "wow, he's amazing isn't he," and her response. "He was born to do this." I didn't question her, nor condemn her for making what I thought was a kind of tasteless comment. I mean, what, because his mother is Asian he's got some natural gift for martial arts? Coming from a Black girl who can neither sing nor dance, I happen to know that this natural talent based on ethnic origin is a myth. Right?

So last night during karate class, I met the little boy's White father so I complimented him on his son's prowess. Not to mention this little boy is just too cute. I was asking the father how long his son had been studying karate, thinking perhaps he'd had previous training but he confirmed that his son had started the same time mine had. And then his dad said with no irony, "Hey, it's in his blood. He was born to do this." Really? Now the little guy's Asian mother was nearby and I was itching to ask her if she felt that she had passed on this genetic predisposition to be the next karate kid, but I felt that would have been just a little bit too deep for casual YMCA conversation.

Needless to say, my kids heard part of this conversation and they honestly want to know. Are all Asian people good at karate? Obviously not, but what if the kid's own parents are saying this.

And here's my true confession. Even though I'm a horrible dancer, I will admit, that when I hear the beat of African drums, I swear on my grandma's cold dead body that there is a spirit force that moves within me. I cannot be still when I hear them. I cannot stop my body from moving in ways I've never been taught. I feel something that feels like instinct. It feels natural.

What do you think dear readers? Without stirring up a pot of racist rhetoric, can we discuss the possibility that certain ethnic groups are predisposed to excel or even just catch on to certain things due to their heritage? This is a slippery slope that dips into dangerous territory, but when we're talking karate and disco dancing, can we just talk?

Is there something you're good at that you attribute to your heritage? You can be honest and anonymous here, so let's talk.

I'm so totally listening.

Peace!

Take Your Mark, Get Set, Go!

Since I'm going all confessional on the Meltingpot these days, I am going to admit something here that I don't like to tell most people. I have ADD...when it comes to exercise.

One minute I'm training for the marathon, the next I'm trying to get my black belt in Tae Kwon Do. I sign up for African dance class only to drop out two classes in. I paid a personal trainer to develop a workout plan just for me, only to ask for my money back once I realized how boring gym workouts really are. And the result of all this stopping and starting? I'm out of shape and I have a closest full of useless workout gear. Okay, my closet isn't that full, but I do have a purple hula hoop, two jump ropes, pink dumbells, and one of those inflatable workout balls that I NEVER use.

I think my main problem is, I get bored really easily and I'm really just too lazy to force myself to work out. If I didn't have kids or a job, this wouldn't be a problem, because I do like to exercise. But if I have to get up at the crack of dawn to fit a workout in, it ain't happening. Likewise, if you think I'm going to go running in sub-zero weather, you are mistaken. Also, I love swimming. I swam competitively for ten years as a child, but these days, I won't swim in the winter because I hate being wet and cold. I think that's a result of the aging process. Maybe I should move to Florida?

In the meantime, I've decided I can't go out like this. For the last two years my body has done some crazy things -- rejected wheat and sugar and succumbed to almost every illness that came my way -- and now I want to build it back up to super human levels. Or at least healthy ones. So, (drumroll please) I've decided to sign up for a 10-mile road race here in Philly.

The race is called The Broad Street Run and it is an annual tradition in my new hometown. The race date is Sunday, May 2, 2010 and training for me starts this week. That gives me 13 weeks to figure out how to run 10 miles without dying, I mean collapsing...or dying. I figure giving myself a specific challenge, with a relatively "short" training period, I might be able to best the ADD. And now that I've just told the whole entire world via this blog, that I intend to run, I'm hoping you can all be like my Weight Watchers buddies and cheer me along as I train. And by all means don't let me quit. I'm really good at that. Really good.

And fyi, I've never run 10 miles before, but once upon time, back in high school I ran cross country and several road races, but that was YEARS ago. If I can run a mile now, I will be impressed. But I have to start somewhere.

So, words of advice? Training tips? Training food since I can't eat pasta? I'll take them all.

Thanks for listening. And chime in with your own healthy goals. We can inspire each other.

Peace!

P.S. I think we all need a superstar to emulate when we take on physical tasks. Since the second grade my superhero has always been, Wilma Rudolph. If you don't know her triumphant story, read about her here. I'm going to be channeling her spirit every day.

A New Book for the "Other" Mothers

I'm not a big anthology fan. I just don't believe that I'm going to be interested in all of the essays included in the collection. Sure, I'll page through an anthology if I'm interested in the theme or know some of the authors, but I've never really been compelled to actually buy one, with few exceptions.

Well, I may have to change my tune because I just received a copy of the new book, Who's Your Mama?: The Unsung Voices of Women and Mothers and love it. Full disclosure, I have an essay in the book about being the mother of two boys who are two different colors, but that's not why I love it. That's not why I stayed up way past my bed time last night trying to devour the book in one sitting. I love it because finally, there is a book about motherhood that speaks to me as a woman of a color, a writer, a woman in a multicultural family, a woman who has contemplated adoption, and I could go on. Just as the subtitle implies, it is the voices of women who as of yet have really not been heard in all of the debate and discourse about modern motherhood.

I haven't read all of the essays, but of the ones I have, Martha Southgate's essay, Unnatural Woman about the difficulty in being a writer and a mother really rang true. She was brutally honest and shared her traitorous thoughts about escaping from her family so she would be free to write. I've had those thoughts too. And Eileen Flanagan's thoughtful essay about making sure she didn't raise her White children to be racist gave me a really interesting glimpse into the way White people internalize race, racism and privilege. There are also great essays about lesbian adoption, raising multiracial children and raising children in poverty. There were also great pieces about not wanting children, losing children and infertility.

The contributors range from award-winning authors to hip-hop activists. They include women of varied racial, socio-economic, and ethnic backgrounds as well, making this Meltingpot mama very happy. Editor, Yvonne Bynoe deserves a major cyber round of applause for being able to corral such a fantastic hodgepodge of voices, including foreword writer Rebecca Walker. Check this book out if you get a chance. You won't be disappointed.

Peace!