I need my son to learn how to put a jacket on by himself and put it on a hanger. He goes to a Montessori school, so they demand early independence in children. Everything in the classroom, including the coat rack is kid-sized, and the students are required to take care of themselves and get to work, unassisted, when they enter the classroom.

Zee will be four years old in a few weeks. So far, that knowledge has been enough to encourage him to read more. He's sounding words out left and right. The first time he actually read a word I had written out, I shed two tears inside and praised baby Jesus. He's been talking since before he was two and, although I had hoped he'd be a genius baby and reading by the age of 3, I resisted the urge to buy My Baby Can Read and worked with him the old-fashioned way and it's finally happening!  I'm breaking new books out on him so he can't pretend that he's reading, when he's really just reciting from memory. He totally got away with that for a minute—gave his own self away with the little sly grin on his face as he waited for my high-five after pretending he had read something. Knowing that he will be turning four soon, or in his words, "Becoming a big four year old" has also encouraged him to insist on doing other things for himself, like plugging in the iPod Touch to charge it after he's done playing Spore Origins, picking his own afro, and "reading" more often during his quiet time at home. He is becoming a big boy in so many ways, but in many ways, he is still just an almost four year old.

Today, his teacher told me that he put his jacket on backward and then asked me why he can't put his jacket on properly. I was put off by her question, because the obvious answer is that he hasn't learned to do it yet, and I felt like her question was more like 'Why haven't you taught him to put on his jacket properly?' My answer was, "I'm excited to hear that he got both arms in! That's progress!" Then I gave him a high five, and he was excited to go home and try again after his nap. What I wanted to say was, "He's been taking off his jacket here for two and a half years, why doesn't he know how to put it on the hanger yet?" I'm annoyed by her question, but I'm trying to not let it eat at me, which is kinda why I'm bothering you guys with this whole story. Just writing it is cathartic. He goes to an awesome school, and his teacher is amazing. But her question today threw me. I'm fighting the urge to do dress-drills with my son until he gets his jacket on right this afternoon, so I won't ever have to hear about that damn jacket and hangar again. But I'm not going to disturb his chakras by drilling him like that...and it would be a drill, because I have upset myself over this and my energy just wouldn't be right.

I think I'm an awesome mom. With my son sounding out words and whatnot, I feel quite like a Super Mom. That teacher's question today totally deflated me. Maybe I'm just highly emo today and am reading way more into her words than I should. It happens. About once a month. For that reason, I won't let it color my opinion of his teacher in any way. I think she's awesome. I know that ultimately, we both want the same thing for Zack—to be confident, self-directed, self-motivated and self-controlled at school and in life. Still, I think it might be time for us to have a  little sit-down. Obviously she has some questions, and obviously, I have some too.

Between you and me, I think if my boy communicated more like an average three year old and less like a six year-old, he'd totally get a pass for being a little slow to learn to put on a jacket, but it's cool. Could be worse. I can live with higher expectations for my boy. It's actually great training for him and for me too. Raising this little brown boy to grow up and live in this country, we're both going to have to learn to deal with higher expectations  every step of the way and be ready to exceed them every time. It's gonna be a long road too…it's just a jacket and I'm in blog-therapy over it! Ay, dios mio!

P.S. Should my almost four year old know how to put on a jacket by now? Have I failed at motherhood in some way? I need to know. 

I have managed to scramble eggs and make bacon in the microwave. I have boiled water for tea and even boiled my son's hot dogs in there. Full Disclosure: I boil his hot dogs in there everyday anyway. Don't judge me. The hot dogs are grass-fed and organic and…never mind, go ahead and judge me if that makes you feel good. I don't want to put you off or seem ungrateful as I am happy you are reading my blog. So yeah, hot dogs in the microwave.

For the first couple of days, I made the most obvious choice of seasoned chicken with vegetables in the crock pot and Basmati rice in the rice cooker. Then I found Pinterest. And my whole crock pot world opened up. I found recipes for crock pot meatballs, crock pot cookies, crock pot candy, and crock pot cake! There is a theme here. I don't have a crazy sweet-tooth, but I was surprised and impressed by what people are making with slow cookers. 

Amidst all the recipes, I saw this image of zip locked bags filled with ingredients for crock pot dishes.

This appealed to the part of me that enjoys organizing things  as well as the part of me that enjoys not having to be in the kitchen. Don't get me wrong, I love the process of preparing food, but I seriously have to be in the mood to do it. So when I saw this pin of bags, I knew that I must have somehow been led to Pinterest by my happy-stay-at-hom-mom-but-reluctant-housewife guardian angel. And, to quote Sofia from The Color Purple (Because how am I supposed to ever not quote somebody from The Color Purple?), "I knowed there is a gawd." 

Here are a few recipes (including lasagna, ribs and mac & cheese) that I will definitely be putting into heavy rotation, starting with oatmeal. Oatmeal. I'm going to buy a special little slow cooker just for this. To wake up in the mornings and not have to make breakfast? I'm verklempt... 

Oatmeal

Ribs

Lasagna

Mac & Cheese

Enjoy!

I've been blogging since 2005. Over the years my blog has taken on many forms and the content has changed in waves, but one thing has not changed...I am a constant goof and crazy things happen to me. I post about them in the category, "One Time At Bandcamp." It was fun going through all those old posts. I'll probably do this for other categories from time to time too.

 In the words of THIS guy, "Let's no further then do"...or without further ado, in no particular order, here are my all time fave five what-had-happened-was moments: 

1. This happened because I'm awesome. I mean that sarcastically...but then sort of literally.
   About that time I locked my baby in the house.
2. I told my boss I did number one
   It was totally necessary.
3. Sushi
   About that time I learned that wasabi paste is NOT guacamole...the hard way.
4. So I flashed my neighbor.
   About that time, well, you know.
5. Note to Self: When traveling by air...
   About that time I wanted to put the smack down on some airline byotch.

And just because I had to share this one again, a bonus one about the time I had to use the men's bathroom...while it was in use:

No sir, don't mind me. You go right ahead and pee. I'm just changing my baby's diaper.

Martin Luther King, Jr. understood that people were not going to change fast enough for the social climate to change back then. He got that we are a nation of laws (unfair as they were) and that it is more important to appeal to the courts (white as they were) than to the cold hearts of fellow Americans who were perfectly fine with the way things were. So they fought. And some laws changed. Today, the fight continues and the changes continue. As much as we would love to look to the White House, now inhabited by a black family, and say we are finally looking down from King's mountaintop , it is imperative that we recognize that we are not there yet. 

And that's OKAY. For every 60, 70, 80 year old black person still harboring resentment from growing up and living in perpetual nobodiness, there are just as many or more 60, 70, 80 year old white folks still harboring resentment for the laws that made it possible for blacks to be treated like human beings. And these black and white people have raised children and their friends have raised children, and have very likely imparted their beliefs of racial inferiority or superiority to those children. So for every 20, 30, 40 year old black person who achieves a measurable level of education and success, there are just as many or more 20,30, 40 year old white folks who think their own ability to achieve is threatened by affirmative action. White privilege is alive and very real. Racism is alive and very real. We have made great strides, but we are not there yet.

There might be a mountaintop up there, but we have not seen it. A few more generations from now, maybe hearts and minds will catch up with the laws and there might actually be racial, social and gender equality in the United States. Hope is enough for politicians and activists and citizens to keep fighting and winning awesome, small battles that amount to awesome, big changes. Hope is good for movement and growth and momentum. 

I said all that to say that laws change overnight. People, intellectual values and grand sweeping ideas on race and equality do not. Martin Luther King, Jr. said it best,  "It may be true that the law cannot make a man love me, but it can keep him from lynching me, and I think that’s pretty important.”

I'm just sayin'.

Extra Video Clip! We share our thoughts on Brandy's Performance...

Did you see The Game? What did you think about it? 

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I don't hit my kid. I have been told that I talk to my son too much and don't beat him enough. My response is usually something like, "We're humans, so I prefer to talk. If I was a lion, I'd bite him on the neck and wrestle him or something, but fortunately, we have words and languages and such." I have also been told that I'm being directly disobedient to God for not hitting my child. My response to that is usually silence and a blank stare...because what's the point of arguing with that.  I don't hit my kid....as a rule. Have I broken that rule, say, on two separate occasions, both involving me trying to get a two year old to sit still and quiet in church and both times having him hit and/or kick me out of frustration? Yes. Both times, I hit him back, on the back of the offending hand before dragging him screaming out of church and to the car. He was 2. Both times, I felt horrible about hitting him, because it was totally my fault. Hitting me was his way of saying, "Mom! What the hell?! I'm two! I got places to run around and dinosaur sounds to make. Get me out of here!" I heard him loud and clear. Until he's much older and has developed alittle lot more impulse control, I'll only take him to kid's Sunday School. That last time I hit him was the last time I took him into a church sanctuary.  That last time I took him into a church sanctuary was also the last time I wanted to hit him. Until last Saturday. 

My son, Zack, is a few weeks from celebrating his fourth birthday. He had spent a little over an hour outside playing with some neighborhood kids while my husband removed Christmas lights and decorations from our yard. They both came back inside when I was making lunch and talking on the phone with my sister. Zack ran straight from the front door into the kitchen and into me, hugging my legs, smelling like he had been playing outside. He asked if he could go back outside to play. I said no and that he would have his lunch, then a bath and then a nap. He didn't like that and insisted that he wasn't tired and that he really wanted to go outside. I told him that it wasn't going to happen and that the conversation was done and that I was on the phone and not to interrupt me again. He said ok. So I went back to prepping his lunch and talking on the phone. My husband was watching television in the family room across from where I was working in the kitchen. So when I heard the beep from the house alarm system indicating that a door had been opened and saw the flood of sunlight coming from the entryway behind me, I knew my son had opened the front door. 

I don't know what I was in the middle of saying to my sister, but I do know that my body temperature fell, then rose again and a voice from someplace deep in my gut emerged sounding quite like one of the voices that girl had in The Exorcist and I said to her in like, breathy slow motion, "Hhhhold, Ooooown." I'm polite, even when I have gone slightly mad. I felt like I made it around the corner to the entry in one giant step. I knew when I turned the corner, he would be standing there looking at me. But nope. Our front door was wide open and my almost four year old was nowhere in my line of vision. 

I was still holding my cell phone at my side. I marched to the front door as The Exorcist girl, each word emerging more intense than the one before it and each one in sync with my steps, "ZACK. GET. BACK. IN. HERE. RIGHT. NOW!" Y'all, that boy ran back into this house so fast. lol A few steps into the door, he froze in front of me and within seconds my face was within inches of his. He was holding back his tears, face twisted up like the Grinch Who Stole Christmas fighting to keep from making one sound, because he was horrified, poor thing. We were silent while I slammed the door with my free hand, still almost nose to nose with him. I asked him if he really just DECIDED to leave MY house and opened MY door and left MY house. He didn't answer--he knew better. I rattled off a bunch of commands telling him what "You do NOT..." do, and who better be touching that door knob, and who better be with him whenEVER anybody is opening this door and "DO YOU HEAR ME?!" and "SAY YES MAMA!" He managed a "yes mama", after which I rolled my eyes so hard I believed what the old folks say about them getting stuck. I turned my head, eyes still closed, and walked back into the kitchen. As his siren of tears and screams ensued, I apologized to my sister and rehashed everything she had just heard. If I hadn't been on the phone, I would have rehashed it aloud to myself like Clair Huxtable use to do after setting one of the Cosby kids straight. 

The way he was screaming, my neighbors probably thought I had beat him. As far as he was concerned, I had. I didn't touch him, y'all. I didn't even snatch him up by the arm. Bad as I wanted to catch him with my elbow when he ran in here, I didn't. I let him run on in. I didn't touch him because I knew I wasn't going to touch him right. Y'all the way people are taking folks kids these days, and right now there is some dude trolling my area trying to get kids into his truck (according to the news) I do not play when it comes to my child being out of my sight. My first impulse was to get physical with him, but I needed him to hear me. I don't want to be that guy on the news talkin'bout I thought he was in the house. Yes, our neighborhood is safe, but isn't that what everybody thinks until they're on the news? 

After he calmed down and The Exorcist girl was gone, we had a long talk about why his actions were wrong, and why I reacted the way I did. When he apologized to me for opening the door and told me that he didn't want to go live with another family (I asked him if that's what he wanted, because if I can't protect him, somebody might see him and want to take him home to live with them) and pleaded with me, poor thing,  to "Please don't talk scary to me like that again, mommy, ok? You scared me and that hurt my feelings", I knew my message had resonated with him on a way deeper level than it would have if I had clotheslined him. 

Some parents are like me, and spare the rod, but does that really mean they spoil the child?