a pretend birthday party

Melissa here.

Tonight, as Tani was eating his dinner, he started talking about how he was going to pretend that it's his birthday tomorrow and that he's having a party. He said that only light-skinned people would be coming. I don't recall having spoken with him about light-skinned and dark-skinned people--perhaps he recently learned that terminology from someone. He said that dark-skinned people weren't allowed to come. Having given a talk on the topic of young children and race at High Holidays and having read about the studies of young children's perception of race in the book NurtureShock, I knew that young children do naturally discriminate and that it's our job as parents to teach kids that we don't need to discriminate based on this category. Although the reality is that except for his good friend next door who is black, the kids with whom he socializes are mostly white. We are friendly with black people in the building here and in the neighborhood, but our social life and the parties we attend are generally among the light-skinned. I asked Tani whether he thought that light-skinned people are better than dark-skinned people and he said yes, and I asked why and he said because they're different, but didn't say anymore. He then said that the dark-skinned humans will have a party in the room across the hall at the same time. He also then named a few dark-skinned people who could come to his party. I suggested that perhaps we could have one party for everyone-- he's wasn't sure and we agreed to discuss it again tomorrow. More to unfold here as I am challenged by how to teach my child about race and challenged to examine the ways in which our worlds are indeed separate.

A dead fish

Melissa again. It's Thursday morning, May 6. Tani slept the whole night in his bed (he often comes into our room at some point and crawls into his "nest" on the floor). He announced, "Mommy, I slept the whole night in my room!" This is a very good thing-- we have made real progress since a few months ago when he would find all sorts of ways to wake me in the middle of the night, from crawling into our bed or screaming from his room.

I encouraged Tani to go say good morning to his fish. I then came in to see them and noticed that one of them was dead. He hadn't noticed. For those of you who haven't had goldfish in a while, a dead goldfish looks like a live goldfish, except for the fact that it's not moving--at least, a recently dead goldfaish. I told Tani that one of his fish was dead. He didn't seem terribly upset. He asked, "is it Fred or Tani who died?" (yes, he named one of his fish Tani-- the names evolved from "Fred and Fred" to "Fred and Suzanne" to "Fred and Tani"). He said, "I think it's Tani who died." Not in a sad way, just matter-of-fact. As I was dealing with the bowl, I heard him ask Neysa, "can we get more fish?" We don't need to yet-- we still have one.

How am I feeling? I just flushed a dead fish down the toilet (Tani was not witness to that). I'm a little sad. I also think it's really good for Tani to witness the natural course of life-- living and then dying. I also feel like I want some Hebrew verse or prayer to say when I dispose of a dead fish, but I don't know what that would be-- might send an inquiry to my rabbinic colleagues over our e-mail list. It would be interesting to see how they respond.

Tani has a blank journal with a lock and key. At lunch yesterday at Toto's pizza, which is in walking distance from our place, Tani made up a story which I wrote down. Neysa is reading that story to Tani now, then we'll get dressed and off to school/ work. (I'm headed to school-- taking a fabulous class with Dayle Friedman at RRC on aging. Today we're dealing with legacy and eternity).

Addendum: We just moved the fish (one fish now) back into Tani's room and I asked if he was sad and he said yes. I gave him a hug and he cuddled in my lap for a brief time before getting up to play with his new lego train. He also asked again, "Can we get another fish?" I said we'll wait and see how this one does.

Adventures on a May day

This is Melissa writing. The photos above are from our visit this weekend to DC. Tani and Max are playing in the Children's Garden at the National Botanical Gardens, where Grandpa Morris volunteers.

It's Monday, May 3, around 7PM. Tani fell asleep in the car on the way home from our errands. We went to REI to return some shoes and get some socks for me to go with my Vibram Five Fingers (the shoes that look like a glove-- I have been wearing them a lot this past few months and LOVE them. My feet have never felt better and I have never been so popular. So many people come up to me wanting to know about my shoes. I am hoping that it will become socially acceptable to wear these shoes in professional settings, anticipating that I will be returning to such settings in the coming year. I just signed on for a chaplaincy internship at Einstein Hospital from October through June next year--about 20 hours/week. OK, now this is becoming more about me than Tani. Maybe I'm getting ready to start my own blog-- something that Neysa urged me to do back when blogs started becoming popular. Anyways, since I'm talking about adult things, I'll mention that Neysa and I are planning to celebrate our 8th wedding anniversary on June 2 by going away for the night. We'll see a play, Vaclav Havel's Leaving at the Wilma Theater in center city Philadelphia and then spend the night at a hotel, while Tani hangs out at home with Lois, one of the staff whom he loves from his preschool. In preparation for seeing this play, I just read the Cherry Orchard by Chekhov and we started King Lear, which I haven't read since high school. It has been great to be reading powerful literature. I also joined a clergywoman's book group that will meet for the first time next week, reading Lacuna by Barbara Kingsolver. It's 500 pages and I just started...Tani just woke up...I was so enjoying writing...more later!

...about 5 minutes later now. Tani drank some juice and fell back asleep while I was getting him more. It has been very hot this past 2 days. Neysa ran the 10 mile Broad Street Run yesterday morning in the heat.

Neysa doesn't know yet (I'm not sure she would have approved, but I figured that this wasn't any bigger decision than when she first purchased an iPod independent of me), but we now have 2 more creatures living in our home. Tani and I went to the pet store next to REI and picked out 2 goldfish, who are currently both named Fred. We were both very excited about getting some pets which he could take care of. Tani fell asleep on the way home, so I set them up in their bowl myself-- for now, just a fish bowl and 2 goldfish, needing to be fed every other day. I look forward to exploring life (and possibly death) in deeper ways with Tani as these fish become part of our lives. Our home feels different having more living creatures here. This level of pet feels like enough for now.

Yesterday afternoon, I went to a lecture at P'nai Or (2 blocks away) with Joel Hecker, who was one of my professors at RRC who is an expert in kabbalah, Jewish mysticism. He spoke about the holiness of eating, and how we connect with God, and even transform God, through our intentionality as we eat. I have been translating this for Tani as he eats. We have developed the custom of saying one thing for which we are grateful as we begin a meal, and today I spoke with him about how you connect with God through eating. God doesn't have a body like we do, so we share that experience with God. Each day, I feel blessed for the privilege of spending time with Tani and falling more in love with him and seeing new faces of God through him. Lately, he has been waking up in the morning and smiling such a huge, gorgeous smile at me.

Tani has been fully potty trained for about a month...which means...no more diapers AND now he can be dropped off at the IKEA babysitting. We both had a good time at IKEA-- Tani playing and Mommy shopping and contemplating a new kitchen (not likely to go with an IKEA kitchen, but fun to see the designs nevertheless).