With little J, it's the smallest things that cause so much excitement.
When, sitting in the car seat, he suddenly shouts out “air-pwane!” When I looked around and saw how high up it was, I realized he couldn’t have seen it from the back seat. He had to have heard it. Through traffic and the car radio – he heard and recognized an almost imperceptible sound of an airplane. He was about 12 months old.
The first times that he didn't echo me when asked questions. Example:
"Do you want pizza or chicken?"
"Pizza or chicken."
"Do you want pizza? Yes or no.”
“Yes or no.”
The first time he told me something that had happened when I wasn’t there – which came with no prompting whatsoever.
The first time, just last month, that he let himself be comforted by a stuffed animal toy (Curious George.)
The first time he drew a recognizable form -- Curious George’s face, as shown in detail in the DVD extras. (Being well-versed in children’s art, it had freaked me out more and more that he wasn’t meeting his age benchmarks in drawing. I didn’t need any other experts to screen him on that. Four years old and never has named a drawing, never has made an “early man”? He’s delayed somewhere. Later we find out that what looked like a lack of creativity and emotional awareness of others was mainly about difficulties in Motor Planning. That he so easily mastered drawing a monkey’s face in detail, when shown exactly step-by-step, really deciphered that for us.)
And today’s:
He shows me the book, “Curious George Goes To An Ice-Cream Shop” and says, pointing at the word “George,” something like he “saw George the steamroll.” Finally after trying 10 times, he says, “I’ll show you.” This in itself is a great advance: he knew he had it right and that it was Mama who didn’t understand something, not him. And he wasn’t giving up. He points to his new Thomas The Tank Engine video and says he saw “George the steamroll” on there. I acknowledge that he saw another gorge somewhere and that it is great he saw another George like Curious George. He shouts, “There he is! I saw him!” I saw nothing so I backed it up saying I wanted to see him too.
With only music playing, the video is flashing pictures of various engines etc on the Island of Sodor, each with their name in a box below their face. Under one machine that looks like a steamroller is the name plate “George.”
We’d never seen this machine in any story, never heard of a George in the Thomas stories, and no one ever said the name George to my knowledge in any of the shows. J. had recognized the word itself – G E O R G E.
Now, I’m not one of these parents bragging at the end of every mommy/toddler class about how this week he did calculus and reorganized the tool shed. But I still hold certain milestones as proof that he is growing, maturing, learning at his own pace and in his own directions. Today was one of those. After his first week in Kindergarten – which we decided, barely winning out over other options, to keep him in his therapeutic school one more year instead of a public school K – it was an extremely reassuring sign that he’ll be able to jump into a “regular” first grade class next year without being light years behind his age peers in academic skills.
And I wish that didn’t matter to me. But like most African-Americans, my family includes males of both success and failure. Uncles who taught college sociology, and cousins in jail as career criminals. Black women are more likely to bend and become twisted in the gale force winds of race, economics, and America. Black men are a coin toss: between becoming strong like oil turning to diamonds, or simply cracking like ancient trees eaten away inside by insects and time only to shatter like glass at hurricane force rains.
This Black male child will not be broken. It is my prayer. It is my dream. And if my heart dares to be honest, I’ll say it is the reason he came into my life: so that he and I may redeem our broken fathers, our broken brothers, uncles and cousins. To tip the scale back towards Success. Which I’ll define like Chris Gardner, author of The Pursuit Of Happyness, described the brokers he saw one day in a defining moment about setting his new goal in life:
“They all just looked so damn happy.”
Shiny, happy people. Seems like such a small thing, doesn't it?
When, sitting in the car seat, he suddenly shouts out “air-pwane!” When I looked around and saw how high up it was, I realized he couldn’t have seen it from the back seat. He had to have heard it. Through traffic and the car radio – he heard and recognized an almost imperceptible sound of an airplane. He was about 12 months old.
The first times that he didn't echo me when asked questions. Example:
"Do you want pizza or chicken?"
"Pizza or chicken."
"Do you want pizza? Yes or no.”
“Yes or no.”
The first time he told me something that had happened when I wasn’t there – which came with no prompting whatsoever.
The first time, just last month, that he let himself be comforted by a stuffed animal toy (Curious George.)
The first time he drew a recognizable form -- Curious George’s face, as shown in detail in the DVD extras. (Being well-versed in children’s art, it had freaked me out more and more that he wasn’t meeting his age benchmarks in drawing. I didn’t need any other experts to screen him on that. Four years old and never has named a drawing, never has made an “early man”? He’s delayed somewhere. Later we find out that what looked like a lack of creativity and emotional awareness of others was mainly about difficulties in Motor Planning. That he so easily mastered drawing a monkey’s face in detail, when shown exactly step-by-step, really deciphered that for us.)
And today’s:
He shows me the book, “Curious George Goes To An Ice-Cream Shop” and says, pointing at the word “George,” something like he “saw George the steamroll.” Finally after trying 10 times, he says, “I’ll show you.” This in itself is a great advance: he knew he had it right and that it was Mama who didn’t understand something, not him. And he wasn’t giving up. He points to his new Thomas The Tank Engine video and says he saw “George the steamroll” on there. I acknowledge that he saw another gorge somewhere and that it is great he saw another George like Curious George. He shouts, “There he is! I saw him!” I saw nothing so I backed it up saying I wanted to see him too.
With only music playing, the video is flashing pictures of various engines etc on the Island of Sodor, each with their name in a box below their face. Under one machine that looks like a steamroller is the name plate “George.”We’d never seen this machine in any story, never heard of a George in the Thomas stories, and no one ever said the name George to my knowledge in any of the shows. J. had recognized the word itself – G E O R G E.
Now, I’m not one of these parents bragging at the end of every mommy/toddler class about how this week he did calculus and reorganized the tool shed. But I still hold certain milestones as proof that he is growing, maturing, learning at his own pace and in his own directions. Today was one of those. After his first week in Kindergarten – which we decided, barely winning out over other options, to keep him in his therapeutic school one more year instead of a public school K – it was an extremely reassuring sign that he’ll be able to jump into a “regular” first grade class next year without being light years behind his age peers in academic skills.
And I wish that didn’t matter to me. But like most African-Americans, my family includes males of both success and failure. Uncles who taught college sociology, and cousins in jail as career criminals. Black women are more likely to bend and become twisted in the gale force winds of race, economics, and America. Black men are a coin toss: between becoming strong like oil turning to diamonds, or simply cracking like ancient trees eaten away inside by insects and time only to shatter like glass at hurricane force rains.
This Black male child will not be broken. It is my prayer. It is my dream. And if my heart dares to be honest, I’ll say it is the reason he came into my life: so that he and I may redeem our broken fathers, our broken brothers, uncles and cousins. To tip the scale back towards Success. Which I’ll define like Chris Gardner, author of The Pursuit Of Happyness, described the brokers he saw one day in a defining moment about setting his new goal in life:
“They all just looked so damn happy.”
Shiny, happy people. Seems like such a small thing, doesn't it?
1 comments:
Go J.!!!!
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