Mayhem and Magic

Crazy 8s Meme

Tagged by Blaine!

8 Things I'm Passionate About

My kids, my husband, my faith, my job, my extended family, adoptive parenting, blog reading, and book reading

8 Things I Want to Do Before I Die

see my kids grow up, change my job just a bit to do new things with my current job (vague, sorry), see my marriage grow and improve, quit my job (eventually!), take a photography course (love it, but not that good at it), grow my relationships with my siblings, find a church family that I feel totally united with.  Last one here is totally a dream, but who knows...  I'd like to take classes in reconciliation studies (kind of a sociology/economics/race relations/history thing).

8 Things I Say Often

"Let's move it, Crazies!"  "Hey!  Respect your brother's words!"  "How can you ask politely?" "Hush!" "You're my boy!" "Where are your shoes?" "Do you need to use the bathroom?" and "I love you!"

8 TV Shows I've Watched Recently

Hmmm...  Stargate Atlantis (Beloved and I are watching the first season together, except sometimes I don't watch the scary ones), Design on a Dime, Extreme Makeover (there was a marathon over Christmas sometime and I watched two episodes.  Made me feel ugly and discontented, so probably won't watch again.) 

I'm gonna change the meme a bit, just because, and make the last ones books I've read recently...

Three Cups of Tea by Greg Mortensen and David Oliver Relin, God of the Possible by Gregory A. Boyd, The Myth of a Christian Nation by Gregory A. Boyd, The American Dream and the Power of Wealth by Heather Beth Johnson, and I'm working on doing better at regular Bible reading again.

8 Songs I Would Listen To Over and Over

I'm going to change this one, too, and name 8 artists I'm listening to a lot lately...

KT Tunstall, Corrine Bailey Rae, Common, John Legend, John Mayer, Coldplay, Raffi and Sarah Hickman (last two are the boys' current favorites).   It's clear to me looking at this list that I do not have really sophisticated musical taste. 

8 Things That Attract Me to My Best Friends

Ooo...  Let's see...  My friends are gracious, hard working, humble (don't know everything and they're okay with that), un-self-conscious, generous, critical thinkers, accepting, and best of all kind enough to love me in spite of my flaws!

8 Things I've Learned This Past Year

I can't do it all, but I'll still do alright!  I think I've learned the same thing in about 8 different ways this last year! 

Christmas Meme

Krissy tagged me for a Christmas meme! 

(My boys, by the way, are now skeptical that Christmas is ever actually coming.  We've been talking about it and preparing for it for so long now (three weeks is pretty much forever for a preschooler), that now when we say anything about Christmas coming, they look at us like, "Whatever.  I'll believe it when I see it.")

1. What was your favorite gift you received as a child?

Hmmm, that's hard.  Goldfish?  My parents gave me two goldfish one year, plus a glass fishbowl and some marbles for the bottom.  The entire gift probably cost about $1.99.  I named them George and Martha.

Actually, my favorite "gift" that I received as a child is probably all my great memories of Christmas with my family, and lots of fun traditions that I can now do with my own kids.  Corny, yes.  But there it is.

2. What has been your favorite gift you've received as an adult?

I'm gonna change this one a little and tell you about a gift I gave. 

About seven years ago DVD players were still a bit of a new thing, and Beloved really wanted one.  But we were both in school and money was really tight.  I don't remember how I managed to find some extra money, but I bought him a DVD player and the movie Platoon.  When he unwrapped the movie, he said, "This is great!  Now someday when we can get a DVD player, I can actually watch it!"  And then I pulled out the DVD player.  Ta-dah!  He was really truly surprised and really truly pleased, which was so fun.

3. What is your wish for the future?

I would love to have more Christmas celebrations with our parents.  My official wish is for health and lots of time to enjoy with family!

Anti-Racist Parent Meme (Part 2 of 2)

(See here for Part 1.)

5. The family tradition I most want to pass on is: You mean, besides our basic values and our faith tradition?  Does the importance of education count as a tradition? 

My mom did a great job of making little things into something special, and I'd like to pass on some of those traditions.  There are lots of them.  For example, getting to chew gum when we turned three was a big deal.  So on Pumpkin's upcoming third birthday, our family will gather around his bed on his birthday morning to wake him up by singing, "Happy Birthday."  And at the end of the bed will be a gift, and it will be gum!  He knows he can have gum when he's three, so it will be really exciting!  Partly we do this for safety (no hard candy or gum until three years of age), but also because it's fun to make a milestone of it.

6. The family tradition I least want to pass on is:  I think my family of origin (immediate and extended families) are too quick to blow off more subtle racism.  This has gotten better, but maybe sometimes we're too conflict-avoidant, so it's more comfortable for us to ignore it.  When my boys tell me that they sense racism or they interpret racist attitudes as the source of tension or a comment or whatever...  I will believe them. 

7. My child's first word in English was:  This is really sad, but I'm not sure.  Other than Mama and Dada?  I think Sparkle maybe said, "Ball" (or maybe "Bawh") first.  One of Pumpkin's earliest words was "Baaaaah!", as in the sound a sheep makes.  He was very excited about it, and it was so funny.

8. My child's first non-English word was: Sparkle's was "more" in ASL.  He did lots of signing, which he still remembers, but Pumpkin was never interested.  Pumpkin's first non-English word was "boca" because we'd say "Abra la boca!" to him a lot when we fed him.

9. The non-English word or phrase most used in my home is: probably "Kgothatso."  This is Sparkle's name from his first mom.  It's a Tswana name.  We often call both boys by the names their first moms gave them, but for some reason we use Sparkle's more than Pumpkin's.  (Here is a link to more background on Sparkle's name and Pumpkin's name.)

10. One thing I love about being a parent is:  the sweet and funny things my kids say every single day.  Tonight Pumpkin took my face in his little hands at bedtime, pulled my face close, looked into my eyes and said very seriously, "Mama, I lud'jew all da times.  All da times, I lud'jew."  And last week, when I was blustering around trying to quickly deal with a small toilet training crisis (will it never end?), Sparkle stood in the bathroom door and told me, "I love you, Mama, even when we have a poop problem!"  (I think he was copying our pattern of telling him we love him even when we're upset or when he's upset about something.  You know, like, "Sparkle, we always love you, even when you're feeling cranky!")

11. One thing I hate about being a parent is: how bottomless their need for our time and attention is.  I wish we had the energy to be at our 100% best and most engaged with them all the time, but we don't.

12. To me being an anti-racist parent means: I like what Heather said about teaching our kids that it's the world that is crazy; they are not crazy.  It also means searching myself for wrong attitudes toward other people and choosing to change them.

I'd like to tag Blaine, Christine, Krissy, and Leigh!   

Anti-Racist Parent Meme (Part 1 of 2)

Cloudscome at Sandy Cove Trail, Heather, and several others have inspired me to do this meme from Anti-Racist Parent.  I'm not a great "meme-er," but this is a good one.  It's long though, so I'm going to split it into two parts. 

This blog is also a year and a half old now, so I have included a number of links within the blog to past posts that discuss some of the topics brought up by the meme or by my answer.

1. I am: a white woman.  I think my genetically related relatives are mostly Swedish and Dutch.  My extended family is mostly from Minnesota now, where there are lots of Swedish and Norwegian folks.  We ate lots of lefse, frut sup, and lutefisk, especially around Christmas time.

2. My kids are: African American.  They are transracial adoptees and soon to be grown up Black men in the United States.  Sparkle is four years old, and was five months old when we met him in South Africa.  Pumpkin is almost three years old, and was three weeks old (but still an itty bitty 31 week gestation baby) when I met him in Indianapolis.

3. I first started thinking about race, culture, and identity when: I took a course on social justice in college.  My immediate family is a transracial adoptive family, but I was born to my parents.  So it's sad that I wasn't thinking about race and identity earlier.  Actually, the experience of growing up in an adoptive family really shaped my current thinking and my choices as a parent.  But it wasn't until young adulthood that I realized how much privilege my whiteness gave me.  I think it was in this college class that I was first introduced to the idea of "honorary whiteness" and thought, "Holy crap, I've been thinking of my brother and sister as honorary whites!  What the...?!?!" From then on, I think my radar for issues of race, culture, and identity has been up.  I've learned a lot, but clearly I'm still working on myself, and hopefully letting other people's experience work on me!

4. People think my name is: Amanda.  And they're right.  Many people don't know that I kept my original last name, because it's not hyphenated with Beloved's last name.  But it's in there!  And it's important to me.

(Part 2 later this weekend!  I bet you're just on the edge of your seat!)

Seven Things

Heather tagged me for a meme!  Whoo-hoo!  Hmm, seven random or little-known things about me...

1.  I am the oldest of four kids.  I was born to my parents, but our family (my parents and sibs) is a transracial adoptive family.  My brother and sister are both amazing people, and as adult transracial adoptees, they are fabulous resources for us.  Sometimes I wish I could share more of their stories, but I am reluctant to write much about them on a blog without their specific permission.

2.  Beloved and I dated for four years before we ever kissed.  I used to be a little embarrassed about that, because we were so sweet and naive.  But we ended up with a great marriage, and it was the right choice for us.

3. I want a big, BIG house.  I've really tried not to want a big house, but I just do.  Like 4,000 to 5,000 square feet.  I want space for a dedicated playroom, office, formal dining, guest room, laundry room, and fitness room.  I feel badly about wanting all this space that I don't need.  Obviously, many people in U.S. and around the world live without it, and as far as world resources go, our family clearly uses more than our fair share.  Most of the time I am content (our house is about 2,800 square feet, so not tiny).  But I cruise real estate listings and check online home tours kind of often.

4. Through college I was closer to the older of my two brothers than to my other siblings.  He and I are only 16 months apart in age, so we seemed to have a lot in common.  He was always better than me at everything, though, and that was annoying.  I'm mostly over my bitterness now.  (Mostly.)  (Just kidding, I'm over it.)  (Really.)  Now I'm closest to my sister, and she is truly a dear friend.  She is the sweetest, strongest, funniest woman I know.

(She married a wonderful man last month, and this is a picture from their wedding reception.  She's pretty cool, huh?)

5.  I love children's shoes.  Generally, the boys don't have much clothing that cost more than $10 per item.  They wear out clothing so fast, it just doesn't seem worthwhile to spend much money on expensive clothes.  But shoes...  Oh, the shoes.  They had Robeez when they were babies, and since then See Kai Run, Jumping Jacks, and Stride Rite among others.  This summer they each have Keens and Crocs. 

6. Someday I'd like to be a student again.  Occassionally I think about going to pharmacy school, but I'm sure I won't.  But I'd like to just hunt through a college course catalog and register for a class here and there that interests me.

7. I hate potlucks.  Growing up in the midwest, I went to many potlucks.  As an adult, I hate going somewhere and having to bring food with me.  I am happy to cook for personal guests in our home, but at potlucks it all just goes on a table, and all the food is so random.

If you desperately want to know more about me, try this "101 Things" post from a while ago.  And thanks, Heather, for a fun meme!