Glimpse Into A Three Year Old’s Mind

Posted on November 30, 2010 by thisnest

I was bathing D’Lo today, trying to comb out his beautiful abundance of curls that seem to prefer being dreadlocks. He likes to turn on the faucet to a very cold trickle, fill up one of his bath-time boats with that cold water, and then try to convince me that it’s coffee…I sip it while wearing a very satisfied (and completely faked, of course) expression as he waits for my opinion of his delicious concoction. I repeatedly drink cup after cup of this coffee while keeping the conversation flowing, in an attempt to distract him from the task at hand (combing and combing and combing).

Today was a little different. I still had my coffee but today was a first…today he began telling me about his dream. It took my some time and questions to figure what he was saying…especially when he started off by saying that the beach was cracking.

“The beach was cwacking…wemember? The beach was cwacking, Mama?”

He continued to tell me that he was scared and so he ran…and then the crab bit him…

“That cwab bited me, Mama.”

Then he said the pirate was trying to get him, yes, the pirate…but apparently I saved him…

“Then you was pinching that piwate, you was pinching him.”

The end…and then my little barista returned his attention to the trickling cold water, as I kissed the back of his tiny neck and refocused my own attention on the tangles in his fro 🙂

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Our Love’s Anthem

Posted on November 21, 2010 by thisnest

I love him, he loves me…

We raise up our beautiful family,

To know that they are God’s light.

That their infinite worth can be carried with pride.

That ignorant eyes and misguided mouths can be pushed aside…

Because their hearts are humanity’s hope.

That the past belonged to others, and the present is ours.

But the future glimmers all the potential of endless midnight stars…

and they are a part of that.

 

He loves me, I love him.

We fight the good fight and the battles we win,

By clinging to the truth.

That the heart knows more than the skin can say.

That the soul carries the burdens of a long ago day…

And that our bond is stronger than those.

That offended whispers don’t make us weak to the world,

Because our strength is the love of a boy and a girl…

That God made just for each other.

 

-Donna Sparrow

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Something In My Nose…

Posted on November 17, 2010 by thisnest

D’Lo, playing in the living-room…calls loudly to me in the kitchen:

“Maw-meee…Maw-meeeeeeeeee!”

“Yes, Baby?” I call back

“Maw-meeee…I got sunk-ting in my nose!”

“Well, come in here and let me see.”  I reply

He trots his cute, tiny, barely three year old frame into the kitchen and stops right in front of me, tilting his head back while I take a look.

“I don’t see anything, Baby.”  I say

“Well, ummmm, I tink it’s….it’s a beenana or sunk-ting!”

As I start to laugh out loud at his thought, a mischievous smile creeps across his face and he continues…

“No, no… I tink it’s a orange or sunk-ting!”

(Me, still laughing)

“No, no…it’s a diamond!”

…So apparently today, my baby boy had a banana, an orange and a diamond in his very small nose!

I love you, D’Lo!!!

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Yesterday’s Window #3…The Reason

Posted on November 9, 2010 by thisnest

The reason?  Yes, there is a reason we had to take custody of the boys…there are lots of reasons we took custody of the boys. They really begin to take shape a decade and a half earlier, when Tony was just a boy himself. Something changed for him. His mother, whom he loved with the big heart of a little boy, well, something changed for her. She met some friends, their names forever burned into his mind…Brenda and Sugar. Her new friends shared a little something with her, a little something that was quickly devastating inner-city Los Angeles, a little something that didn’t care if you were a young mother with a child that needed you, a little something called Crack-Cocaine.

The nightmare that ensued would violently shift Tony’s childhood memories from those of a loving, responsible, adoring mother who braided his hair nightly, and daily brought him home his favorite, fried shrimp, while on her lunch breaks from the bank she was employed by – to a strung out stranger, so far gone and mixing with the wrong people, that Tony once had to stand guard over her inside of a small closet, knife in hand, ready to defend her with his own life against a grown man who was equally as high. 

After nine years as an only child, being shifted back and forth between his mama who couldn’t, or wouldn’t, take care of him properly, and his Auntie, who proved to be the only constant in his young life, he was joined by a sister and, again, by two more brothers. It was then that quick trips to the market to get a loaf of bread turned into stretches of absent days, leaving him home alone to care for his young siblings. It was then that a young child learned to feed babies their bottles, and a young child learned to change diapers…and that same young child learned what it’s like to sit by the window for hours and days, wondering if the next car coming down the road would carry his mother back home to them.

In 1989, when an angry threat by family member finally promised the long-overdue intervention of Children’s Services, Tony’s mama gathered her younger (now four more) children and fled to her hometown of Meridian, Mississippi. Tony was left with his Auntie, again, and now without his little sisters or brothers. He graduated from high school, then to a local junior college, and then went on to a university in Missouri, but not before he would see his mother again, in Los Angeles. She was without the four children she took to Mississippi, but she had another in her womb, and she was still strung out. Heartbroken, confused, frustrated, angry…Tony threw a lot of words at her, the most painful of which – that she was no longer his mom.

A son’s bond with his mother is strong though. Stronger than anger, more enduring than drug abuse, and definitely cemented by the connections to little sisters and brothers. By the time Tony and I began our lives together at the University, his mother had brought into the world three more precious lives. Now, and with nine children and no fathers around to help out, Tony would spend his breaks from school visiting his mother, who now lived back in Mississippi. He would spend time with his siblings who were suffering the same fate that had claimed his own childhood. He would make promises to them. He would tell me about those promises…and in 1994, we would begin to fulfill those promises.

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Our Very Scary Today…

Posted on November 5, 2010 by thisnest

I knew immediately, by the silly ringtone, that the caller was my son. I was busy bathing the youngest two and, for a moment, thought about not answering the phone. Then, like a brick upside my head, I realized that he should be in class…he never calls me at this time of morning. I dried my hands as fast as I could and reached for my cell phone sitting on the bathroom counter next to us…

“Mom?” he asked, voice quiet as if he were sneaking the phone call.

“Yes, Baby, what’s going on?”

“I love you…” he continued…”we’re having a real lockdown and I don’t know what’s happening, but I wanted to tell you I love you. I have to get off the phone now.” his voice became rushed but somehow more quiet…and then he hung up.

The swelling of my heart at the sound of his first words was quickly replaced by confusion, then fear, then panic. I immediately, and before even getting out of the bath, started to text loved ones and prayer warriors…to ask for a flooding of prayer to cover Skyview High School and everyone inside…Dang it! My cell is too low on battery! I jump out of the tub, bringing a very wet one year old with me. We drip our way over to the desk, I plug in my charger and send out the text.

My mind snapped, at light speed, past the moments when other parents got the same type of message from their own children, the times when news crews gathered at public schools or universities to get a body count, because some bullied student or betrayed lover or mentally ill individual went on a shooting spree that claimed lives and destroyed families. My heart somehow mourned for them and worried about us simultaneously…

Just as I’m dialing my husband, he’s calling in to me as well. I answer.

“Is this for real?!” He demands nervously. I can hear the growling of the big motor under him as he drives his semi through traffic.

I told him about my short and scary conversation with our first born…our beautiful, handsome, athletic, funny kid with the world’s biggest smile.

“I don’t know anything else yet.”

“Well, you need to call him back…or text…something! Find out if he knows anything, if the police are there.” He stammers out his thoughts as sporadically as my own are swirling around in my head. “Call me right back, I need to know if I can go there.”

I know he’s already mentally planning his son’s rescue…I text Tony again and ask if he knows anything else and if the cops are there. He texts back:

We don’t know anything. The cops are outside.

I tried to text him twice more…no answer. My heart was still racing. I was praying with all my might. My three year old was still in my line of sight, playing in the bath, unaware of the troubling scenarios playing out in my mind. My one year old was still sitting, naked but dry now, in my arms as I tried to juggle the phone, TV remote, and computer keyboard…trying to find an answer. I looked over and out the window and saw a police car circle our block…

I’m still praying…Lord please, in Jesus mighty name, PLEASE keep every person inside that school safe right now. Whatever is happening there, big or small, place a hedge of protection around that building and around everyone in and around it…

It was another twenty minutes or so, maybe longer, I’m not sure…

What I am sure about, however, is that my child is safe tonight…our son is asleep in his bed, in our home, safe here with us. I know that my God is a good God…and I know that He was with my child today, with lots of people’s children today.

Three schools were locked down, including also the middle school that both of my lovely daughters and my precious niece attend – right next to the high school my son is a sophomore at. The police were in pursuit of a felon that was spotted running across one of the football fields, rumor is he had a gun. My daughter says that the suspect’s daughter goes to her school…I don’t know what his intention was.

The schools did just what they were supposed to do, to keep our children safe…and I thank them for acting so efficiently. The police took the suspect into custody…and my children came home to me, to us.

Thank You, Father, for today’s happy ending…

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