A World Shattering May

Mali ~

Another month in quarantine lockdown(ish). It's been interesting, staying home for the most part and venturing out towards the end of the month just a little bit more.

As you can see from the photo below, we all started to get a little stir crazy. As I shared this picture on social media with the caption..."This is my husband, but not my dog or my driveway" LOL

One group that is definitely making out like bandits with all of us being home with not much to do are the squirrels. They've been a huge source of my entertainment as I experiment with different things to feed them and as they begin bringing me more of them (as in number of squirrels and other, ahem, "accessories" as you can see in the fourth picture below. Oh my! 🙈

apples and peanut butter

now there are two squirrels that come by for snacks

someone brought his own nuts to the party...
we named him "Monty", as in The Full Monty

The rest of the animals are continuing to enjoy having their humans around as well.

I swear Lucky thinks he is a dog

I mean, seriously...can this get any cuter?

a rare sighting of all 5 pets on the couch taking a nap

and Suzy is still acting very strange...it's hit or miss
with her refusing to go outside without her mama ~
here she's even declining a WALK with Dad. WTH?!

The dogs have also decided they thoroughly enjoy Lao Lao's backyard. 

I mean...really enjoy it!

Since haircuts are still a bit iffy in salons right now...we decided to cut Daddy's hair at home before he went insane from its unruly length.

the whiskey is for me...the clippers are for you

you did an amazing job for your first time as a barber!

trust me...he liked it!

hahaha

isn't he handsome? #freshhaircutvibes

you helped me get in on the grooming game by
assisting with plucking my "beard" ~ thanks, man!

chilling in the garage with your dad while we watch a storm roll in

You, Lao Lao, and Daddy also surprised me with a sweet Mother's Day dinner and gifts. 

Grizz is clearly more interested in the dinner than the picture

More time home means more time helping Lao Lao with her new home. You have thoroughly enjoyed pitching in and helping clear her yard of brush, dig out old paver stones so she can create her garden, and help build her raised bed garden. You love a good power tool.

that brush pile was HUGE

you dug out all of those paver stones all by yourself!

Your theatre teachers surprised us on one of the rainy days at the end of the school year to hand-deliver a gift bag and award for most improved crew member to you. It was the sweetest thing for them to take the time to drive to each of the kids' homes and make it as special as they could since you couldn't hold the usual end of the year party. Have I told you how grateful I am that you have such sweet teachers who truly care about the kids in their care?

#dramateachersrock

By the end of the month, I began letting up on restrictions a bit and allowed you to have a couple hang-out times with friends. You were over the moon to see Bryden for a meet-up at the park, and you also adored being able to have Jos over to the house for a while. I'm so grateful you have such good-hearted friends.

While the beginning of the month brought happiness, the end of the month brought a lot of heartbreak and is bringing the country (and world) to its knees. To be honest, this awareness and attention and action has been needed for decades, centuries, really. Even though there's a lot of turmoil right now, I'm grateful that it's brought about some wonderful conversations between you and me. 

It's impossible to sum this up adequately, but I will try to bumble through. Essentially, and not sugarcoating at all, the ongoing murders of people of color throughout our country by their fellow community members and, in particular, law enforcement officers has been a pandemic of its own, long before Covid-19. I'm not going to rehash each and every incident that has happened lately as there is no definitive beginning to the ongoing emergency that has enveloped our country in the rallying cry of Black Lives Matter. Just Google Black Lives Matter and 2020. You will begin to understand and fill in the gaps of what your memory will not capture during this tumultuous time in our history.

Since I am writing this into June, for the last few weeks I have been immersing myself in learning more about current events, then diving back into history to attempt to understand the generational pain and trauma that have been carried and are still being carried,  culminating in yet another tipping point in US history. The next step in the long-raging battle for civil rights. This deep and long-standing pain is being displayed in protests, marches, riots, and urgent pleas and demands to the powers that be to finally listen and dismantle the U.S.'s system of a delusion of white supremacy and ultimately, truly see and (most importantly) treat people of color as equal.

All I can honestly say is..."white supremacy is an insidious, stubborn, raging bitch, Mali". It truly is. 

Rewinding a bit to May 28th, you came into my room around 11pm after you'd been watching various Tiktokers and YouTubers. Your soulful eyes looked at me in all seriousness and you asked, "Mom, what is happening in Minneapolis?" And so began the first of (hopefully many) serious, adult, and heartbreaking conversations with you about what happened with George Floyd, racism, white supremacy, police brutality, Black Lives Matter, protesting, marching, and how to be a caring supportive, anti-racism advocate. We continued our conversation the next day as I showed you a video of Don Lemon (of CNN) talking about his take, as a man of color, on this incident. You expressed concern about some of your best friends, Jelysa and Jeffrey. We cried together. You reached out and sent them a text to tell them how awesome you think they are. We talked some more. We discussed many of the different ways we can be activists and take action to end this type of thinking and these types of incidents. How to show up and speak out when needed. You showed me a Tiktok video where they had compiled information on some of the most recent victims of police brutality. We talked about how your peers are becoming involved through the reach of social media, getting informed and taking action. We talked about how important protests are and how marching can be like praying with your feet. And then we sat together. Overwhelmed and in silence for a bit. Just sitting with our feelings. We continued our conversation about all of the many ways in our daily lives that we can continue this activism by being informed and aware, by speaking out, by showing up, and by taking action for yourself and others when appropriate. 

It was a lot. But...I got this text from you on one of the following mornings...

I love waking up to texts like this.

So, there *is* a bright side, right?

To be honest with you, I don't have a bright, shiny bow to wrap on this blog entry. This is heavy stuff. It's a lot to carry. As a person of color yourself, you will be directly affected by this. You already have been. And as your parent, it's part of my job to give you the tools to be prepared. These conversations are just one of the ways I am trying to do that.

But I will say that, in these conversations you once again showed me the incredible, empathic human that you are and are becoming and I could not be more proud of you. You blow me away, kid.

Love,
Mama

This Unexpected Quarantine Isn't All Bad...Not At All, Really

Mali~

As we march or hum or stumble or simply crawl along through this period of lockdown and quarantine...I figure I will just share little snapshots of our days. Many days feel like a replay of the day before, reminiscent of that movie from the 80's - Groundhog Day, but the days where I allow myself to dive in and reflect on my inner-workings, those days are vastly different. Alas, that is hard to show in a picture and also hard to describe in your kid's blog. So, I'll just stick with these pictures for now.

Grizz likes to hold her sticks like cigars

the cat that thinks he's a dog (chewing on a dog toy)

my first homemade cinnamon bread from scratch ~ so good!

as I finally was able to set up my new work station at home...
the cats are infinitely pleased that I enjoy open doors and fresh air
during that work day - I just need one more stool...

they also enjoy napping while I work...I call this
"hump day nap train" (it was a Wednesday)

walking through the neighborhood has turned into
an art show of sorts

ha, funny and helpful reminder

and you may be growing up and turning into a moody
teen, but, there are still glimmers of childhood peeking through
(note, Silky is always close during home school time) 

And speaking of all of this growing up that you are so intent to do these days...the following is a little snippet of what I shared on Facebook as we navigate both new experiences of quarantine and also this liminal period between childhood and teen-dom:

Growing independence. Pulling away. Spending more time w friends. More hours in their room. Needing more privacy. Asking me to knock on their door, now. Being embarrassed by my mere existence sometimes. This is where we are now. And it's normal. It's healthy for a tween/teen to be in the middle of this phase. Becoming even more of their own person. Needing to separate from Mom and Dad. I see pictures and videos of when they were tiny and they needed me for so much more and still thought that Dad and I were kinda cool. Sometimes I get sad. But, it's a good sad. It just means that I've thoroughly enjoyed being a part of this human's life from the word go. It can be challenging to learn how to be a parent of a tween/teen. Like it's a whole new animal that we need to form a relationship with and earn/keep its trust. It's an interesting, somewhat rocky phase of this life. So, forgive me if I got a little more excited than normal this morning when they asked me to make them strawberry banana pancakes. Instead of the sigh, shrug or eye-roll so common nowadays, they actually *wanted* me to "mom" again in one of the old familiar ways. It seems small. It felt big. This quarantine has got me in all the sticky, deeper feels lately. Guess this is what happens when we are forced to pause and think and feel. Definitely not a bad thing. I just might miss it when we go back to "life as usual".

#silverwareisoverrated #coronavirus #stayathome #family #tweens

no matter how old you get...I will always
be up for making you pancakes

we've had a new visitor during quarantine...his
name is Howard and he likes nuts

Holidays during this lockdown are going to be strange. Hopefully, Easter will be our only one, but who knows!? We made the best of it, though. Easter egg hunts and copious amounts of candy were not missed.

#sugarcoma

can you spot the kitty in the corner / mess of blankets?

my friend sent me a gift during quarantine...
a naughty coloring book and pencils

we social distance visited with Audrey and just before this, we
had done a drive-by "wave and dance" on Avery's front lawn

quarantine can't stop my bluebells from blooming

Howard is getting bolder...showing up each morning
at 8am looking for breakfast

the doormat / cats combo made me giggle
(seems like a trap, no?)

more artwork on the trail...the art show continues

we even decided to get in on it and leave a thank you
note for all of our delivery drivers 

making new friends during quarantine has been interesting

This entire lockdown has been full of fits and starts, up-time and down-time, mundane to lots of change, all in short amounts of time. Or so it seems. Time seems relative lately, and that's not always a bad thing. It's hard to explain. The good, the bad, the up, the down, the happy, the sad, the busy, the boring...all of it has its place.

I suspect the weather may have a lot to do with how active or inactive we feel...there was one 24 hour period that was fuller than most. On this particular day, you learned to mow the lawn, baked your first solo batch of brownies from scratch (they were delicious), and helped Dad dig up tree stumps for 2 hours(!) to help him clear out the giant, chaotic, overgrown area behind our patio. Out of nowhere, you surprised me with your fortitude and tenacity. It turns out that you like helping in the yard and doing this type of hard work. I had no idea. You are always surprising me, kiddo.

Speaking of hard work, Lao Lao has been busting her butt in her new home. As I was walking by one night, I stopped to take some pictures because the way the evening sunlight was hitting it was spectacular. It may sound funny, but this house has just started beaming with a warm and cozy glow since Lao Lao moved in and started putting her love into it. Is that weird? I don't think so. See for yourself.

the proud homeowner

Along with working on home projects and such, we also put together a few silly videos for ourselves and a surprise video message for Stacy's birthday. 

T-Bone and Captain Sexy wished Stacy a Happy Birthday!

this is the picture we sent our neighbor Mike when
he missed the ring at his doorbell
(this is his deck - LOL!)

it was hard to get back to work after making
such a fun video, so I decided to keep my
fancy costume on for a bit longer

The below screenshot is from the video we uploaded to YouTube. Re-discovering Michael Franti's music has been a soothing balm on my soul. The song, "This World Is So Fucked Up But I Ain't Ever Giving Up On It" is such a good one for the current times in which we find ourselves living and it has become an anthem of sorts for me during this quarantine.

Michael Franti (the amazing artist and human being behind this song) even took notice on Instagram and enjoyed our performance. How cool is that?!

He even shared it in his own IG story!

You and Daddy have gotten to spend some nice one on one time together as well. Fishing at sunset has been your latest activity of choice.

clever photo trick!

Slowly but surely, day by day, we are making it through this quarantine/lockdown. Such a strange time in our family's (our country's!) history, but also a time filled with opportunity and a slower pace which has brought surprise blessings as well. Nothing is ever all bad and I am definitely finding the silver linings in this scary but unexpectedly calming and re-centering experience.

Love,

Mama