Lucy's Kindergarten Class

This morning 5 1/2 year old Lucy told me about a kid in her class who told her last week that a woman can’t marry a woman.  Just as she did in preschool and daycare, she said that she told her friend that’s not true because her mommy and momma are married and she was at their wedding and that she knows marriage is between two adults, a woman and a woman, or a woman and a man, or a man and a man.  She said that her friend told her that her parents’ marriage is not legal, and, this morning, she said, “I know you’re married, and it is legal, right?”

I simply said yes, your parents are legally married.  Otherwise, I would’ve answered her with all of the complications that involve lack of equal rights for our family.  Sure, it’s legal here in California, a handful of other states, and a short list of countries.  No, it’s not legal according to our country’s federal government, a long list of other states, and a long list of other countries.

The first time, that I know of, that she ever responded to the question of why she doesn’t have a dad, or the challenge of “a woman can’t marry a woman,” was when she was a toddler in daycare and one of her friends asked her why she doesn’t have a dad.  She was barely 2 years old, if that, and she told her friend “I have a mommy, momma, and wanda, and you have a mommy, daddy, and dog, and you are missing a momma and a wanda and I am missing a daddy and a dog, so everyone’s missing something.”

Sometime last fall or winter, when Moya and I were in Lucy’s classroom, one of her classmates asked us if we were sisters or cousins.  We said, no, we’re married to each other, we aren’t sisters or cousins.  The kid responded with surprise, “no way! Two women can get married?!”  We shrugged and said yes and left it at that.  The kid seemed happy to know it was a possibility.

I’m glad that Lucy’s figured out on her own to stand up for herself and answer questions about her family as though she’s simply reporting on the weather and I hope she always feels that confident about her family.

make pancakes for our daughter

wake up our daughter

make lunch and pack it in our daughter’s lunch box/bag

remind our daughter to finish eating her breakfast

take a shower

get dressed

look in mirror (sometimes I forget about this part)

remind our daughter to get dressed and stop reading books and playing with toys

brush our daughter’s hair and continue reminding her to get ready

point to the clock and say, “you only have 5 minutes left before we’re leaving for school!”

check email/facebook/twitter in those 5 minutes

walk daughter to school (unless my wife drops her off)

sometimes stay at her school for their “morning circle” of all the kids and teachers and staff

go to work via public transportation and/or walking

do work that makes money and pays taxes

txt my wife throughout the day

chat with my friends at the office

try not to forget to eat lunch

remember to return the library books

wonder what we can make for dinner and try to remember what’s in the fridge

do work that makes money and pays taxes

pickup daughter from school (unless my wife picks her up)

make dinner and cocktails

maybe, just maybe, get a chance to chat with my wife in between requests from our daughter

make a bath for our daughter and help her get ready for bed

catchup on email/facebook/twitter while she’s in the bath

fold laundry while she’s in the bath

play piano

read books to our daughter

my wife helps our daughter get to sleep at night

read a book, read various news sites, watch a movie, make food for the next day, make lists like this one

kiss my wife

sleep

repeat

(In previous post there’s the text of an email sent to me from a pastor of a church which references the church not affirming a “homosexual lifestyle”)

When I was a kid I was afraid of the dark and afraid of whatever lived (according to my imagination) in the trees near our house.

I’m still afraid of the dark and also afraid of the political and environmental state of the world.  Maybe that’s what Lucy doesn’t know yet.

Lucy near her great-grandma's grave in Hopewell, Oregon (March 2009)

After Martin Luther King day this year, Lucy talked about death and how we communicate with and remember dead people.  She wanted to know why a dead person’s birthday is celebrated (MLK) if the dead person isn’t around to eat cake and blow out candles.  Then she wanted to know if we could celebrate her great-grandma’s birthday (since we celebrate MLK’s birthday) and asked if she could send her a letter telling her that she loves her and misses her.  I was stumped — have her write a letter and send it to the cemetary?

I asked for suggestions on Twitter and Facebook (because everyone knows that the answer to any question is on the internet).  I got some great ideas from my brilliant friends (who I didn’t identify here to protect privacy, but if anyone wants attribution for their idea, just poke/ping me):

• Write the letter and save it. I kept a journal as a kid to keep my neighbor up to date when he died suddenly.
• Since she’s already felt it in her heart, she’s already sent it
• The cemetery might work, and you can call first and let them know it’s coming so it wouldn’t be returned to sender. If Lucy’s already ok with the concept that greatgrandma is “dead”, you could address it to the http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Dead_letter_office
• Maybe you could say that when her greatgrandma died, her body went away but she’s still around in spirit because of how much she loved her family, kind of like how Lucy can feel your love for her even if you’re not in the same room. Since she doesn’t get mail any more, the way to send her a letter is to write it out and then burn it and when the smoke rises up, Lucy’s message will be carried to that place where her greatgrandma can read it.
• 1. Mail it to her with no return address. Greatgrandma c/o The AFTERLIFE 2. Go to the beach or some place special and read the letter out loud to her and then burn it or bury it
• Be pragmatic and tell her the truth — that life is without meaning and there is no point in anything…just kidding :-)
• Oh Lucy I wish we could write to the dead but they are gone so they cannot get mail, but we can always keep them in our thoughts and deeds, like Dr King. And in a way they are always with us.
• Ask her if she remembers what it was like before she was born. Tell her that’s where Grandma is.
• I like the idea of her writing an actual letter. Maybe you could find a place meaningful to share it? My mom and stepdad have two trees (one for his mother, one for one of his daughters) and my mom has a birdbath as their spots. Maybe Lucy can find something that becomes a sharing spot and a box she/you can make that is her mailbox. That way, she can write the letter, she knows her grandmother won’t literally receive it, but if she can symbolically send it.
• I also like the idea of her writing the letter. But I’d hold onto it in case she wants to see it later. No point lying about doing that either. Perhaps you can say “You should write the letter and when you are happy with the words, we’ll put it in a special place and if the letter can get to her, it will. Someday you can go back and look at them too. The important thing is what you want to say and how you feel because even if your great grandma gets the letter, she can’t just write back.”
• It’s a lovely idea to write the letter and then save it for her to read later. If she really wants to send it……then I guess you have to be honest and tell her that nobody really knows where people go after they die. It’s one of the great mysteries of life.

As of today the letter hasn’t been written and she hasn’t brought it up again, but Lucy remembers everything and I know she’ll ask about it again soon.

I get the best advice from the internet.

My hair is a jacket for my ears.

Sometimes I have to just close my eyes so I can think.

I’m not yelling, I’m whining.

She’s a keeper.

This morning on our walk to school the sidewalk was crowded with all of her imaginary friends.  There were 100 blinking lights in different colors  everywhere all around us, and I learned that they go to space and back and they walk by blinking.  Alice was also with us.  She always wears same clothes, pink dress and pink pants, because she doesn’t have a home, and she doesn’t need to wear rainboots or a rainjacket because the rain doesn’t touch her. Even though she’s older than Lucy, she’s the same height.

All of these imaginary friends, Alice and the blinking lights, are allergic to grownups so grownups can’t see them.  Even 9-year-old’s can’t see them because 9-year-old’s are almost grownup.

I asked Lucy if she was ever an imaginary person and she said, “I’m not a person. I’m 4 things – cat, shark, sloth, dinosaur, but not a person. My friend Oscar is a vampire.  He’s not a person either, just a vampire. I’m a cat because I  can lap up water out of a bowl and swallow it.  I’m a shark because I can swallow an orange slice without chewing it. I’m a sloth because I can hang upside down without falling.  I’m a dinosaur because my feet stomp loudly on the ground. I’m not not not a person. Sometimes I’m a person, but not today.”

never ever ever ever going to school (463kb mp3 file)

“after tomorrow or after that day, or after that day, or after that day, or after that day, never ever ever ever going to school, not even once, so I’m not going to school, I’m not going to school, I’m just going in the car”

photo by Flickr user Stewf

Towards the end of each year, since becoming parents, Moya and I have wondered what to give to the people who teach and take care of our daughter.   In 2005 I asked my favorite former elementary school teacher for suggestions.  She gave me this hilarious compendium:

Here are some of my favorites:
- a letter from a family stating specifically the things I had done that made an impact on their child and/or their family
- gift cards to stores that I use to get things for my classroom (most of these things come out of the teacher’s own pocket).  These would include bookstores (!!! big one !!!), grocery stores, and teaching supply stores.
- movie and restaurant passes, and gift cards for anywhere
- food!  includes chocolates and anything else… at the holidays you need to have stuff around for others, so if you love it you can hide it and eat it all yourself, and otherwise you can share with guests or fellow teachers

Things I would suggest you NOT get (although I can’t imagine you doing these things, but I have gotten multiples of everything on this list!):
- candles
- candles
- candles
- hand lotions in strong smelling scents (who knows what scent another might hate?)
- candles
- bath salts from a strange dad in your class (okay, that only happened once)
- candles
- kleenex (also only once)
- candles
- a free massage from the licensed massage therapist mom in your class – too weird for me, and I never redeemed  (she didn’t learn though, and gave the first grade teacher the same thing the next year)
- candles
- large heavy statues of things like water fountains, angels, and children playing
- candles

Any more suggestions for what to give or not give to all the amazing people who work at our kid’s school?