Flickr by lilybdcsa

I thought I’d take this “25 Random Things…” meme I’ve been getting from a bunch of my friends and put a BPC twist on it.

1. When Chocolate Thunda (my 3-year-old daughter) curses like a sailor (so far it’s just “sh#t” and “f*ck”) I have to hide my face in a pillow or look away because it’s hilarious to me.
2. Being called “Dad” or “Daddy” is about the best thing in life I can think of but hearing it 30 times in less than 5 minutes makes me want to pull my hair out… what’s left of it.
3. I know all the Top 40 hits because I can’t listen to hip-hop in my car anymore.
4. Thing One (my 8-year-old daughter) was being followed by two boys, probably about 10-years-old each, on bikes the end of last summer while the two of us were walking to a movie. I finally asked what they wanted, one got scared and rode away and the other said quickly and loudly to my daughter “You have pretty hair!” Then he high-tailed it. They must have seen the steam coming from my ears. NOT UNTIL SHE’S 21 PUNKS!!!
5. I don’t believe in spanking but I raise my voice way too often.
6. I hate playdates!
7. T-One is smarter (and tougher) than me and C-Thunda is tougher (and smarter) than me.
8. I have cried more since I turned 30 years-old than I did in the 30 years prior to that. Having daughters will make you sensitive.
9. Sons are so overrated. “Sigh”.
10. My stomach aches when they go back to their mom’s on her visitation time.
11. I know how to wash, condition, wet-set, braid, cornrow, flatten and curl.
12. I wish my daughters liked me as much as they like Blooregard Q. Kazoo.

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Flickr by 77krc

So daughter number one (Thing One or T-One) complained to me the other day that she had to do yet another paper on Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr. She then went on to explain how she’ll have to do a paper a year all the way up through middle school. Still being of single digit age, I doubt my daughter has any real understanding of King’s significance, especially in the Obama era.

I asked her what was wrong with writing a paper a year on King. She responded that she was running out of things to say. Mind you, each paper so far has been a one paragraph essay. She went on to explain, “All he did was help end segregation!” (As if that’s some small feat.)

My mother (The Duchess), who was in earshot, gasped. “All he did?” My mother grew up in the segregated south, participated in sit-ins and marched on Washington in ’63. So to her saying that s all King did was, well, a little disappointing. But my mom wasn’t so disappointed in my daughter. She was disappointed in me. Somehow I had dropped the ball in making my daughter aware of her history. Where we had been as people of color in this country and how far we had come.

“That little girl needs to know!”  [Read more →]