We had one of the nicest days yesterday. Our sitter invited us to her church to hear her and her three brothers play in the chorus/band. Her church is maybe 65% Rwandan (where she is from) and 25% neighborhood Mainers and then the rest of the folk. The minister is Hispanic. The chorus is all high school and college age Rwandan boys belting out their joy, along with two young women. My sitter’s father is the co-preacher–who misinters in his language-Kinyarwanda. The other minister has his sermon translated into Kinyarwanda by one of the young men. The songs were in English and Spanish. We felt totally welcomed and not judged. We blended in with so much ease. There were several Black families there, who I imagine would identify as African American. Many of them had at least one white family member. After the service the boys gravitated towards my boys, and invited them up to jam. Today we talked about our experience there in terms of Dr. King’s legacy of peace and brotherhood.
Then today I went to one of those indoor adventure places–and watched my children unravel completely when I refused to let them do the bumper cars a second time (for another five minutes for $10.00!). It is so ridiculously hard to say no and stick to it when your children are screaming, crying and spitting at you. It is so hard to not cave in when they wedge themselves between climbing walls and exterior doors and scream that you are the worst mother ever. Of course that is when you absolutely can’t give in. But now, we’re home, and exhausted, but at least we know we put our lack of money where our mouth is, and that we can have lots of fun for free right here. Puzzle anyone?
Speaking of money. I have decided to resurrect my paypal button, in honor of all the free and great work I am doing around my “I can talk about race (in the classroom)” workshop. Maybe the school systems can’t pay me, but I believe there is a wealthy benefactor out there who is going to believe that this work is worthy of support. Or you can just make a contribution because you love this blog, and know you’d pay $5.00 for it once a month if you had to. Or save your money and go ride the bumper cars at your mall for five minutes, and spit at your mother afterwords for free! Kidding.
Oh, I love spitting days. I’m glad to hear I am not the mother lucky enough to have those on occasion. I don’t mind the indoor jungle gym at that mall place, because at least you get to spend an hour for the $5, as opposed to five minutes.
🙁 Sounds like a rough day. I hope you’ve been able to do something to help yourself recover after all that excitement. I actually find it easier not to cave in when they get to that point, but early on in my nanny-ing days I learned that either you’re the boss or you’re not. But boy, those are tough moments.