Friday, my son brough this picture home from school along with his other artwork for the week. He is only four and a half and I've never seen him draw anything this interesting. I was excited for about half a minute at the prospect of him having had a brain spark that completely improved his drawing skills in five days, but then I noticed the numbers beside the picture. Seven digits.
I showed the picture to Zee...
Me: Zack, did you draw this picture?
Zee: No, mom. My friend [I'll call him Tee] drew this picture for me. He told me to show it to you. That way you can call his mom and we can have a play date.
Amused, and feeling a little competitive I asked him how old the boy was.
Me: How old is Tee?
Zack: Five and three quarters.
That made me feel better about Zack's limited drawing skills. I remain confident that by the time he is almost six, he will have added more subjects to his artwork other than the sun, stick people and jellyfish in groups of three. Always three jellyfish. I know each child is different and you're not supposed to compare, yada yada yada, but it happens. Moving on.
Zack: He's leaving the primary room and going to kindergarten soon and I won't see him everyday anymore. So you have to call his mom so I can know him still.
Me: Okay.
My son has been at this Montessori school since he was eighteen months old. Every year, he was either the only boy in the class of African heritage or one of two. I don't feel any kind of way about it. It's the nature of where we live. Also other world cultures are represented among his classmates and teachers (his is Hungarian), and that's a kind of diversity, so I'll take it. He has mentioned the fact that he is "brown" and everyone else is "white" about three times in reference to his school friends. The fact that he would verbalize such a thing at such a young age is what encourages me to keep him active in Mocha Moms Inc. events. Innately everyone wants to feel like part of a group, right? Of course he plays with everybody, but when it's time to say goodbye, where he usually shakes hands with his other classmates or hugs them, he gives the brown one a little more love. For whatever reason. Admittedly, when I first moved to Austin from Memphis I wanted to hug every black person I saw too. lol
Zack had told me all about his new friend already. I suspect Tee is happy to see a brown person too (he's biracial), because he breaks his neck to get to me to say hi when I have picked Zack up from the playground after school. My suspicion is based on experience, because Zack's close friend who is also older and biracial, would do the same thing. I ran into that friend's mom at the school one day and we shared a laugh because our boys were always together after school and the other kids would always tell the wrong black boy that his mom had arrived. I digress.
Having a picture and a number sent my way is definitely a first. I haven't called the mom yet, but black or white, as long as she's cool, we're cool. I'm sure we will share a laugh too.
Quel, I love your blog and follow it about as often as I can. I am here in the Austin area and thought I'd let you know that I have placed a link to your blog onto mine. If that's an internet no no or something please let me know. I'm new to this thing. Just thought I'd reach out. You can check out the blog to decide if it's your thing or not..
www.howieandthehamiltons.blogspot.com
Posted by: D. Hamilton | September 21, 2012 at 11:58 AM
Thank you! I'm always appreciative of linky love. I will definitely visit your e-place ASAP. Thanks for reading!
Posted by: Quel | September 26, 2012 at 03:20 AM