WordSisters

Category: Raising children

  • The Importance of Friends

    Oliver and Antonio
    Oliver and Antonio

    Before Antonio’s soccer game, I told him that we wouldn’t be able to stay after the game. He groaned. Two days ago we stayed late giving him a chance to play with his friends on the field. They took turns shooting the soccer ball into the net with one of them guarding. I enjoyed watching his fun and he relished playing with his two friends.Every parent wants their child to have friends and I was delighted watching Antonio with his.

    Today, after Antonio’s soccer game his friend Oliver asked if Antonio could stay and play. “My parents will bring him home,” he said. Antonio’s eyes shone when I said, “Yes”, and he quickly became so immersed in his soccer playing that he couldn’t hear Jody saying goodbye to him.

    Nattie, Crystel, Ally
    Nattie, Crystel, Ally

    Antonio is interested in soccer this year because that is what his friends are doing during recess at school. I was shocked when both he and Crystel said they wanted to join the spring recreational league. For years, they had shown no interest.

    His coach this year, remembered Antonio when he was four years old playing soccer at YMCA.

    I sighed.

    “Antonio was more interested in sitting on your lap then playing soccer,” I said to the coach.

    The next time he played soccer he was six years old and he would come off the field during a play and say, “Crissy you go in for me.”

    Crystel and Gabby
    Crystel and Gabby

    “Antonio she not only isn’t on your team,” I said. “She’s not even signed up for soccer.” Still, no one seemed to care when she bounded on the field taking his place.Children’s friendships are important to parents. Once in a while a parent will comment that they hope their children keep the same group of friends throughout all of their school years. “It’s a great group of kids,” they will say.

    Jacob and Antonio
    Jacob and Antonio

    I must confess that I wasn’t prepared for the mother who wondered if Antonio would date her daughter-espeically since her daughter and Antonio were only in preschool. I’m sure she meant it as a compliment, but I hadn’t taken that leap in my mind yet.

    Now that the kids are ten years old, I allow myself to wonder about that occasionally.

    I am interested to see who they gravitate to in their friendships and in their ‘special’ relationships. They were both born in Guatemala and are being raised by two white women in an English speaking household. Are they drawn towards Hispanics or whites in their friendships? Who will they choose for a partner?

    Tinsae and Antonio
    Tinsae and Antonio

    Both Antonio and Crystel are attending a Spanish dual language school. This helped them be comfortable around Hispanics. I used to have to remind them that they were brown and Hispanic which is why they needed to learn Spanish.

    This past winter when the cold seemed like it would never end and they were whiny, I asked them if they would like to move to a warmer climate. They both immediately said, “No.” Their friendships have become that deep.

    I have been happy to observe that they have friends who are of mixed races, white, Hispanic, and African American. They are friends with children from divorced families, families with only one parent, and children from families who have two parents.

    In other words, they are perfectly normal.

  • What’s In A Name?

    di Grazia      I am finding out it’s a lot.

    Recently, picking up Antonio and Crystel at a community education event, I was told, “I asked Antonio if he was Italian with a name like di Grazia.”

    Standing next to me, Antonio says to the adult coordinator for at least the second time that day, “No, it’s Spanish.”

    I didn’t say anything. But yes, she’s right kid. It’s Italian.

    DSCN0725Jody, Antonio, Crystel, and I don’t have a drop of Italian blood in us.

    At the time, Jody and I were choosing a family name, I was just thinking how pretty di Grazia looked and sounded. It seemed fancier than de Grazia. It seemed more different. It seemed like ‘us’.

    I wasn’t thinking of the ramifications the name di Grazia would have for our family, the inquiries we would face. Even now, I am asked from time to time if I’m Italian.

    No, and I don’t much like pasta, either.

    OLYMPUS DIGITAL CAMERAdi Grazia means “of Grace.” Jody and I were creating a family from grace. We didn’t have this family yet. We didn’t even know how this family was going to come together. Had we known we were going to adopt two infants from Guatemala we might have chosen the more typical Spanish spelling, de Grazia.

    But, probably not. We had already decided that we liked di Grazia.

    When I first realized that the last name di Grazia posed a hurdle was when Crystel was three years old, eye to eye with a goat. And, I seriously wondered if she could overcome the hurdle.

    DSCN0210We were camping at a campground that had, amongst other things, a petting zoo, pool, and horses.

    After visiting the petting zoo, Jody and I took separate routes back to our campsite. When we got there I looked at her and she looked at me.

    “Where’s Crystel?”

    “I thought she was with you.”

    “I thought she had gone with you and Antonio in the car.”

    OLYMPUS DIGITAL CAMERABoth of us jumped into our vehicle, headed back to where we last saw her. The only thing I could think of was that Crystel could not talk. Her speech was not intelligible. The person who most understood her was Antonio and he was with us. She could tell no one her first name, her last name, or who her parents were.

    When you have an articulation disorder, Crystel di Grazia, is not a good name to have. Now if she had my name before I changed it … Ann Smith … she could have spit that out – nothing to trip over there.

    Fortunately, she was right where we last saw her, staring at a goat. Somehow, she knew, to stay right where she was and not move when her family was lost.

    The next time that I was aware that our last name posed a problem was when Antonio was four years old and he was being asked in preschool to practice printing his last name. I looked at him and shook my head. First, he would have to understand that it was a small di then a space then Grazia with a large G.

    OLYMPUS DIGITAL CAMERAWhat I was thinking was, just give it up, kid. It’s not going to happen. You’ll never learn how to say your last name much less spell it.

    Fortunately, he didn’t listen to me.

    And, if he wants di Grazia to be Spanish, then it’s Spanish. After all, it’s a created name. It’s different. And, it’s ours. We’ve grown into it.

  • Perils of Being a Writer

    OLYMPUS DIGITAL CAMERACrystel shuffles out of her bedroom, rubbing her eyes. The rest of us have been up for hours. In fact, Antonio has about used up all of his allotted time with electronics. I briefly look up at her. She’s grown taller in the night, I think. She stretches out her form before flopping down next to me on the couch.

    “Good morning, dear.”

    She mumbles, “Good morning.” She leans casually towards me. We’re now bumping shoulders.

    I return to reviewing my manuscript and drop my eyes to the computer.

    “I knew it,” she says. “I knew it! I knew you were going to say it one day!” She jumps up and runs out of the room.

    “What!” I say, alarmed.

    I look down at the writing on my laptop and immediately know what happened. There in black and white it says Antonio and Crystel aren’t my children….

    “Crystel! Crystel! Come back here!” I leap off the couch. Yelling upstairs, I say, “Antonio is Crystel up there!”

    “No, she’s not.”

    Rushing down the basement steps, I holler, “Crystel, you need to come back and talk to me. Crystel, where are you!” It’s dark and quiet in the basement.

    I rush back upstairs to where Antonio is. “Antonio are you telling me the truth? Is Crystel upstairs?”

    “She’s not up here. She never came up here.”

    I’m in a bit of a panic. What could Crystel think, and if she won’t talk to me, then what? And is it true that she has always thought that I was going to say that she’s not mine?

    “Crystel, you need to come here.”

    I hear behind me, “You couldn’t find me.” She seems pleased with this.

    “No, I couldn’t find you. Now, sit down.” I’m relieved she actually does.

    “If you are going to read something that I am writing, you need to read all of it or ask a question. You reading part of a sentence is like coming into a conversation part way or seeing only part of an elephant. You aren’t getting the whole story.”

    “Now, look at this.” I point to the paragraph: Antonio and Crystel aren’t my children to own or to have or to keep. Finding their birthmoms, reuniting the mom with their child, promising to bring Antonio and Crystel back every two years to Guatemala continues restoring me to health.

    “What this means is that you aren’t an object for me to own. You are your own person. Not mine. Now if we scroll up here, it says, When I say to them, you can count on me, I absolutely mean it.” I look in her eyes. “You are my daughter. I would do anything for you.”

    This seems to satisfy her. Crystel is often interested in what I write. When she came upon me reviewing the last blog I wrote about her being interested in the bathroom scale, she read it. She laughed and laughed. Now she will have another blog to read: The Perils of Being a Writer.

    At bedtime we will have that other talk, in case she really is expecting to hear me say she isn’t really my daughter. Hmmmm.