Ninjas do not want to be noticed

Recently I have participated in several discussions related to the appropriateness of children dressing in costume that is not necessarily part of their cultural heritage. My friends asked thoughtful questions. Is playing ninjas culturally insensitive? Do cowboys and indians reinforce harmful histories and stereotypes? Do we cheapen or exploit traditions by trying to act them out before we know them fully or when we recreate them out of gleaned artificial and often cheaply made materials? Does multi-gender role-play nurture identity confusion and foster ridicule? Are we learning empathy or permitting mockery? For how long should we, as parents, allow the lines of fiction and fantasy to blur with often painful historical realities?

Playing indian. Oh wait, I actually am two kinds of indian.

Perhaps your house too is frequently filled with the antics of ninjas, indian braves, historic soldiers, and knights of the round table who parade as anachronisms (in the wrong time) or anatopism (in the wrong place) alongside dragons, leprauchauns, mermaids, greek gods, and fairies. Perhaps you too find yourself correcting and saying frequently, "but wait...let me tell you about this other part of the story", or "actually the way it really happened was...", or "let me tell you about the Geneva Convention and why you should not be allowed to openly torture your prisoners" (Okay, maybe that one was just me). But at some point we have to stop moralizing play. S-T-O-P.

It is generally so much simpler and paradoxically infinitely more complex then we grown ups assume it to be. Some of the loveliest things about childhood are the abilities to imagine ones-self to have the strengths or character of any persons or creatures past or present. I think having a broad base of imaginative allows children to build empathy by imagining life through a different lens.  As parents we can expose them to as many lenses as possible. Read big and broadly, celebrate cultures and differences, nudge a bit, but only gently, and then respect their abilities to develop and formulate their own compassion and empathy for others.

Bastilla, the girl elf

A lighter cultural satire that my family has enjoyed is Wink, The Ninja Who Wanted to be Noticed. When the directives are to be silent, bland, and unmoving he is opposing, floral printed, and acrobatic- and a far cry from culturally sensitive.  Wink wants nothing more than to stand out and go against the flow. (Interestingly, my five year old Connor changed the title of the book to Wink, the Ninja Who Always Did Not Want to be Noticed. Despite my silly grown-up attempts to try several times to clarify the differences, I think he said exactly what he meant. He wants to be able to assume different identities but to be noticed and scrutinized less. To him, acting out identities is not morality play. It is not a statement about colonialism, or racism, or gender identity. It is trying to make sense of a multitude of stories and cultures and having no preconceptions about how they should be interpreted; or interrupted. As Antoine Saint Exupery's Little Prince so poignantly says, "grown-ups never understand anything for themselves, and it is tiresome for children to always and forever be explaining things to them."

We have an aunt who is Japanese, dad, and grandma have traveled to Japan and taught cultural awareness classes of this culture, and my sister is living there for 2 years. My husband has also studied martial arts and Japanese history extensively. So while we are far from experts, there is always the urge to explain and enlighten. But for now, sometimes there are three ninjas living in my house and their names are Sodan, Wink, and Shadow.

Ichi, Ni, San...Ready or not here they come!

Of cabbages and kings!

This week was the Medieval fair, and indeed,:

"The time has come...

[the family said],

to talk of many things. 

Of shoes--and ships--

and sealing wax--

of cabbages and kings."

[And while the sea is boiling hot,

Oh! -Hear the mermaids sing!]

-Lewis Carroll The Walrus and the Carpenter

Slice a cabbage the most thinly or
"plummet" (a.k.a. pummel) the opponent to win.

After chasing knights down, sometimes one is just speechless,

OR must undertake a quest of their own.

Presenting: Sirs Cristopher and Connor.

Baby "dragons" require great gentleness

That mermaid gave her a shell!

["O Children," said the Parents,]
"You've had a pleasant run!
Shall we be trotting home again?'
But answer came there none--
And this was scarcely odd, because
[They're snoring, every one.]

Dear little mouse,

Calyn. Photo by Emily McVay

(Very recently you turned two. Now, could you please P-L-E-A-S-E start sleeping predictably, and needing my a little less- just a little- so that I can write about you more)?

How completely lovely you are. All of my children have brilliantly changed my life, of course, but there has been something completely different about us from the beginning. Having a girl created a deep seeded need to make the world a better place and to become even more involved in women's issues. You sleep with your hand on my face, you work dutifully at everything you do, you see the world through a lens of compassion and humanity.

You are on the cusp of not being a baby anymore. How can that be? (You are going to hear me asking that question A LOT in the years to come as one year morphs and melts into the next). For now I am savoring your words and your unwords. I'm loving the cute-sey way you end everything in e or -sey. Shoe-sey, hat-sey, hop-ey, sit-ey, jump-ey. Gram-ey. Share-sey. That's gonna be a tough one. And a shrill one. The morning greeting of "hi" in your chipper tweet melts me everytime. The curls that halo your head. I love your grasp of language and how you think dragon flies should growl and meerkats should meow. I love how you "play" French horn and how you seek out daddy. I love how you imitate snores and shoosh others when your brothers are sleeping.

But there are some of your traits that I sure hope you keep as you grow.

Discretion
Baby, I was thrilled when you didn't want to sit on that Santa Clause's lap. I like that you don't clamor over everyone the first time that you meet them. You give a face time to sink in and allow a character to develop. You gage people uncannily well. And you don't allow people to hold your hand just because it's cute.

An assertive voice
Things are all pleasant and jolly until someone has overlooked your opinion. You may have to exercise restraint, at times, over your strong manners, but keep on giving the world your opinions, and use your mean face if necessary. Stand up for yourself, stand up for injustices. And don't back down from mean turkeys.

Dancing queen
You feel the music in everything, even suitcases thumping at the airport. Never stop seeking. Never stop dancing. But dance because it makes your heart glad. Dance when nobody's watching. Dance to save your soul. Dance to make your plants grow. Dance to be alive.

Pretty
Already you love to adorn yourself. But always give reverence to the body you are dressing up. Remember that those thighs that may be squishy are still so sweet because they help you to stretch up your toes. And remember a belly pooch can be adorable even if it grows into a fluctuating beast- some day it may even help you to carry a new life. Remember that no matter your size you will always be worthy of being loved. 

Thank you so much for being brilliantly you!

Happy birthday to my maniac man on the move!

Dear Cris,

What an important year it has been! You my dear are learning so many things like how to unlock the secrets of letters and to have big aspirations, such as being a practicing ninja when you are 100. On your first day of kindergarten your biggest aspiration was to learn to be a spy. I have no doubt that you could have physically done it, you would have already engineered a pathway to the moon.

You have left the shadow of babyhood behind and now stand straight like a knocked bow string. You can still curl yourself into my lap, barely, but mostly I spend time looking at the back of your head as you dash to complete your next brilliant idea. You push ahead past naysayers, dream droppers, and road blockers, and sometimes even advice givers. Sometimes, sadly, even when that well wisher is me.

You take the world at full throttle and are utterly captivated by it. And you create curious and marvelous things- a periscope out of a rain gutter that stretches in a tree over our back fence (and thankfully wasn't quite long enough to reach the power lines above), custom holsters, trap doors, booby traps, propellers, catapults, bridges.

You have spunk, in abundance, and frequently lead the dance raves or the party, test your boundaries, and, completely shocking to me, even occasionally moon me. Your favorite things are bold and brassy, so it was completely fitting when you begged to join band this year to play trumpet. You were completely undaunted at being the youngest student that has ever been in the program. Yet you had to learn some valuable lessons about the power of persistence, team work, and humility. Keep coming back to those.

I hope you will continue to be undaunted by learning or paradigms of knowledge and know that it is awesome to keep learning about cosmology, and meteorology, and Gaelic, and knighthood- right now- because they are interesting to you and because only through our questions can we unlock the world.

I hope that you will let this world keep spinning you around and never ask to get off until the ride has come to a complete stop.

I hope that you will remember just how much love you have to give out from that very big, all be it, very crazy, heart of yours.

We love you so much.
X-O-X-O

Mom

A Weekend in Wichita

Two weekends ago while the daddies had to work, the mommies got to play. Thank you dears! We missed you, but had a truly delightful time. We met my best friend in Wichita. It was four kids, one hotel room, a whole lot of socks, immeasurable peanut butter, and a lot of great adventures. Wichita is really great, I am always surprised by just how much there is to do there. It has big city feel and small town charm.

We started out on day one at the zoo. We were told it was spring break but it was blissfully quiet and we probably passed less than 100 people the whole day. It was moderately cold, so I guess that helped. Here the littlest "whos" chased ducks, kissed goats, and looked for peacocks. Connor was bold enough, and cute enough, that when he asked if he could help the zookeeper feed the the barn animals he willingly said yes. It was pretty funny watching him try to throw alfalfa chunks that were nearly as tall as he was. There was lots of rock climbing, lion watching, Masi imitating. One particularly obtuse goose frolicked in the grass in the lion's cage and we were hopeful that the lioness would have five minutes of wildness coupled with delicious dinner, but, alas, her partner was too uninterested and her instincts too domesticated.

 

There were nights of star lights on the ceiling (which apparently is the most revolutionary toy ever if you didn't know) and mornings of little girls in snuggly jammies and pig tails. There was bed bouncing, naps (thank heavens!) and new Dr. Seuss.  There was hand holding and lots of laughing.

We loved driving down Douglas street and looking at all the charming statues. The day it was raining, some funny person had adorned the barefoot man statue reading a newspaper with some rain boots; which amusingly later disappeared. Exploration place gets our whole hearted endorsement as one fantastic kids museum. Here the girls saw mascots for the first time and Cali was both enthralled and completely apprehensive. She chased Scooby all over the museum, but wasn't quite sure if she should shake his hand; all the kids had fun playing tag and hide and seek with him.

At this museum there is a rather elaborate vertical medieval castle maze. It had been updated since the last time that we were there and there was now a catapult. Cris was the king and a random kid adorably told us he was Lancelot. Here they made potions, rode horses, started a garden, and practiced their welding. What great fun!

Finally we kept up our tradition of eating crepes together at a tiny warm place called Lotus Leaf Creperie. We were wrangling our children most of the meal, which made me feel a teeny tiny bit bad for the couple next to us who appeared to be on a first date, but I got over it.

On our last day, we were astonished when 1-3 inches of predicted snow turned out to be closer to 6! One final fun snow before spring decides to stick around. Pretty to look at, a little harder to play in since we had forgotten our snow boots and mittens (boo!) and Connor was crying from cold feet. A few lessons in broadening our horizons with some unusual people, and a day that went completely differently than planned, especially because nothing is open in Wichita before noon, but an enlightening and beautiful day none-the-less.

It was a weekend when we got to unplug and fully answer the sweet call of "mommy play with me" and we can't wait to do it again!