Sweet Nothings

nazie22 Comments

We were roaming the stores on Saturday when a sweet, well-meaning salesperson handed each of my kids animal crackers in a box that looked like a circus car, complete with a little white handle top. They were overjoyed and walking around, swinging their boxes of cookies, and talking about which animal they would eat first. We sat down a few minutes later to drink some coffee and tea. My daughter handed me her box, I slid it open, and gave her a cookie. Did the same for my boy.

“You don’t want to do that.” Says my husband.

“Why?”

“Look at the ingredients.”

And there were my old nemeses: No. 2: High Fructose Corn Syrup and No. 6: Partially Hydrogenated Cottonseed Oil.

I said to my kids: “I’m sorry but that one cookie’s going to have to be it.”

“Why mommy?”

“Because it has yucky ingredients that over the long term can make you sick.”

“Mommy, if they know kids eat these cookies, then why do they put yucky ingredients in them?” said my five year old.

There you go. If a five year old can point out the disconnect here, why can’t the food manufacturers? We all know why: MONEY.

Key disclosure: My household went fully militant about food after I had a health crisis in 2007. And by crisis, I mean CRISIS. The kind you don’t want to have with a one- and three-year-old in the house who need their mamas for a long time to come. And so, with a few exceptions at birthday parties, holidays and the like, no high fructose corn syrup, no trans fats, and low sugar and white flour. Mostly fruits, vegetables, whole grains and fish. Organic if it’s affordable.

I’m trying to balance letting my kids be ‘normal’ children who love to eat sweets and enjoy ice cream and cookies once in while with eating patterns that become habits that last a lifetime. My own parents’ permissiveness about cakes, cookies and candy translated into a lifelong sugar addiction which I was only able to kick when I was looking death in the face. And even now I struggle with those cravings daily.

Remember all the hoopla about the trans fats in Oreos a few years back? Well, have you checked the labels of your average candy bars lately? It’s highly likely that the ingredients will include some form of corn syrup and/or partially hydrogenated oils, artificial flavoring and coloring. (Ditto for some of the top brands of yogurt marketed directly to children. And don’t get me started on Nutrasweet.) Who are the primary consumers of these crap-laden foods? Children, of course! 

Which one of our stomachs didn’t turn when the research came out last year about the far higher prevalence of obesity among Black and Hispanic children? And that on the whole, obese children will have more and longer hospital stays? My oncologist friend once told me that the medical community is now seeing diseases among children that they only used to see in the elderly a few decades ago. And that blame for these illnesses can be laid squarely at the door of what our children are eating and being exposed to in their environment. 

Why wouldn’t manufacturers want the BEST stuff for our children? Because it translates into less dollars. Why does it ALWAYS have to be about dollars? (Am I starting to sound naive? Trust me, it’s one of my best qualities.)

How do we change this aspect of our society? If you have any ideas, let me know. For now, my efforts are mostly on the homefront.

Love Always.

My Daughter Has Short Hair

Guest CocoaMamas5 Comments

When my daughter three-year old daughter was born, she was a baldy.  It didn’t phase me at the time.  In my eyes, she was one of the most beautiful little angels I had ever witnessed in my life.  I didn’t look at her that first time and think to myself “Aww man, she’s bald.”  All I knew was that I loved her, and she belonged to me.  And all was well in the world.

Robin was a long and healthy baby.  She was curious about the world, opened her eyes two days after she was born, and was even holding her own bottle at 2 months old.  (I have the pictures to prove it.)

But with all of her growing and becoming, her hair just didn’t seem to grow.  As she grew older and taller than most her age, it became more and more apparent that her hair was not growing at the average rate.

So, what was I to do?  I didn’t want to instill negative implications in my little girl, just because her hair was shorter than everyone else’s.  But I also knew how important having hair would mean to her, as she looked around at the other children in her daycare, or even in our church.

So, I took on the challenge of paying extra special attention to each hair follicle.  I massaged her scalp, applied oils and creams, and even went as far as giving her a silk scarf of her very own.  Each time my husband and I looked at her, one of us made sure to tell her how beautiful she was — and why.  And I prayed “Lord, please don’t let my daughter feel bad about her short hair.”  It consumed me.  I didn’t want to be a bad mother, and ignore my daughters needs.

Then, something happened.  Something that would change not only the way I think about myself but how I think about hair.

I was watching Caillou with my daughter one evening,.  Caillou is children’s television show where the main character is a 4-year old little boy.  A little boy with no hair.  And it hit me.  Why didn’t the producers of the show give Caillou any hair?  Was he sick?  Did he not have hair in the first episode, and they just didn’t think to add any later?  I had to look it up on the internet.  I mean, the boy had NO HAIR!  Not even a few wisps like Charlie Brown.  Someone had to have noticed it before.

Well, it turns out that Caillou has no hair — because he doesn’t have any hair.  The producers of the show originally intented for Caillou’s character to be younger, but when it was brought to the US, they decided he should be older, and still be bald.

When children were asked why they thought Caillou had no hair, they replied “Because he doesn’t.”  They didn’t see him as lacking anything valuable, just that he was a little boy with skin on the top of his head.

As I read it this, it occurred to me that maybe Robin didn’t think of herself as having short hair but that she was who God created her to be.

“What a fool I was for worrying about how long or short her hair was,” I thought to myself.

There’s nothing wrong with having short hair, anymore than long hair, or curly hair, or straight hair.

So, from that day on the Internet, I decided I would change my attitude about hair and celebrate it in every length, shape and form.  Yes, I still take care of my daughter’s hair, and teach her proper hair management.  But my motivation isn’t to grow her hair before she realizes how short it is — as if short hair is a handicap of some sort.   I just want my daughter to learn and continue to embrace who she is.

Maybe one day, she’s rock a short cut because she enjoys it.  And that is just fine by me.

Christine is a wife, mother of two, and a business woman.

“Can I Sleep With You Mommy?”

Benee4 Comments

This question has come from my son more frequently recently, and I find myself unable to say “No”.

Yesterday was my first day of leaving my new job and picking my son up from his abuela’s house and taking him home. At first, he asked “Is daddy coming?” and I had to reply “No, baby he isn’t”. He kind of frowned, but then sighed and said “Ooookay”. He then ran around the house, playing around, not wanting to get fully dressed. I spoke with his abuela and she said “You know, if you ever want to just leave him overnight, it’s fine”. I had to explain to her that it is important for me to spend time alone with him and bring him to my home, which is the home he has known most of his life.

I’m noticing he is showing a preference for being there. And why shouldn’t he? He has more family members there, grandparents are always nicer, and it’s far more stable. I told her that there may be some nights that I come and take him out for a few hours and bring him back, but for now, I’m working on getting him more used to going back and forth. Part of me wonders if I should be doing even that, since I plan to move at the end of the year.

Maybe during this time, he should have as little back and forth as possible. Maybe, I ought to put my own desires to stake my claim as an equal parent aside, and focus on creating more stability for him. Maybe, I do need this time to myself. I don’t know. I guess I need to discuss it further with his father after this week is done.

This is so hard. It makes me even more angry at things that transpired between his father and I that led to this point. I’m in a much better place now, and my life is going so wel in other areas, so I’m trying to not let any negative emotions take over right now.

But it’s still so hard.

So for now, if he wants to sleep with me when he is here, I will let him. He misses his Mommy and wants to feel my warmth and comfort as much as he can.I will give him whatever he wants and needs right now.

That’s what Mommies do.

sugar and spice

Dr. Mama Esq.7 Comments

While I now have a great relationship with my mother, it wasn’t always the case. While I know I could always do as Martha is now doing in the case of an emergency, growing up I felt like I had to keep most of who I really was bottled inside. I don’t know about the rest of you, but I feel like I had the common black girl-black mama relationship with my mother, where children should be seen and not heard, where mothers don’t talk much about sex except to say keep your legs shut, where tears are not tolerated and often met with threats of “shut up that noise or I’ll give you something to cry about.”

At the time, I admit that I felt unloved. It’s strange because on one hand in my head I knew my mother loved me, but in my heart I didn’t always feel it because I had to hold so much of who I was inside. To me, being able to be all that I am, allowed to have that space, is the truest expression of love. And I didn’t have that. I played the good girl all of my childhood. I wasn’t allowed to express anger or any negative emotion, so it all got bottled up as sadness, and eventually, depression. I never got into trouble, except to play in my mother’s makeup, which was a very bad idea, or to lose things, which was even worse because we didn’t have much to lose. At school I eventually learned to rebel in a good girl kind of way, using my intelligence as a weapon against my teachers, constantly challenging them in a way I was never allowed to at home. I would watch the television dramas of white girls yelling and screaming at their mothers, truly believing that if the thought ever crossed my mind, I should probably die because once my mother found out, I would.

But now, I have my own little girl. And let me tell you, she is nothing like me. Or maybe she is everything like me, but not yet “changed” like I was, having had the rebel forcibly removed. She’s two, and terrible. She throws ten minute tantrums when she doesn’t get her way, and she is very particular and specific about what her way is. She does not want her food cut, and insists on eating her food hot out the oven with no time to cool off. If cookies are in her line of sight around dinnertime, the tantrum must just run its course before she will even entertain the idea of eating dinner before dessert. Bedtime is sometimes smooth, other times consists of high pitched yells of nonsense for upwards of 30 minutes. She prefers her curly afro and resists the comb, but she likes to look “pretty” with ponytails and oftentimes demands it. She will kick and hit her brother if he bothers her or takes her toys, and if that doesn’t work, a high pitched scream will do the job. Once she’s done being spicy, then its all sugar again, and the baby in her comes back, all hugs and kisses.

When I see this in her, I’m amazed. My mother laughingly says that I was never like her, and I almost believe it. I say almost because on the inside, I’m a lot like my daughter. I get indignant at the smallest slight, believing that people should treat others nicely and getting angry when they don’t. I like things a particular way; I spend a good amount of time getting things in order the way I like them before I can start doing any other productive work. People tend to like me, I can be sweet and am a good girl, but I am also spicy and people tend to be intimidated by me because I am sharp and opinionated and rarely back down. I will argue about anything and everything.

But as a child, I was nothing like my daughter. But I hope my daughter will be nothing like me. As much as sometimes I have to tell my husband to remove her from my presence (like last night when she threw a cup of water off the table because she wanted juice – yeah, not a good look for her), I want her to maintain her feisty-ness, even as a child. She will have to tone it down, but of course she’s only terribly two. I like that she feels comfortable challenging me – I was never allowed to have a separate opinion, or to be angry, or to truly express being sad. I want her to know that it’s okay to have a full range of emotions, even as a child. I don’t want her to bottle up anything. She’ll need to learn appropriate ways of behaving – throwing water ain’t one of them – but that all emotions are okay, not just the good ones.

I want her to know that she really is sugar and spice and both things are nice.

Cocoa Mary Poppins?

Guest CocoaMamas6 Comments

My mother is Mary Poppins. Instead of the wholesome, semi-Technicolor British version in the form of Julie Andrews, think of a five foot, shrill-voiced, 50-something East African native with more energy than the Energizer bunny, more sass than Madea, and more financial savviness than a working stiff on Wall Street. All these things are ok because my life as an estranged wife, disorganized mother, harried grad student, and disgruntled teacher needs fine-tuning and my mommy is the woman—has been the woman—who has worked wonders in getting my life in check.

In May 2008, after getting my master’s, my kids and I moved back to New Orleans, Louisiana where I was born and raised so that I could complete my graduate education. I made a conscious decision to apply to only one of two schools (the one closest to my town) that offered a PhD in English literature because I wanted my children to be with their grandmother, my mom, who still lived in the orange-shuttered home we moved into when I was 13, while I toiled the hours away teaching and researching and becoming an academic tool. My mom, who retired post-Katrina, has been a godsend not only to me but also to my children. She’s right there waiting to pick up my daughter at 2:15 when I have an afternoon seminar twice a week. She’s right there taking the clippers from my hand because I’m worried I will hurt my son’s scalp when I give him a haircut and proceeds to cut his hair with nick-free precision. She’s right there in the backyard tending to her plants while the kids are next to her blowing bubbles, and I’m peeking from behind curtains watching them as I write a 20-pager. There is no better assurance than to know that my children are in great hands. And this does not mean that their father is a complete absentee. Our divorce and child custody proceedings have made things less than amicable between us (yeah, that’s an understatement), and he travels a lot. But we are absolutely committed to working as co-parents—that’s our joint New Year’s resolution for 2010.

Going through a divorce while attending grad school and teaching, in addition to trying to be the best mother I can be, has been the most difficult thing I have ever done (and I have gone through two C-sections, ladies and gents), and there are plenty of days where I swear I cannot do it, and on these days, I think about my children, and how healthy, happy, and brilliant my rugrats are, and I push forward. And I absolutely could not do it without my best friend, my rock, and my mommy—my very own Mary Poppins—in my corner.

I Forgot To Pray For Good Health For All Babies

Tanji6 Comments

Recently my family has been challenged by health issues. My oldest son has an “undiagnosed” learning disability that is once again being “discovered” by a new school. This is a hard thing for me to handle. Education has always come easy for me. However, with all my degrees and experience, not being able to figure out how best to help my son learn is very much a crisis for me and has been for some time.

My daughter is nine-months and she weighs 11 pounds. I have taken her to CHOP, supposedly the best in the area, and her liver and kidney are fine. However three months later, she has lost an ounce. She will start at a Grow Clinic at St. Christopher’s Hospital this month.

I have been praying a lot these past months and I am so grateful that my children are here with me each new day. I trust that with God’s help, we will figure out how to overcome our health issues soon.

This weekend however I learned that a dear couple friend lost their child to SIDS. I have since sent them my love and prayers but I can’t help feeling like I should have stopped to pray for all the babies in my life recently, to pray for the health of all children.

I became an educator years before the birth of my oldest child. Teaching children has inspired me to think broadly about family and my door is pretty wide open. My mom is another important model for this. I joke that there was always someone else at my house for Thanksgiving. I have a whole “Play” family. Play cousins, uncles, aunts, etc. that adopted my family when my parents moved as a young couple with kids into my hometown.

I thank God for all my extended family. I pray that this new year brings good health to everyone. I encourage others to think broadly about family and to protect children in service somehow as well as with prayer.

Tanji is a wife and mother of three. She has two boys and one girl. She lives in Philadelphia, her favorite chocolate city. She is an educator and her first “baby” is now a Howard University graduate and a Cocoa Mama.

The Case of the Missing Cocoa Mama

nazie2 Comments
There once was a little girl who never dreamed of her wedding or her knight in shining armor or her babies. She dreamt, instead, of rocket ships and space and knights (but the kind that do battle on horses with long weapons). She grew up and up, went to school for many many years, got married, and in due course had babies. Two of them. A boy and a girl. And she fell in love with these children, so much so that she decided to stop working and stay home to raise them.
 
Life went along, with its ups and downs, and she with it. One day an odd notion struck her. At first, it was this tiny little nag in the back of her head and then it grew louder and louder until it was a constant, nonstop roar.
 
Then out of nowhere, she opened her eyes and saw the reality of her life. She was NOT raising her children. These blessed, angelic, demonic creatures were, in fact, raising themselves for the most part. She herself appeared to be in an alternate universe, a matrix hooked up to computers and cell phones and blackberries and email and text messaging and large, flat-screen televisions.
 
And when she found this out for sure, our heroine roared with despair and anger, and tried to free herself, to be with her children. But the cords and attachments were long and deeply rooted, and the separation was not so easy. Her mind drifted. She grew restless and irritated.
 
In the new year, she resolved to somehow find a way to bring balance. To raise her children as she vowed to do and to raise herself as she aims to do. To be more present, more prayerful, more grateful, with more purpose.
 
Welcome to your life, Cocoa Mama. It has been waiting for you.
 
Love always, Nazie

I Miss My Son

We are so familiar with the negative statistics about Black children growing up without having both parents in the home. We know how negatively affected Black boys can be growing up in divided homes. I just can’t stand the thought of my son being so affected.

Benee5 Comments

I began the new year away from my son. Since his father and I have split, we have worked out a custodial arrangement that has him going back and forth between us every few days or as schedules dictate. I’m not 100% certain this is the best idea, however, it is what has to work for right now.

This NYE, I wanted to be by myself. 2009 was insanely difficult and I needed the time to just be one with myself and bring in the new year freshly focused.  However, I missed my son. Yes, he would have been asleep when the new year began, but I would have been awakened by his groggy voice saying “Good morning, Mommy” and I would have felt him climb into my bed, get under my covers and snuggle with me. It would have made me feel like my year was starting off on the right note.

But it wasn’t meant to be. I saw him later in the day and at one quiet moment, he whispered, “I missed you Mommy” and I said, with a hug, “I missed you too baby”.

I worry about how this divorce will affect him. We are so familiar with the negative statistics about Black children growing up without having both parents in the home. We know how negatively affected Black boys can be growing up in divided homes. I just can’t stand the thought of my son being so affected. His father and I have a very amicable relationship, especially when it comes to the children, but still I sense something is off. His babysitter told me that sometimes he would just sit in the corner quietly, or crying softly. Or maybe he would cry “I miss my mommy and daddy at home”. At 3, he shouldn’t have to deal with this. He should be thinking about colors, numbers, and spelling his name. I hate what we are doing to him. Really and truly.

For now, I do my best to stay connected. I have a new job, and that’s been absorbing a lot of my time and focus, but I’m doing my best to juggle this new position with being a great, dedicated mother. It’s harder than one not in this position can imagine. I suspect it would be a lot harder if I did not have such a good relationship with his father, or even moreso if his father were not around. But this is not what I planned for my son, so now I have to figure out how to make sure he doesn’t fall victim to any of the negative predictions our Black children face by virtue of them growing up in splintered homes.

Bearing Fruit

Dr. Mama Esq.3 Comments

Did you know that only 5% of cocoa flowers will produce fruit? We chose this name, “CocoaMommas,” perhaps quite obviously because it represents the beautiful colors of our various skins. Unlike most in the mainstream mommy blogosphere, we are black and brown mothers. And we’re proud of it. But just like the small numbers of cocoa flowers that will eventually produce fruit, we know that the world doesn’t always see the beauty in our color, or that of our children. In a country where little black boys are more likely to end up in prison than in college, or where missing brown children are largely ignored by the mainstream press while blond ones get  round the clock coverage, our jobs to produce fruit are even more crucial. This blog recognizes these inequities; something the rest of the mommy blogs are privileged to be able to ignore.

Interesting fact #2: did you know that unlike most trees in the northern hemisphere, cocoa fruit can ripen at different times each year? This blog is for us, as mommies and women too, to rely our challenges, our fears, our heartbreaks and our victories.   The women writing this blog are just like the cocoa fruit – we are all growing and ripening at different stages, yet all of us, have not only born the fruit of beautiful children but have also had successes in our careers. This blog is our stories of how we are attempting to both ripen them and ourselves.

One last thing that I didn’t know about cocoa beans – during fermentation, an essential part of the process to change the beans from raw beans into the chocolate we all know and love, the beans develop their flavor, bitterness subsides, and it is then that the beans turn into a deep rich shade of brown. This blog is written by a group of women that I know, from knowing them all, that are going through their own fermentation process. We are developing our flavor as mothers, partners, co-parents, as career women, writers, academics, and as spiritual beings. Raw bitterness is falling away and being replaced by deep roasted chocolatey hmm-hmmm goodness.

So, dear readers, I hope you’ll join us as we embark on this new venture. We’ll vent, we’ll debate, we empathize, we’ll give advice. Visit often and comments are always welcome!

Peace,

LaToya