Penguins and Opposable Thumbs

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GUEST POST FROM K.
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EB: Why don’t penguins live in the city?

K: Because they can't afford apartments.

EB: Why can't they afford apartments?

K: Because they don’t have any money.

EB: Why don’t they have any money?

K: Because they don’t have jobs.

EB: Why don’t they have jobs?

K: Because they don’t have opposable thumbs.

EB: Why don't they have opposable thumbs?

K: Because they have flippers.

EB: Why do they have flippers?

K: Because God made every creature unique.

EB: Why did God make creatures unique?

K: Because God loves us.

EB: Daddy?

K: Yes, EB.

EB: Can I have chocolate milk when we get home?

K: Yes, EB.

Happy Mother's Day!

I will not get a chance to talk with Mom tomorrow, since she and Dad have been out of the country on a well-deserved cruise vacation. It’s a bit of a bummer for me, because even though I talk with her a few times a week, it’s weird to not be able to talk to her on Mother’s Day.

We’ve had a lot of conflicts throughout the years, Mom and I. But these conflicts blow over quickly, and throughout everything she’s always been there for me.

Mom is certainly a unique lady. Strong and often time stubborn, she would often joke that had she stayed under Communist China, she would’ve been hauled away to labor camps indefinitely because she was so defiant and strong-willed. And she has certainly encouraged me to be strong, be my own person and not always conform to the social norm.

When I was a pre-schooler in Tokyo, I played on a daily basis with the neighborhood boys, and they played rough. I often ran home crying when they would hit me. But instead of picking up the phone to call the boys' moms, she would shrug, tell me to shake it off, and say: “just hit them back if they hit you again.” I know, most parents today would be horrified to read this, but she was a believer that kids needed to work their own issues out rather than having their parents solve all of their little problems. Often times, the boys’ moms would pay her a visit and advise her that I was acting “inappropriately” for a girl – I was too loud, too wild, used rough words and not lady-like. Mom would look at them directly in the eyes, and say, “well, she certainly learns from your boys, and in my opinion, she shouldn’t be relegated to behavior that’s different from them.”

Mom is also fun-loving. Growing up, our house was always filled with music, and it wasn’t unusual for her to all of a sudden break out into a song and dance in the middle of our kitchen. Adventuresome for her age, she was the 40-something year old mom that would go on the scariest rollercoaster rides and steepest water slide with her teenage kids.

Happy Mother’s Day to my wonderful, quirky, beautiful mom.

And happy mother’s day to all of the moms out there!

Bullies

Out of the blue the other day, I thought about a girl who went to my middle school. I still remember what Jennifer (not her real name) looked like: pretty, always nicely dressed, hair pulled back neatly with a hairband that matched her outfit of the day. A popular girl, you would think from this description. But she was far from it. She was a juvenile diabetic, and she needed to constantly graze to keep her blood sugar steady. And that was enough of a freak factor to completely ostracize her from rest of the class. Kids are jerks.

In class, she would open her neatly-packed lunch box and and start snacking on her fruit and juice box. Whispers and sneers would promptly ensue in the otherwise no drinks/no food classroom: “Look at what she brought today!” “Oh, she’s so weird.” “She’s going to get as big as a house if she keeps eating like that every day!” While I never paid much heed to this (I was flying more than a few freak flags of my own),  I never bothered reaching out to her either. To her credit, the teasing never seemed to bother her much. She came to school each day, head held up high, ignoring the jeering remarks. In fact, she always seemed a bit aloof to me, but I’m sure her parents had taught her well: “Don’t worry about what the other kids say. Just ignore them; you just need to remember how special you really are.”

As a mom to a little girl, I can imagine how angry and helpless her parents must have felt knowing that their daughter was ostracized, and for a reason related to a congenial medical condition to boot. I imagine how I would react if EB, God forbid, ever has to live with a life-long medical condition and is ostracized because of it. It would so enrage me that I would want to confront (read: kick their asses) each and every one of these kids and their parents.

For days, I wondered how Jennifer is doing. I finally gave into my stalking impulses and looked her up on Facebook. I don’t know what I was expecting, but I suppose I wanted to see that she is now happy, her middle school experience a dim, distant memory. Her profile popped up right away, and there she was, a photo of her with a person I’m sure is her husband and her child, looking all smiley. I felt better, even relieved; I'm not sure why. And this made me think -- jeez, I wonder if someone else out there remembers me as the ostracized class freak and is pitying/thinking of me in the same way right now!

There’s been a lot of press about school bullying, but I really don’t think it’s gotten any worse in the past 30 years. Kids are cruel, plain and simple. Girls can be especially mean and nasty little bitches. I think what got me so bothered about Jennifer’s case is that we were all around 11 or 12 years old--old enough so that we should’ve known better. It’s one thing for kids to be clueless at the age of 7 or 8, but by the time you hit middle school, it’s inexcusable. But ironically, that’s also when the kids go through their meanest, nastiest streaks. I am bracing myself for when EB starts to go through that stage.