Model Child.

Henson at 15 weeks.

Lookit!  My boy oughta be a model.  Will ya look at that?  I mean, will you look at that?  That is one good looking kid!

{pinches his widdle cheeks}

We are lucky that Henson is fairly camera-friendly.  Before Hotsie gave birth, I was trying to make sure I was mentally ready just in case we had a kinda weird looking kid.  “Oh, your child will always be beautiful…to you” folks told us.  Wrong.  An ugly baby is an ugly baby.  There, I’ve said it.  I said it before my kid was born and I’m-a-sayin’ it right now.  I am so grateful that Henson is a good looking child.  I only hope that he can keep it up for the next seventeen years and 37 weeks, when he leaves my house.  (Clock’s tickin, kid.)

Yeah, I know, I get all weepy when my brother leaves town and now I’m joking about my kid leaving home.  But seriously, I’m the kind of guy that can’t listen to Johnny Cash’s “Miss Tara” without sobbing “Damn you, Johnny Cash” for making me get all choked up.

Statistically speaking, ugly babies get less love from their parents.  Hey, it was in TIME magazine on the internet so it must be true.

Check it out:

TIME Magazine: Is an Ugly Baby Harder to Love?

Like I said, we lucked out.  Henson’s a cool lookin’ kid so far and we really do marvel at him every day.

I was so afraid this would have been us.

But on to the Henson update for friends and family that are far-flung:  Henson is just over 15 weeks and weighs, well, a lot.  Can’t tell you how much but it’s certainly more than before.  He’s got a teeny little pot belly today, which means it’s time for a growth spurt.  He normally gets just a teeny tiny belly, then within 2 days, he’s longer than before and the belly is gone.  Soon he’ll be too long to fit his cradle or bassinet, which is why we’re trying to slowly transition him into his baby bed for a few hours at night after his late night feeding.  You know that old saying “they grow up so fast?”  Yeah, it’s a bummer.  As much as I’m looking forward to the boy that Henson will become, I miss teeny baby Henson already.

That said, though, he is sooooo cool these days.  He sees me or Hotsie from across the room and he just busts out laughing and smiling.  He’s starting to get ticklish and will squeal in anticipation if you start to act like you’re going to tickle him.  He gives  these little sideways glances where he KNOWS he’s caught your eye, then he’ll giggle and coo.  How cool is that?

Ah, yes, and he’s discovered that he has a voice.  Every now and then he tests his vocal cords by letting out a long “goooooooooooo” at top volume like he’s some kind of baby locomotive.  It’s a trip.  Except when he decides to wake up at  3 AM and amuse himself with it.  Still, it’s certainly a nicer sound than crying, so I’ll count it as a blessing.  Even at 3 AM it’s pretty cool to hear him being happy.

Henson is starting to take an interest in Stanzi and Josie, our Italian Greyhounds, which are the size of housecats on stilts.  They check him out every day and give him a single “welcome home” lick when he gets home for the day with Mama.  He’s started to reach out to touch Stanzi a couple of times, so we’ll see where that goes.  Italian Greyhounds aren’t noted for being particularly good with kids, but so far the girls treat Henson like he’s one of the family.

Yes, my son has transitioned from being a squawling little beast to being a totally cool little munchkin.  And he’ll always be the Podling, even though he’s out of the pod and in the big wide world.

That’s MY family in the Disney movie.

This afternoon I came home to find the above image on my wife’s computer screen.  It made me literally have to catch my breath.  It looks like the two of us in high school when we first met and went to prom.  The prince even has my hair and skin tone, and the princess has Hotsie’s eyes.  This couple are the hero and heroine of Disney’s The Frog Prince, due out this year.

I knew that that movie was set in 1920’s New Orleans, I knew it had a black heroine, but I had no idea it was about a mixed-race couple.  Perfectly logical considering the setting, I know, but never, ever in my wildest dreams would I have expected to see Disney take the next step of not only finally representing blacks in a positive light on screen (and NO, Uncle Remus does not count, and anyone who brings up the Lion King as a serious contender for a “black” Disney film is probably pasty alabaster post WWII whitebread white) but putting a mixed race couple up there for everybody to see.  Wow.  I see the cliche drawer hasn’t been cleaned out in a while, so I’ll say it made my heart skip a beat.

Then I read the article attached to the graphic and that same heart sunk. Some bitter twit of an author wants to wail and rail about how apparently Disney’s princess “obviously” isn’t worth having a black prince, and how Sasha and Malia of our American first family will “just have to wait’ until they see a black man portrayed in a positive light on the Disney screen.  Yeah, the author is right, they’ll have to wait, but for children and families who identify as “mixed race” the waiting is finally over.  So I guess it’s a matter of perspective.  White racists can tremble in their enclaves over the politically correct black agenda being pushed on their ubermenschen breeding stock, and black racists can wail over how they’re STILL under represented even in a movie that they feel is somehow “supposed” to be about the mythical “black experience.”  The guy looks mixed to me, not white, anyway, so it could be that Disney’s playing it safer than we think.

Me?  I’ll be grateful I can see people that look like my family up on the screen in a Disney film.  There’s an even more under-represented group in American media, and that’s people who self-identify as “mixed race.”  While I’m sure the media will trumpet “Disney’s first black heroine” later this year, I’m crazy happy to see a couple that looks like me and my wife – that’s even less represented than blacks on the silver screen.

Here’s the trailer, with what the author calls a firefly who “talks like a slave.”  Hel-LO?  Cajun!  If you’re gonna get upset about something, get upset that they apparently hired commercial voice talent instead of a bona-fide Cajun to do the voice.  A slave, indeed.  Jeez.  Get that chip off your shoulder.  It’s making you look like an idiot in a dress with with only one shoulder pad.

And of COURSE the obligatory Disney animal sidekick had to be a firefly.  Pirates of the Carribean, anyone?

TIME: Are Mixed-Race Children Better Adjusted?

Interesting article in this week’s TIME magazine, even if the ending is saccharine-sweet pablum.  I’ll drop it in below.  Click the link below to read it at the source or click “more” to read here.

TIME Magazine: Are Mixed Race Kids Better Adjusted?

Saturday, Feb. 21, 2009

Are Mixed-Race Children Better Adjusted?

By John Cloud

Americans like answers in black and white, a cultural trait we confirmed last year when the biracial man running for President was routinely called “black”.

The flattening of Barack Obama’s complex racial background shouldn’t have been surprising. Many multiracial historical figures in the U.S. have been reduced (or have reduced themselves) to a single aspect of their racial identities: Booker T. Washington, Tina Turner, and Greg Louganis are

Mixed Results II

This blog is about the Podling, our child.  It’s not a political blog.  It’s not one of those blogs where any dang thing that comes to mind gets posted, twittered or digged.  It’s about our baby.

That said, my world, like the world of so many new parents-to-be, is decidedly my-baby-centric.  (It’s also apparently rather comma-and-hyphen-centric, but that’s not my point.)  So in that my-baby-centric world, the politics of another mixed-race President in the White House is definitely relevant.  I wanted to blog while President-Elect Obama was taking the stage last night because it was a truly historical moment that will affect my child in a big way.

Just this morning, Hotsie was rubbing her belly in the manner of pregnant women the world over, and I heard her say in a tiny voice to the baby growing there, “Il est métis comme toi.”

“He’s mixed, just like you.”

Hotsie and I have, over the years, struggled to figure just how best to raise our child with a definite understanding that he or she is of mixed race.  So many children of mixed parentage eventually accept the hand that an uninformed public deals them – they identify as black.  Of course – why not?  All the kids on the playground see them as brown-skinned so they must be.  Teachers tell them they’re black.  Official forms like the scan-tron sheets used on standardized tests read “Check one” in the race category, yet don’t provide a mixed race option to check.  So it’s really the easy way out and a natural choice for many mixed race kids.  There will come a time when my child has to decide whether to identify as black or whether to live with the constant uphill battle of identifying as mixed race.  We’re OK with the Podling deciding to identify as black if that’s what it takes to get through the day, but in my heart of hearts I would really love it for the Podling to identify as mixed, just like our family.

Our President-elect just made that a little easier.  For once, we have a mixed race president who doesn’t try to hide it.  (Hell, he can’t.  Look at the guy.)  But to my point, when a President of the United States doesn’t cover up his mixed race heritage, it says in plain English that everyone can understand “Mixed race people are everywhere.  They are capable, outstanding people.  Say it loud, I’m mixed and proud.”

So you do what you can as a parent in a mixed family: you find kids’ books that are written for and about mixed kids and you take a colored pencil to a handful of favorite kid’s books to try to help your kid see that fairy tales aren’t just for and about white people.  It’s a bit paradoxical to go through so many out-of-the-ordinary solutions to give a mixed race child propaganda which shows being mixed is normal and casual.  But when confronted with so many images on TV, movies and the internets, it still looks like a marshmallow world to a kid.

Here in Atlanta, mixed couples are so common it reminds me of when we lived in Paris – we are everywhere.  We are the norm.  But when I go to some bookstores, I find the mixed-race kids’ books segregated together in the marginalized ghetto called “Alternative Families”, along with books like My Two Mommies, He’s Not My Uncle, He’s My Other Dad, My Dad the Wheelchair Wheelie, Only One Parent is Still OK, and Sometimes Mommy Drinks.  Reminds me a bit of the Island of Misfit Toys, to be honest.  So every now and again there’s a reminder, more like an unexpected slap in the face, that some uninformed parts of society still see our relationship and growing family as weird.  Of course, any trip through Alabama is a quick reminder of that, with cold stares and harsh looks when we pull up to a gas station and Hotsie immediately starts scanning to see if there are, as we euphemistically joke about, “any chips in the cookie” before we get out of the car.

The stares will still remain in certain backwoods parts of the South.  I’m sure we’ll get the occasional pointed “Why don’t you teach your child Spanish – it’s his heritage” like one of our other mixed race moms gets from Hispanics – because they incorrectly assume her brown kids are Latino.  Racism is everywhere, but with a brown president in the White House, my brown kid finally has something that the majority of kids in America have always had the luxury of taking for granted: my kid will know that she can grow up to be President.

Interested in kids’ books for mixed-race children?  We have a few in our Amazon.com baby registry.  You will have to search on our last name.

And, of course, www.littledemocrats.net has the exceedingly cool books, Why Daddy is a Democrat , Why Mommy is a Democrat and Mama Voted for Obama! Woodland animals in pastel colors explain why Democrats are so important.  Definitely on the must have list.

“Who wrote this thing?” – Rush Limbaugh 9/6/06

Mixed Results

Wow!  Amazing!

We have a 7th mixed race President of the United States – and it’s not being kept in the shadows – for once.

So I’m at the liquor store, buying a split of Moet and Chandon to open when Obama gives his acceptance speech, and the Arab guy running the store (who has called me Captain Morgan ever since I showed up in full piratical garb to buy rum) asks “Why do you need champagne?”  I told him that my mixed race child will grow up in an age where his? her? peers will have simply grown up with a mixed race President in the White House.  It won’t be the monumental occasion that they’re spinning in the news – it’ll just be the way things have always been since he or she has been born.  He said “You Americans can be proud again,” and said “the world can see America as a real land of opportunity where ANYONE can be President.  Before it was a lie nobody would talk about.”

It’s so awesome to know that this mixed president doesn’t sweep his mixed race background under the rug.  I just wish that the whole world would stop looking at Obama as strictly black.  The guy is mixed – just like my kid.  The message that sends to mixed kids everywhere, and of course, to African-Americans as well – is awesome.  Literally.

Ok THE PRESIDENT is on.  Gotta go pop a cork and cry with my wife.  Even the dogs get a sip of champagne tonight.

Edit Wed Nov 5th:

I cut this post short last night since President-elect Obama had just come onstage and it was obviously going to be hard to type while holding champagne in one hand and my wife in the other.  Oh, and the cheering and jumping around of course made it hard to hold a laptop.

But already I’ve had a couple of people ask me “What do you mean the 7th mixed race President?”  So I should probably give some basic details for the folks who don’t follow this sort of thing.

You see, the ol’ 1/16th rule (for a basic discussion to bring you up to speed, take a look at the Wikipedia Article on the “One Drop” Rule) makes the following previous Presidents of the United States arguably “black” or at the least, of mixed race: Thomas Jefferson, Abraham Lincoln, Andrew Jackson, Warren Harding, Calvin Coolidge, and Dwight D Eisenhower.   The 1/16th, 1/32nd, or one drop rules and Virginia’s Racial Integrity Act were declared unconstitutional as part of Loving v. Virginia in 1967.  Admittedly, the one drop rule more or less “officially” hit the books round about 1910, but even Lincoln’s detractors dubbed him “Abraham Africanus the First” in the 1850’s and 60’s.

Heck, go on and read this for a short rundown of America’s other Black Presidents.  It gives you the skinny in a quick easy read and gives citations.  I don’t think they mention Eisenhower in this article, but his mom, Ida Elizabeth Stover Eisehower was part black as well.

So what’s the deal with Obama?  Why is he being hailed as “The First Black President’ all over the news this morning?  Why is CNN literally interviewing Jesse Jackson as I type this about this “First Black President’ bit?

Race is part of Obama’s identity.  He’s of mixed race and doesn’t hide it.  (Like he could.  I mean, look at the guy.)  Coolidge and Harding didn’t actvely deny their mixed race heritage at the time – they didn’t suppress printed geneologies that showed their backgrounds, but it was certainly to their advantage to pass as Whites in American government.     Andrew Jackson, the 20-dollar-bill guy meanwhile, tried to destroy references to his background, even family correspondence that referred to it.  So what’s different?  How is Obama the “First Black President”  or “The First Mixed President” in the mainstream media?  He looks brown.  His brother still ives in Kenya.  Everybody else was passing as white by design or by omission.

So I guess what I’m saying is “Obama’s honest.”  That’s why he will erroneously be called America’s First Black President.

Ah well, at least the Podling will grow up with somebody with the same color skin in the White House, no matter how the media decides to spin this.  And with that, I’m back to the reason for this blog in the first place – the Podling.  God and Goddess Bless America and all Her people.