Making us Proud

It actually takes very little to make us proud. K, C, and A are smart, witty, beautiful kids. They're always doing something interesting in their lives. Whether that makes BUMD and I happy or bewildered is another matter entirely.

Last night, we were eating dinner downstairs and watching TV. I know, bad parents - but we're watching things together, so it's a family dinner of sorts. The first two things we watched were short pieces put out by Barack Obama's campaign - the sort of feel-good infomercials that let you know more about the candidate. One of the things featured in both was Michelle Obama saying that she initially thought "Barack Obama" was a weird name. K turned around and said to us, "What's so weird about being named Barack Obama?". This is a kid who's being raised in Northern Virginia. People who live here come from all over the world. Even amongst the US-born folk, there's a large representation of people who have lived across the globe - govvies, foreign service members, military families, to name a few. NoVa is also a metropolitan area and every group lives in a higher concentration then, say, the small town in NJ where I grew up. The kids spend time with people from different cultures daily - that is one of our reasons for raising them here, no matter how bad the traffic sucks.

I've often claimed that the thing that would weird them out the most would be stepping into a classroom filled with only US-born, Caucasian students and staff. None of our kids have ever experienced that. Instead, they've grown to expect diversity in their lives. Being named something as unfamiliar as "Barack Obama" doesn't mean the person is weird; they're simply named something you haven't heard of yet. It's just a name, it doesn't define the person. When K made that comment, we knew she got it. Or maybe she didn't get "it", simply because the question never entered her mind. Being different is normal, not something to be feared. I hope that's the case.

I have a sign on the wall above one of my desks - "Life is 10% how how make it, and 90% how you take it." That really sums up how I should be viewing things, although at times it is difficult to process. Never was that sign more appropriate than last night. I was collecting the upstairs garbage. I reached into C's garbage can and came up with...wet stuff. That smelled like pee. I promptly yelled at him and then yelled for BUMD and explained that since he was a boy and C was a boy, they should have this discussion. C ended up having to clean the trash can and getting grounded from video games and movies for two weeks. BUMD was left trying to remember where he peed at that age. Boys, ewww.

Later on, BUMD pointed out a few very important observations. First, C opened his flip-top trash can and peed in it - so, he can pee standing up. Not a huge accomplishment for most kids, but we've been working on this with him forever. Autism can be weird like that. Next, DH had noticed the day before that C's room smelled strange, but C denied any issues. So, now we know he can lie too. That skill also took forever to develop. He tends to be very blunt and truthful. Not that I want him to lie, but it's nice to know that those processes are working. So, yes, we're proud of those developments. I just wish they'd manifested themselves differently. Some days, you just take what you can get and make the best of it.