I got one of "the questions" ....

The other night while saying my last good nights to Vivienne (age 4) she asked, "Mommy, why is your skin white & mine isn't?"  I assumed something like this would come up eventually, I just didn't know when or how. 

I explained to her that I had white skin & daddy has black skin.  Since she was our daughter, God made her a mix of both of us.  "Oh." She said.  About five minutes later, her dad came into the room & she asked him, "Daddy, why do we have different color skin?"   As he cuddled with her he explained (in French ... so translation is loose) almost exactly the same way that I did.   Simple.  To the point.  It has been several days, and not another mention of it.

I think that too many people try and over explain things to children when really, they just want a simple answer.  If you have kids, you know, if they don't get it .... they'll ask again (and again!)  Also I think that we (as adults) assume too many times that we know what our children are really asking about.  We give long answers that are very complicated when really, the answer is not at all what the kid was looking for!

Here's an cute example from a friend ...

He is black, and his whole family is black except for his grandmother.  She is white.  One day his sister asked grandma if she was really her grandma.  Grandma took a deep breath & asked, "What do you mean?"  His sister replied, "Well, the other kids grandmas have rocking chairs & sew.  You don't sew & you don't have a rocking chair."

Do you have biracial children?  I'd love to hear your stories of how they asked you about it - if they did.   How did you respond?

a milking we will go!

So those of you who are friends with me on my personal face book page know that since Wednesday, my oldest, Vivienne has been obsessed with wanting to milk a cow.  I have no idea where this came from.  I asked her why, and she replied, because I want to!  Vivienne is a really fun little girl & at times very quirky.  I think part of the fun of being a parent is feeding my childrens' curiosity.  Who knows where it could lead?  I think this philosophy of real world learning is part of Waldorf or maybe Montessori ... but for me the mom, it is just plain fun.

After two days of her talking constantly about wanting to milk a cow I decided I would find a cow for her to milk.  Out here in the San Francisco Bay Area, that is not as easy as it sounds!  There are urban farm programs that have cow milking days, such as Slide Ranch in Muir Beach but all farm days are sold out for the rest of the summer!  There is an urban farm in Lafayette, Sienne Ranch.  They have a farm program where children can milk goats, but you have to sign up for their week long program (which we will probably do in the future).  I told Vivienne I couldn't find a cow, but what about a goat?  She agreed that a goat would be just fine.

After much googling, I found a goat farm in Vacaville, CA that talked about selling kids (baby goats!).  I figured babies = milk.  So, I called them up.  After explaining my situation, the woman said we could show up when they milked their goats at either 8 am or 7 pm.

So ... out the door at 7am Saturday morning!  Headed for the farm!  Of course this is the day all three girls decided to sleep in past 6:30 am (and I had worked until 10:30 the night before ...).

We arrived and first spotted about 20 kids eating breakfast.  They were about 18" high ... so cute!   The girls got to pet them through the fence.  After about 15 minutes, it was time to head into the barn and milk the goat!  We were told about their food and the process of getting 35 goats milked every day twice a day.  They use a machine to milk four goats at a time, but first brought in one for Vivienne.

Here is Vivienne giving it a try.  She listened very well & followed the instructions.  With help, she got the milk out!  And no, we didn't bring one home.  They are a lot of work!