Our house at 7:30 a.m.

Waffle House

Okay, I'm truly committed to the 31 for 21 project, but I'm finding it difficult in October--the busiest month of all time for me!--to blog every day.  I like the challenge, though, because it's helping me to confront my own perfectionism.  Here's a quick, non-perfect post.

When Maybelle woke up from her late nap today, she was still sort of exhausted, and also a combination of grouchy-hungry.  We hadn't had a lot of time for the whole family this weekend, so we decided to celebrate the three of us being together by going to Maybelle's favorite restaurant of all time:  Waffle House (or "House," as she sometimes calls it).

We didn't even put her shoes on (since Waffle House probably doesn't care that much about the "no shirt, no shoes" business).  We hopped in the car, and there we were.  She read the menu as she likes to do--identifying the coffee, the waffle, the eggs, the orange juice--but it seemed to make her realize just how hungry she was.  She got grouchier.  She got demanding.  She said things like, "I want to waffle!"

And then, the server brought a fresh, hot, plate sized waffle to our table.  And Maybelle raised her hands in the air and screamed with delight.  "Waffle!" she said.  "And syrup!"  I can tell why she's so well loved in that Waffle House:  how often do they get that kind of response?

She and I were ostensibly sharing the waffle, but I got only one quarter of it, and she ate the rest.  And looked at me suspiciously while I ate my tiny little part.

Bird

We've been working on getting Maybelle to say full sentences.  She's able to do so, with a bit of coaching--or sometimes just with encouragement--but her repertoire is limited.

However, it's expanding, and she's becoming a bit more experimental.  Here's what happened this afternoon:

We went to visit our friends Claire, Larry, Adam, and Nina (and as a fun, unrelated side-note, when she stood at the base of the steps to their front door, she looked up, saw where we were, and clapped her hands in delight!  She also said, "Boo!", as that's her favorite game with Larry.)

While we were there, Claire read the book Are You My Mother? to Maybelle.  Claire is a dynamic reader, and Maybelle seemed interested, responding appropriately to the plot.  The main character is a baby bird.  When the book was finished, Maybelle looked at me seriously, and said,

"I want to go to bird."

She was signing as she spoke, so I'm pretty sure those are the words she said.  Hmm.  I want to go to bird.  What does that mean?  Nina brought a stuffed animal bird down from her room, but it didn't satisfy Maybelle.  She looked at me and said, "I want to bird."

Claire and I tried lots of things:  "You want to hear a bird?  You want to read the bird book again?  You want Claire to make the sound of a bird?  You want to look at pictures of a bird?"  Nothing seemed to be exactly what Maybelle was wanting, but Claire sent the book home with us in case we have some sort of insight.

At any rate, we're very proud of Maybelle for her growing language skills.  And that's our "31 for 21" for today!  (Two days in a row--doing good!)

RGT

It's rare to meet someone and immediately feel comfortable. It's rare that someone has a vibe that instantaneously puts me at ease, makes me feel chatty, makes me want to settle in and talk.  And if the thing you get to settle in and talk about is feminist disability studies--what could be better?

Rosemarie Garland-Thomson has that vibe, and if you're in the Charleston area, I strongly encourage you to come out tomorrow night and hear her talk:

Buddy Walk 2011

Today was our fourth Buddy Walk.  It's amazing every year to see how much has changed in Maybelle, and in our family.  I know that in past years I've written reflective posts about the changes, but this year let me share visually (you know, with lengthy captions):

While last year Elizabeth and I held Rosemary and Maybelle on our hips and danced around ourselves, this year Maybelle heard the DJ playing "Hey Ya," ran to the dancing area, and was inclined to stay there as long as possible. She danced and danced and danced. No assistance necessary.

Last year we were amazed that she could walk the whole mile by herself. This year she marched, walked forward, walked backward, and would often grab Biffle and I by the hands so that we'd swing her into the air. Biffle noted that last year, all she could say was, "Whee!" This year, to get swung, she had to say, "1-2-3-4-5-6-7-8-9-10!", and she'd often say it really quickly so that she'd be in the air sooner.

The DSAL Buddy Walk always has a ridiculous number of jump castles. Nine this year. And this year, Maybelle went in them. There were wonderful teenagers in every jump castle helping the kids to navigate, and they got Maybelle to the top of this slide, and she came down super fast. And loved it.

But let's be honest--this year's Buddy Walk wasn't all that different from previous years. It ended with me and Biffle crying about how proud we are of Maybelle, and how happy we are to have her in our lives. Meanwhile, Maybelle was wriggling and saying, "Down! Down, please!" because she was ready to go back to the dance area.

Unitarian Universalists

This afternoon Biffle and I began the very odd process of becoming members of the UU congregation in Charleston.  It's odd mainly because I'm considering joining a church.  As we've discussed here before, we'd feel more comfortable if it had some sort of other title than "church"--cohort, gathering, cult, etc.

But we like it there, so we're moving forward.  We want the official nametags.  Today's meeting was mostly a get to know ourselves and each other kind of event.  We all went into separate spots in the building and wrote about why we were there, and then we got together and shared.  So I thought I'd share my thoughts with you--as I wrote them, I reflected, "This sounds like something on Baxter Sez."

WHY AM I HERE?

1.  Because of Biffle.  I would never have come on my own.  I wasn't missing a religious community--in fact, I was/am pretty skeptical of religious communities because I see people who've been badly damaged by religion.  Plus, much religion really chafes at my approach to the world.

2.  Because of Maybelle.  She loves it.  Seeing how happy Maybelle is here was a big part of why I was willing to come back a second time.  Plus, she was openly welcomed and included--not looked at in a pitying way at all.  That would have been a deal-breaker.

3.  Because of me and Biffle.  I was surprised to find that church services are a space where we connect--sitting side by side, sometimes giggling at the hymns, sometimes getting surprisingly teary.  We could have an ugly Sunday morning, but coming to church gives us a second start and a feeling of us-ness.

4.  Because there seems to be no religion here.  It's all vague, questioning, accepting, and I like that.  I don't feel that I've necessarily learned anything being here, but I haven't been offended, and I do get the occasional nugget.  Social justice seems to be quite central, and that's one of the central things in my life, too.

5.  I'm not at all religious, but I'm open to spirituality--to the notion that I'm not the center of/the most powerful thing in the universe.

6.  At a meeting over the summer, someone shared the joke that Unitarians are atheists who have children, and that resonated with me.  But I don't come to the UU church because I want Maybelle to be "acceptable," to have an answer to the constant Southern question of "Where do you go to church?"  I want her to be a radical activist and piss people off!*  But I want our family to have a few different communities that support us all as valuable people in the world.

Thoughts that came up during the conversation:  I had few friends and was widely ridiculed during my junior high years.  It wasn't until high school that I met a crowd of artsy/nerdy/misfit friends who welcomed and embraced me.  I've been sort of assuming that this is the nature of junior high--but today's conversation led me to think that Maybelle might not feel totally reviled in junior high if she has an artsy/nerdy/misfit bunch at the Unitarian church that she can hang with and go to camp with.

*One of the other couples there shared that their daughter discovered that the family of one of her friends won't let her hang out with them anymore because she "worships the Devil."  My initial thought on hearing this story is that I hope Maybelle will roll her eyes and say, "Fuck you!" if someone ever says this to her. But then I remembered Cindi May's very good advice:  we need to teach Maybelle to look sympathetic and concerned and say, "I'm sorry that you're so ignorant" when she hears things like that.  Much more effective, plus you get to feel morally superior.

Sexual terrorism

I haven't taught my Gender and Violence class for a couple of years, so much of it feels new to me.  Last night we were discussing an essay by Carole Sheffield called "Sexual Terrorism."  Sheffield defines sexual terrorism as "a system by which males frighten and, by frightening, control and dominate females."  She goes on to say that "women's lives are bounded by both the reality of pervasive sexual danger and the fear that reality engenders."

The statistics for violence against women are bad.  Like, bad.  Violence against women is incredibly pervasive.  But what's even more pervasive is fear, or a consistent awareness among women of the need to make choices that will "keep them safe." (Please note that those are scare quotes from me.)  Every time I've ever discussed this essay in class, I ask my students if they've experienced this low-level, pervasive fear.  Every time, the hand of every woman in the class goes up.  And that's what happened last night.

I asked them to tell me some examples.  They had story after story: 

• "I'm not sure if I'm just being weirdly paranoid, but I won't park in a parking garage unless I'm near an elevator."  
• "Of course I won't ever leave the library alone after dark."  
• "My friends told me about the bars that are roofies bars or Ambien bars, so I try not to ever go there." 
• "I never let anyone I'm not really close to know where I live."
• "I heard a guy tell his girlfriend, 'I don't care what kind of self defense class a woman takes.  If I wanted to rape her, she couldn't stop me.'"
• "I got catcalled in broad daylight by guys at a fraternity house, and every time I walk by there, I'm afraid.  They felt okay yelling things at me during the day.  What would they do if they saw me at night?"

I also had five different students in the class--five students--tell stories of cars pulling up beside them and guys rolling down the windows and saying, "Get in."  Not, "Do you need a ride?", not, "Can I take you somewhere?", but "Get in."  None of the students got in.  But what the fuck were these drivers trying to do?

At a certain point I had to stop the storytelling.  I suspect we could have gone on for another hour, but class time was limited.  I noticed that as they were telling their stories, many of them were laughing, as were folks in the class.  There's a way in which humor is a defense mechanism:  if we make it funny, it's not as scary.  But I shared with them that I was listening not as their peer but as a professor, a mentor, and a parent, and I didn't find the stories funny at all.  Those stories tell me about the world that we're living in, a world in which women consider it normal--even sensible--to spend much of their time afraid.  And as a culture, we don't consider that a problem.  We consider it just the way things are.

That is truly offensive and fucked up.  Having been away from this conversation for two and a half years, I'd let my cynicism diminish.  I wasn't calloused enough.  I was wide open to the outrage that is the appropriate response to hearing a room full of valuable human beings tell you about the world they live in which encourages them to be afraid, but doesn't actually provide any meaningful protection from what they're afraid of.