Oh What A Letdown. And Up Swing.

Charlie bit again today. TWICE.

One time she did it at the end of the day, moments before I picked her up, so I saw the immediate after effects and what was/was not done.

The new teacher was not there and the secondary teacher was putting ice on the child who was bitten. Charlie was not in time out, just wandering around.

So I put her in time out, gave her a stern talking to, and made her apologize to the girl she bit. I was not impressed with the "immediate" punishment, as there was none when I was watching. Maybe they need two teachers there to accomplish that, as obviously the hurt child needs immediate attention.

But that put me in such a disappointed state of being. After a week and a half of no biting.... I hope this is not Charlie becoming more comfortable in her new class. I knew it was too good to be true... to go from biting 5-6 times a day to zero. The director said: "Oh well, you can expect some back sliding" as though it wasn't a huge deal. But I know my daughter. This is her being stubborn either when the disciplinarian is out of the room, or because no one was watching and she thought she could get away with it. I'm afraid she's back to biting and now she will get kicked out.


I'm sure most of you are thinking, well, good, she shouldn't be in a school with that racist teacher, but A) see last post about whether the teacher is a racist or ignorant and B) this is the most diverse school in my town. Every 3rd family walking down the hall is trans racial. Her class is a toddler-UN. And it's a mile from my house. And it's the most affordable (all the other day cares are at least $100 more per month). And they serve breakfast, lunch and snack and none of the other day cares serve any food, I'd have to buy it (more $) and pack it daily (more time). So I REALLY REALLY want C to stay in this school!!!

On a more positive note, tonight Charlie dropped her baba and milk spilled. As I was getting a rag to clean it up, she pulled the rag from my hands and RAN to the spill. SHE CLEANED IT UP HERSELF. An 18 month old. CAN YOU BELIEVE IT??? I NEVER TAUGHT HER THIS! WHAT A GOOD GIRL!! The PRIDE I felt watching her... took my breath away!!! OMG she is a roller coaster ride of emotions this little one.

In order to catch it on video, I had to spill more milk, so now she thinks it's a game.... yea, I'm not thrilled about that but who cares if she cleans it up herself?


So in one day the disappointment, fear, and powerlessness meets pride, joy and warmth. All from two little behaviors.

Hair-Gate 2010

I’ve made a decision on “hair-gate ‘10”. I’m not going to say a word to the teacher or the director.

It probably won’t be a popular decision. It might look like I chickened out. In a way I did. In a way, I didn’t.

See, I’m not your average “non-confrontative” person. In fact, I’ve been known to perhaps, at times, get up in people’s faces and let them know exactly how I feel about things. I’ve lost friends because of this, because of not backing down, or feeling I was right and they were wrong. I’m no door mat. My first instinct is to fight for what is just, that is why I spent 4 years in grad school and my career being a social worker. But I’m not going to address the issue with her new teacher and here’s why:

This teacher has access and influence over my most precious *possession* (I don’t own her but can’t think of the correct term here). She can smush Charlie like a bug, on a daily basis, and leave no physical marks. She could belittle her, ignore her, pinch her, or worse, for 9 hours a day and I might never know. She has way too much power in this situation for me to rock the boat. Do I think she would do those things? Of course not! If I did, Charlie wouldn’t be enrolled in school there. But she COULD if she wanted. She has unlimited ACCESS. She could just play favorites and damage Charlie’s self-esteem or other little twisted mind games. She could do those things if she was mad at me or resentful.

I also don’t think that the teacher took her hair bands out for a malicious reason. Yes, she’s ignorant of African American culture. Yes, she’s ignorant of how long it takes to do Charlie’s hair and the pride I take and the love I put into it. But I do not think she was thinking anything like: ”Here’s a black child and I don’t like black people and so I’m going to take her elastics out.” She was most likely annoyed that some of them were breaking, maybe concerned over kids eating them, maybe in a crappy mood and short tempered. It’s passive racism, the same way CVS not having black skin toned band-aids is systemic racism. Still hurtful. Still no excuse for. But I don't think it came form a deliberate place to hurt us.

So, weighing the possible good that can come from this, versus the possible repercussions, I'm not going to address it. What I will do is, over the next few weeks and months, educate her on Charlie's hair process. I will mention plenty of times how long C sat for her hair last night, or ask her, "What do you think of C's awesome braids? I did them myself! See how much work went into each one?" and slowly teach her.

I’m going to buy the stronger elastics and see what happens.

If she does anything like this again, I will definitely go to the director.

And I will be watching VERY CLOSELY for ANY racist overtones coming from her.

I'm on guard.

GRRRR.

Is this Hair Racism??

See post below for details in case you missed the originating post. Here are a couple of my responses to comments:

Kiki, I checked the handbook after you suggested it. It has stuff about keeping fingernails short, but nothing about hair or hair accessorizing.

In response to your lovely long comment (thank you you obviously thought a lot about it) I, too, would be thrilled if someone DID C's hair nicely. In this case though, I did her hair, and someone UNDID it. Without asking. I do think it's slightly racist, maybe not purposefully, but lordy if black kids have to go through this everywhere they go to school, it does seem mighty exclusionary. Also, everyone KNEW she was a white teacher and I never mentioned her color. They just knew a black teacher wouldn't dare undo C's hair which takes a lot of work to do.

But Kik, imagine if you spent an hour on Ola's hair, and did intricate braids, and then when you picked her up, they were all undone.... How would you feel? Then add in that the teacher's a different race, the majority race...

I did ask the director about the little rubber bands and she said they were fine.

Michelle, I did not talk to the teacher this morning because there were other people in the room and I didn't quite know how to approach it... I had imagined she would be alone like usual, not with some other parents in there. That threw me for a loop and I chickened out. Maybe tomorrow. I need to get my momma bear hackles up and protect my baby, or at least inquire politely about WHY she took them out.

I was thinking today, maybe she took them out and the teacher who sometimes does C's hair was going to put in the better kind of elastics that that don't break as easily, but ran out of time? That would have been fine with me. It just didn't feel like that was the case though....( because of the main teacher's attitude the day before about having to pick up pieces of elastic.)

So far, I have been lucky. Even though I live in "the South", I have not experienced any overt racism towards C. Not that I noticed anyway. I hate to think this was our first experience of it, because I was so proud of our little city. But I suppose *they* are everywhere, North, South, East and West. And *they* are ugly everywhere.

Camil2, I have given two of the African American teachers permission to do C's hair. They do a great job, but they only do her hair when I have left it in an Afro. They have never UNDONE something I did (even if I did a poor job). They just plain know better. This DID remind me of the teacher who cut off that girl's braid, although this is NOWHERE NEAR as bad as that. If she had done that, I would have been calling the news stations.

One of my regular readers, who was in ET with me picking up her son, wrote me an email (which I didn't ask permission to post) but basically the first sentence was that this teacher is racist and the reader obviously felt very strongly about it. That was her first reaction reading what happened.

Thanks for all the input. I'm glad I wasn't off base to be irked by this. For a second there, I second guessed myself and thought I was irritated by my work day (which I was) and that I was over blowing the hair thing. Your comments let me know I was on track to feel angry and offended. And I did originally write that she was a white teacher, and then decided I should erase that, as possibly offensive on my part, like I would be starting something by hinting at racism. But since all the commentators knew she was white anyway, I do think that proves if not racism, at the LEAST a cultural ignorance.

Proof of Charlie's Innocence! Evidence, CSI-like...

Here is the evidence that Charlie's lip was hurt. These pictures were found in my mother's camera, taken on the morning of the great "tongue time out".

Thanks for all the input, there were some very wise comments.

And here's what I did about it (see two posts down for backup story):

Yesterday morning, her teacher was not there so I did nothing. By the afternoon I was completely calm and "over it".

I did bring it up after we had chatted about other things for awhile. I said "Her grandfather told me she was naughty yesterday.... what happened?" and the teacher replied that Charlie had stuck out her tongue, but she didn't think it was malicious. She wasn't sure where she had picked it up from, but there was a book they look at everyday of children from around the world (she showed it to me) and the child they call the "Charlie baby" (the one from Africa)is sticking out his tongue.

Which led me to want to ask "Well, why was she put in time out for that????" but I decided to let it go. After all, it's not a huge deal and as long as the teacher admitted it wasn't malicious (she's just too young for malicious!) that's all I care about.

Actually, funnily enough, M and M in the comments yesterday mentioned having that same book! And noticing the African baby sticking out her tongue. Weird coincidence, huh?

Boy.... put together an Aries personality and burgeoning mama bear protective feelings and wowsa! Explosions in the brain happen!

I'm nowhere near about to pull her out of this daycare. It has too many good things going for it, and I think that's a bit knee-jerk of a reaction. Here are the great things:

1) It's 1 mile from my house
2) They serve breakfast, lunch, and afternoon snack saving me money and more importantly, time
3) The entire school is extremely diverse. Every third family walking down the hall is a trans-racial family. I love that and can't get that anywhere else around here.
4) It's the cheapest daycare in the area.
5) Usually I think the teachers are really caring and warm.

So, until something else happens, something worse, Charlie will be staying in this daycare. It's hard to know just from reading a blog post, especially a post that was written in anger. But generally, these are compassionate teachers.

The teacher knows I am behind her most of the time with discipline, and we discuss Charlie's behaviors with the common goal to have a well behaved child. So I'm glad she can tell me this stuff. In this case, there's no doubt in my mind Charlie has no idea what sticking her tongue out means. But certainly she is a strong willed child and will need to understand that what her teacher and mama say needs to be adhered to. So far she is very well behaved, and I'm amazed.

Tongue in Cheek. Or not, as the case may be.

Charlie finds out life is unfair!
Today, Charlie got put in time out when she allegedly stuck her tongue out twice at her day care teacher. Her grandfather picked her up and got the full tale from the teacher. On the ride home, Charlie stuck her tongue out continuously.

When Opa told me this, my anger FLARED. Charlie had bit her lip before school and I showed her teacher how it was bleeding. How DARE she punish her for licking her hurt lips???

And I mean.... really. This was NOT a stiff "F" you defiant protruding tongue; it was a soft, wandering, "what is this weird blood taste" type of sticking out tongue. Sheesh. Who can't tell the difference with that??

So I got all prepared to stomp in there tomorrow and remind them that Charlie bit her lip and was not sticking out her tongue, but my mom thinks that might scare the teacher and prevent her in the future from telling me anything.

Another option, since I can't let it go totally and let them think she's so naughty, is to go in there tomorrow and pretend my parents didn't tell me the time out story and mention"Charlie's lip is all better today. Remember how she bit it yesterday and it was bleeding?" and innocently.... remind them.... guilt trip them so to speak.... that my girl is awesome and they were WRONG about her!!!!

What thinkist thou, oh wise blog readers?

Let it go and say nothing?

Let them have it firmly, yet politely?

Innocently remind them about her tongue and let them draw their own conclusions?

Or what would you do?

Yes, I need answers. It's not the end of the world. But I'm still curious what you would do.

My Little Girl Is Growing Up!

Argh!
Today I left Charlie in the care of virtual STRANGERS at her daycare for the first time. Here we are at the front of the daycare, check in hand, ribbons in hair. All three of us accompanied her to the day care, Opa and Babcia waking up WAY earlier than usual, to spend a little time with her at the place before leaving her. She is very loved, this little one, to have a trio of accompaniment for her first day at school.

She had met her teacher the other day, and several of the kids, although I don't think she remembered any of them. The teacher made her a spot for brekkie and (amazingly) Charlie left her bib on and sat still, as did all the other children. I was most impressed. She is a total wiggle worm at home, and rips her bib off WITHOUT FAIL.

She did great! Here she is with her teacher, eating brekkie.



I LOVE that her class is so diverse. It's like the K-UN (Kindergarten United Nations) in there!

There was one funny moment when Charlie attempted to make a trade of a dusty toy she found on the floor for another kid's bagel. Well, she didn't really ask to make a trade, she just gave him the toy and took his bagel ;-) Nice deal, girlfriend! That's the way to do it!

(Just kidding, I made her give it back).


No tears, no problems with me or her grandparents leaving.

I, on the other hand, had some serious pangs.

Anyway, the reports were that she was friendly and playful and took a long nap on her cot without a BABA (another amazing thing since she refuses to sleep at home without one).

I think this day care situation will be a great thing for Charlie. She will get to play all day long, with other kids (something as an only child she can't do at home), and come home nice and tired out for cuddling and dinner and nighttime rituals. Then on the weekends we can do fun activities. On the few holidays I get when the daycare is still open I can drop her off and do all the oil change/doctor appointment/gardening chores I can't do normally.

I think she had a great day, it couldn't have been better. No tears, she had fun, it was wonderful. Yay Charlie!

She amazes me in many ways but for certain one way is her adaptability. I'm not sure if that is a remnant from the "orphanage days" or just her personality (for sure I met some of her care center buddies who were no where NEAR as flexible and accepting as she is), but whichever it is, I'm so grateful she seems to let each new (and potentially scary) situation roll off her back like no big deal. It makes my job MUCH easier as a single mom. Thanks, Charlie ;-)