Promise of Popsicles

Breaking through the Fourth Wall with joy

After a nice long spell at home, I’m back on the road. More than I would like. Not as much as I should. Either way, the FaceTime calls from the road are getting more fun as Baby Girl’s personality breaks through the Fourth Wall.

Toya and I celebrate the joy of The Trifecta — read to the end.

Toya and I started our parenting journey with the idea that Anisa would have very limited screen time. Bless our hearts.

Up to this point, unless Baby Girl is down for the count with a bad cold, she isn’t parked in front of a screen. But, there is a certain amount of Bluey, Doc McStuffins and others in our lives. (I don’t want to throw shade, Blippi kind of freaks me out.) On the whole, I have to admit the limited screen time has been good for Anisa. She picks up language, isn’t afraid of the doctor and takes on all kinds of fun little quirks.

At some point along the way, Bluey introduced the concept of a promise. Which I promptly elevated to, “Anisa, eat your dinner and then you can have a popsicle. I promise.”

To which Baby Girl replies, “You PROMMMMMISE?”

I quickly learned that if there is one thing Anisa will not forget it is the promise of popsicles. Yet, the entire exchange made me think about the concept of promises as the fundamental to the way we relate to each other.

I don’t want to try and get philosophical here, but a promise is a deeply personal commitment. At its best, it requires careful thought, a clear purpose and consequences if it is broken.

The relational promises we make are implicit. My promise to Toya, to my family, to my friends, my colleagues. Even my promise to myself to treat all people kindly. These aren’t written down. I don’t restate them everyday; but I try to live them everyday. I hold to those promises better on some days than others. I experience the consequences of breaking these promises sometimes and sometimes not. I trust myself to know when I am keeping to this promise and when I am not. I am far (far) from perfect; but I try to have a moral compass.

The transactional promises we make are explicit. Contracts, rules, laws. Written down, signed, guaranteed. They don’t require a moral compass, much less a sense of trust in judgement. Ink on paper is a substitute for morality, for trust. At least we hope it is.

What about the promises people make to us? Whether implicit or explicit, I trust someone will deliver on a promise if I know them, if there is a relationship. If they are not toddlers (by age or behavior).

Looking around at the world as it is, I ask, do promises matter anymore?

Yes, our promises to our in-group, our family and friends, are tighter than ever. The social and economic pressures around us increase the intensity of these relationships. Since we read the same things, believe the same things, these are straightforward promises to make — and keep.

Promises to our out-groups, the people we don’t know, who are different than us, feel harder to make and even harder to keep. We question the value of personally committing to someone we don’t agree with. So even if we make a promise, the weakness of our social bonds leads us to dismiss the consequences of our broken promises.

Raising a child in a time when our promises to each other are both stronger and weaker than ever feels different. Yes, I want Anisa to stick by the promises she makes to her friends and family. But, I also want her to feel she can trust the people she doesn’t know enough to make a promise to them. Most importantly, I want her to trust herself enough to make a promise to herself.

Which, as I think about it, may be our problem: We don’t trust ourselves enough to make promises to ourselves, much less to the people around us - even if we don’t know them. Which makes for a hard nut to crack.

The Fourth Wall

To state the obvious, I am having a great time as Anisa’s Cranky Dad. She is curious, kind, and has a laugh that starts in her little belly and erupts with a smile that pushes her chin to the sky.

When I am home, I try my best to pick her up from day care so we have a couple of hours to futz around before dinner, bath and bedtime. Sometimes we walk down the street to visit various yard creatures and neighbors. Other times we just have a dance party. (Thankfully, Baby Girl has her mother’s sense of rhythm.)

One afternoon, we were playing on the floor in the family room and she swung a book or something at a ball on the ground. She looked up at me and said, “1-0!” No idea where she learned that. But, for some reason, I got choked up.

Now that we are in the throes of potty-training, self-awareness takes on a whole new meaning. We love that she is getting better at letting us know when she has to go. We fell over laughing on a flight to the East Coast when she announced to the plane, “I HAVE TO GO TO THE TOIIIIILET!”

My favorite is when we FaceTime. Sometimes she wants nothing to do with me. Other times, the phone is on the floor and she is playing peek-a-boo, peering into the frame and disappearing. Reappearing with her little “thumbs up” look of concentration. Giggling all along the way.

Or, this evening, where her Dadima, cousin and Aunty all got on the screen for a Mary J. Blige dance party. It was, as Anisa now says, awesome.

Up to this point, Baby Girl was the lead character in her own play. Toya and I were her adoring audience. Our interactions were one-way as we all started to experience a new world. Much faster than I ever imagined, Anisa has broken through the Fourth Wall with an overwhelming joy.

It is a weird thing to say - because I knew it all along the way - but Anisa is her own person. And, well, she is fantastic.

The Trifecta

Last weekend, we all hopped a short flight to Los Angeles, caught up with my sister and headed out for an adult night on the town. The purpose being the Old Hillside release party of their new bourbon, Trifecta Blend. (Toya’s cousin, Emmanuel, is CEO of Old Hillside.)

I expected good bourbon; was not expecting great history.

See, the gents of Old Hillside dedicated the Trifecta Blend to “Eliza Carpenter, Sylvia Bishop, and Cheryl White, three women whose groundbreaking achievements shaped the horse racing industry.” Eliza was a race horse owner and jockey who was born into slavery and achieved success as the only African-American horse racer in early Oklahoma. Sylvia was the first Black woman to become a licensed horse trainer. And, Cheryl was the country’s first ever licensed Black female jockey.

In the midst of everything swirling around us these days, there was something special about being in that room in Los Angeles. It was a celebration of an important sliver of our nation’s history - of Black history - that very few of us know about.

See, I cannot imagine what Eliza, Sylvia and Cheryl endured to pursue what brought them joy. I cannot believe what so many have to endure today to pursue their joy. I can only hope Anisa, a Black woman, does not have to go through such struggles.

But if she does, my advice would be: Don’t let them take your joy.