Life Stuff

(Originally published 5/8/06 on MSN)

My daughter, Brooke tells this story, (probably a big fat lie) about me in Pathmark back in 1994 or so. My children have claimed that grocery shopping with me was an embarrassment because I bought so many no frills items at the time. They would hate to run into any of their friends at the store who would laugh at the "If you like 'Cheetos', try me" labels on the bag of corn chips that I chose for economy.
I supposedly asked my child to go get me a bag of onions and then took my place in the check out line. Child took a long time to make it back to me with the produce, and I asked her what happened. Her deadpan reply, "I couldn't find the 'no frills' onions." She and her sister, the beautiful Dalerie thought this was hilarious.
She's back in school now working on her graduate degree in business and she's doing well. Brooke is the mom of the Amazing 4 year old grandson Hassan who has finally agreed to "play" with his basketball team and stop spinning in circles at halfcourt while singing rap songs he shouldn't know the words to. A 4 year old should not be on that Kryptonite. Hassan is playing (well, appearing) with his team for the second year. Last year every time he snatched the ball from another player (didn't matter which team) he would run in circles, laughing until another kid would snatch the ball back. Taking the ball from any 3 year old on the court generally results in a quick run to Mommy and a good long cry. There were ususally more children on the sidelines being comforted than on the basketball court during gametime. Scoring wasn't really important to any of the players. Taking the ball from another kid seemed to be the point of the game. The one period that guaranteed the full attention and cooperation of the whole team: snack time. The kids would line up quietly and politely, then carefully spill the contents of their juiceboxes all over their uniforms. The snack parents never seemed to figure this one out in time to avoid the messes and the stains seemed to be badges of honor to the players (similar to football player's dirty uniforms) proving that the child had seen a little action that day. My younger daughter Dalerie has two sons - Kavon and Jared, ages 12 and 7. On a recent visit to their home in Florida, I learned that all African American pre-teens can not dance to the beat. Kavon gets excited and the beat gets away from him. This does not stop him from continuing to dance to his exciting collection of BowWow downloads. Kavon also considers himself a rapper and shouts the words out over the music. Once the beat is lost, the lyrics get lost too. Kavon's solution was to drown out the original so his concert was a step or two ahead of the track. Grandma tried to nod with the beat, but there were 2 beats going on so I got a little dizzy. Not to be outdone, Jared decided to show me all the karate moves he knows as well as his skill as a dancer. At seven, his exposure to dance has been limited to the videos his parent allow him to watch so his style is a little Michael Jacksonesque combined with a little Chuck Norris Mini-Me.