Puppy and His Sister

Wow, you know the economy is bad when over 450 people enter to win a $15 gift card. Be sure to toss your name in the hat before tomorrow night if you haven't already. Sure, as of right now you only have a 0.2% chance of winning. But if you don't enter at all, your chances are 0%.

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Some friends gave Puppy a toy camping set for his birthday with a car, canoe, tent--that sort of thing. There was a set of action figures included, a man and a boy. Puppy promptly decided they were father and son, then asked where the mommy and Firefly were. The other night, after several days of asking, he completely melted down. Suggesting that maybe the rest of the family just stayed at home for this camping trip didn't help. "I want a Mommy and a Firefly! We need to get a Mommy and a Firefly!" the tired boy cried.

I've been poking around online to see what I could find for him. The toy's manufacturer only sells white, male figures, so they were no use to me. I found some figures from another company that should work, but they are only sold in sets. So now there was a new question: do I buy the white mom and baby or the African-American ones?* Would Puppy even care?

It is hard to know what racial differences Puppy notices at this point. He compares other aspects all the time. He talks about Firefly being a baby and him being a toddler. He will say that she is a girl and he is a boy. He comes into the bathroom in the morning to watch me do her hair and compares his short, straight hair to her longer curls. We were reading a book one night and came to a page with a picture of an African-American man tossing his baby girl in the air. "Look! It's a Firefly baby!" said Puppy. "What about this baby makes you think of Firefly?" I asked. He leveled me that look toddlers give when you ask an obvious question. "She's a baby!" he explained. Duh, Mom.

Between the election and transracial parenting, race comes up in our home most every day. And whether or not Puppy can use the language of race, he is experiencing being in an interracial family, seeing how others respond to us. I know he is taking it all in, unconsciously or not. He listens to us talking about race, watches me hold Firefly up to the mirror and compliment her pretty brown skin, hears the questions people ask (no one ever asks about his ethnic background, but we get that question all the time about Firefly). He's witnessed so many people comment on her hair that he heads it off as part of his stock introduction: "This is Firefly. She is my sister. Look at her curly hair!"

There is quite a bit written about the experiences of parents and children whose relationships cross racial lines, a little less about siblings whose do. It is not limited to adoption, of course. There are all sorts of blended families these days. Lately I've noticed myself reading with an eye on sibling relationships, looking for clues in the stories of other multiracial families. Puppy and Firefly will share the experience of growing up with T and me as their crazy parents. But Puppy will not know what it was like to grow up black in this family, or vice versa.

Adoption always has ripples, and our decision to adopt transracially subtly changed the nature of Puppy's adoption. Firefly made our adoptive family status visibly apparent, but it also made Puppy's adoption more hidden. Even after confirming that Firefly was indeed adopted, people are surprised to learn that Puppy was, as well. Only one has been gauche enough to ask why we "couldn't get another white kid" (my response was an incredulous, "Excuse me?").

As far as Puppy is concerned, this is just the way his family is and he doesn't think to question it. When an older kid told him that Firefly couldn't be his sister because they didn't look alike, he was too confused by the thought to answer. We are receiving wonderful advice about giving Firefly tools she can use as she grows up a biracial child in a white family, advice which I hope we'll be able to follow. Now I'm looking at my white child and thinking about how to do the same for him.

* I'm getting the African-American ones. Lord knows we'll have enough Caucasian action figures in our house over the years.

I Must, I Must, I Must Increase My Luck

As a kid, I always filled out the Publisher's Clearing House sweepstakes forms that came in the mail. All the little magazine stamps to lick and the promise of oodles of dollars--loved it! Strangely enough, we never won. You're shocked, I know.

Now I'm all grown up and not even on the Publisher's Clearing House mailing list (knock on wood). But I still get a little thrill out of entering contests. Which is why I geek out over the quarterly Bloggy Giveaways Carnival. Four times a year a zillion bloggers get together and give stuff to each other. Love it! But despite all my clicking and entering, I've never won.

In an attempt to increase my giveaway-winning karma, this time I'm offering up a prize myself. I am a fan of choice, so you can have your pick of a $15 gift card for Target, Starbucks or Amazon. Also known as three enormous corporations which get too much of my money.

Entering is as easy as leaving a comment on this post. You don't have to be a blogger to win, but you do need to leave me some way to contact you. One entry per person, please. Comments close October 31 at 10:00 p.m. The winner will be selected randomly and posted this weekend.

If you're a fellow fan of giveaways, we've got a bunch every week over at Northwest Mom Finds. And you're welcome to come visit here any time. Good luck!

Comments are now closed. Thank you to all who entered!

Big Brother Books

I appreciate any excuse to buy new books, and preparing Puppy for Firefly's arrival lo those many months ago was certainly a good one. We've checked a slew of big sibling books out from the library over the past year, and these were the ones which distinguished themselves as keepers for our resident two year old.

Puppy is a big fan of some of Cathryn Falwell's other books, and he likes the characters in We Have a Baby as well. This was our "love the baby" book. Each page shows the older sibling "helping" to take care of the new baby: holding clothes while dad changes the baby, snuggling with mom while she nurses the baby. It reinforces that the family is one unit and the sibling is part of caring for the baby. The text is sparse and simple. This book gets also bonus points for the vaguely multiracial family.

The New Baby by Mercer Mayer starts rather abruptly with the parents going off to pick up the new baby, which is exactly how I imagine a sibling's adoption feels to a two-year old. It's a basic story of a sibling being annoyed that newborns aren't instant playmates, then realizing that there are some fun ways you can interact with them. I am totally creeped out by the strange animals in Little Creature books. But this is one of Puppy's favorites because he likes showing off Firefly to his friends the way the older brother shows off the baby in the book.

I'm a Big Brother (there is also an I'm a Big Sister version) by Joanna Cole. I would not have predicted this as a winner, but Puppy likes its theme of big brothers being able to do all sorts of things that babies can't (eat ice cream,walk, play). The transition from "baby" to "big boy" has been a frequent topic of conversation in general at the developmental stage Puppy is in, and this book fit into that nicely. It has the same matter-of-fact tone that I appreciate in Cole's book on adoption.

Peter's Chair by Ezra Jack Keats is about a big brother feeling displaced as things from his babyhood are redecorated and reused for his new sister. Peter makes one final valiant attempt to save his special chair from being handed over. Keats is a good storyteller and he takes Peter through the process of accepting the changes in his family life without being didactic. We reused most of our baby gear, so this was a big issue in our household, too.

What the No-Good Baby is Good For by Elise Broach was our counterpoint to the lovey-dovey books. When the big brother declares that "the no-good baby is good for nothing" and should be sent away, to his surprise their mother agrees and starts packing up her things. As he considers the possibility that baby might be gone forever, he realizes there are some things he actually would miss. By the story's end, he decides that the baby should stay, but also gets to spend some alone time with his mom while the baby is (temporarily) sent away with grandma. I wanted Puppy to know that it was okay to not love the baby all the time or right away. His world was turned upside down without his permission. I wouldn't expect him to only have positive feelings about that. I liked that the older sibling's expressed need for attention is met in this book, instead of disappearing as he realizes the baby is kind of fun.

You probably noticed that none of these are about adoption. Adoption was already a familiar concept in our little home library and in our family life in general, so we weren't hunting for books that explained adoption. We just avoided books that made pregnancy part of the storyline and instead looked for ones which focused on the transition of adding a sibling.

Finally, all the books mentioned show two-parent, heterosexual families. Which worked fine for our household, but obviously might not for others'.