A Poetic Journey to Restoration
You can now go to one site to choose how you want to experience Toni Love’s EP “The Restoration”. You can purchase the limited edition EP with graphic cover and artistry on the actual CD, or you can download one track or the entire body of soul-stirring poetry online. If you email me at tonitalove2@gmail.com with proof of purchase, I will mail you a Toni Love t-shirt for FREE! Wishing you a fabulous summer and days full of joy and LOVE!
~ Toni
#loveistheanswer
Well, today’ it’s back to school for the kids, and getting back to the mindset of prosperity, writing and productive work for me! This year was the first year that I stayed home with the kids for their entire winter break and did not schedule them for day camp at the Y or any other place. I thought that I deserved to have just one day to myself during their ten day break, but intuition told me to just enjoy them. Sometimes when I hear that voice that whispers to me to take time out for them, I can become fearful that I’m getting a message that something may happen to them or me and that is the reason we should cherish this time. But then I realize that sometimes it may just be their subconscious speaking to mine and they just need more mommy time. So, I made sure we had groceries and that the cable bill was paid and made no plans other than to attend a local Kwanzaa celebration and enjoy our family and friends during the holidays. We had a few impromptu yet fulfilling lunch and dinner gatherings with friends, some football, board games, reading, lots of movie time on the couch, a few pajama days and even some days that they were both not feeling well, and recovering. It was the first time that I purposely chose not to try and “use” the time to cram in every library, museum or other extra curricular event that looked exciting and intriguing during the holiday break. They both get so over-worked (in my opinion) at school that I wanted them to just do nothing for a change. Yes we may have put on a pound or two and the kids may be raddled due to the relaxed sleep schedules, but their bodies are healed, they got lots of love, snuggles, family time and cultural enrichment, and most of all a break from the day to day stress of school and extra-curricular activities.
They are not over-scheduled like many suburban kids I know of these days, but I do try to balance the lack
of gross motor activities in the schools with sports and dance and other physical recreation. Aside from the recreation, they both will be taking Mandarin Chinese this semester on Saturday mornings (my son is in his sixth year, and my daughter wants to do whatever her big brother does), so we have a few commitments but not excessive. I don’t do more than one sport in a season unless it’s swimming lessons, and unless they are with their father for the weekend, or beg me to see the latest Disney movie, we spend Friday and Sunday nights at home. Even energetic and/or brilliant kids need down time too. They need time to relax and release and not worry about time and schedules and assignments. And for this reason Friday nights at our house are sacred. They are almost always reserved for what the kids refer to as “movie night”. We get early showers, get in our pajamas, pull out the fleece blankets, search for a great family movie, pop some popcorn (or grab a bag from the Wawa) and head to the couch for snuggle time. It’s the most inexpensive way to treat them to a special night and after all of these years it’s still their favorite night of the week. They love it because they get uninterrupted quality time with me and I love it because I know there will soon be a day when Friday nights will be spent with a blanket, myself and a good book because they’ll be at the mall, going to a movie or a party with their friends. So for now, for reasons I don’t necessarily share with them, it’s my favorite night of the week too!
Here we go. Time for Parent/Teacher conferences, and once again I anticipate hearing the dreaded and extremely over-used words “we need to work more on focusing, and transitioning.” Ugh!! {deep breath} I have to meditate twice as long on days like this because I get so tired of trying to explain to teachers why my kids don’t fit inside their square box. “No, he/she is not like Johnny Appleseed because he/she is gifted/talented”. I get frustrated with the need to defend them and it sometimes gets exhausting trying to compensate for the enrichment that they are not getting in school because everything is so “standardized”. All of the intense focus on testing is torture for their little creative minds and it sends the message to them at an early age that the way they process information is not “normal”. Because of it, instead of teaching and it’s the teacher’s job to spend the rest of their elementary school days helping them to conform to the norm. It makes my skin crawl. But I digress…
Although I was identified gifted in middle school and the gene is reportedly transferred from the mother (though I often feel motherhood slowly reverses my intelligence), I still did not identify the traits in my son. I was told by my pediatrician that most two-year olds, especially male, cannot count to 30, recite the alphabet, and identify all shapes and colors. Really?? It was my first child, and I knew he was ahead of the doctor’s normal checklists, but those Baby Einstein commercials made me think all toddlers could read! Even still, after being tested, identified and accelerated, I was faced with the same comments by teachers who just didn’t get him. And it’s so frustrating for the child and the parent because we know there are so any resources out there and we don’t understand why the teachers aren’t educated about the pros and cons of being gifted and/or talented. He was in preschool reading chapter books and about to start on multiplication tables, yet the school’s director never thought to have him tested. Even more so she received a copy of his IQ test results, and never once mentioned them. She, the founder and Director of the school – an educator – never met with me to discuss their findings and never said another word about it. So, we left.
I am so thankful for the S.E.N.G. http://www.sengifted.org/Organization’s conferences on the Gifted, and the conference I attended on the education of blacks in suburban school districts, because they both armed me with the courage and information I needed to be his advocate and get him the support, effective teaching and curriculum that he deserved and needed. It took a few years of personal and academic success before his elementary school was convinced that acceleration could be effective, even with a male student. When he was admitted into his elementary school’s gifted program, he was the only African-American male in the entire school district who was identified gifted. That’s four elementary schools. How sad and intolerant… and a whole other blog post!
So here we are again. Now my daughter Janai could care less about reading or memorizing sight words, hasn’t been given an IQ test, nor exhibited any academically gifted tendencies (as of yet), but I do believe she has an extraordinarily creative mind and ear for music. James’ strength is visual, and hers is auditory. He has a photographic memory, and she has sensory gifts that even astound her new piano teacher. Janai has more energy than the Energizer bunny and it takes a lot of effort for her to have a full course at dinner without getting up to dance or taking a quick spin around her seat. She is constantly singing, and I am convinced that she hears music in her head most of the time. After all,my grandmother MaryBelle Bumbrey was a trained pianist, and her cousin is Grace Bumbrey http://www.musicianguide.com/biographies/1608000604/grace-bumbry.html , a world-renowned opera singer so it is quite possible.
The other night, after practicing at home to prepare for her piano lesson, she asked if she could play her own composition for me. After she was finished, I suggested she play it for her instructor later that evening, and she did. I adore him because he sees past her age and her occasional spins around the classroom, applauds her creativity, honors her musicality and is going to work with her to fine tune her piece and put it onto paper. After only five lessons, and not quite six years old, she is already attempting to write her own melodies. I don’t know about you but at that age I was making (and eating) mud pies with not a thought about composing music!
And all this from a kid who’s teacher thinks that we need to “work on focus”. Yet when I watch her at the piano, I see nothing but.
And yes I understand the concerns of the educators, the importance of structure, transitioning, and testing, etc. – well maybe not the testing – but I also believe that it’s the role of parents and educators alike to make sure that the two worlds meet. We both need to educate ourselves, seek out the resources that these young, gifted and talented beings need to embrace their truth and ensure that the gift and or talent is experienced as a joy and a pleasure rather than a burden and a curse. These beautiful souls have so much of their world to share with ours if we just let them be perfectly themselves.
How do you support yourself and your children in recognizing and embracing your/their gift(s)?
I don’t know why I thought of my grandmother MaryBelle this morning, but her face popped up in my head when I awakened to start my day. I am up at 6:30 am each morning now that my first-born is in middle school and the bus arrives at 7:15am. I am not a morning person, but I’m glad that he is, because he is up, dressed, fed and on the bus in 40 minutes! I hate getting up so early, but it does give me some quite time for myself before my little firecracker of a kindergartner awakens. These past few days my little one has been sick with some type of stomach virus, and even though she’s the one who’s ill, after a few days it tends to take a physical and emotional toll on me. With no parents or grandparents to turn to, I start to feel so alone doing this all by myself. My ex chooses not to help me since he supports financially, so that door is closed. And though my friends are so kind and helpful, you really can’t ask a friend to sit around and clean up your child’s vomit all day while you run off to work. Sometimes when you’re sick, you just want your mommy. I know the feeling. The really difficult part of being an entrepreneur is that your clients are but only so understanding when you’re unavailable day after day and there’s no one else to replace you. I don’t get much sleep, I’m doing way more laundry than normal and it’s tough trying to juggle work and a sick child, while still recovering from a mild concussion myself. After the day is done, I sit down in exhaustion and look around, and there’s no one else there, and it’s tough not to have a pity party.
So I guess my grandmother (we called her Mom-Mom) showed up to help and to keep me from partying alone. I made it to Whole Foods yesterday to buy an Organic, whole chicken to make home-made chicken noodle soup. Now, this is something I’ve never done, so why I even embraced the idea is beyond me. Must have been Mom-Mom in my ear. After my daughter left her lunch on the floor of the supermarket and we headed (quickly) for the cash register, I went home to start my project. And yes, I did tell someone there was a cleanup in aisle four! 🙂
For some reason once I started cooking at the stove I turned into someone I didn’t recognize. Now I must say I think I am a great cook, but there are still some old southern recipes that I haven’t yet mastered, and home-made chicken soup is one of them! The chicken smelled so good and as I put away some of it to freeze and use later, the thought came to me to leave some in the pot to make gravy and serve it over biscuits and rice. I then reached for the yams I just purchased, put them in a pot and started making my list of herbs and other items I needed and added a bag of black-eyed peas to the list of things I would make for dinner.
It was as if I were channeling my ancestors and that they had taken over my thoughts and were helping me to take care of my daughter and to remind me once again that they are around. I had to smile and think that if anyone would show up to give me a cooking lesson it would be her. Mom-Mom was the one who showed my mother around a kitchen when Mom was a new bride and soon to be mom at the young age of 19. Mom-Mom was such a small, quiet woman of few words, and I miss her. I used to wash and braid her silvery hair until she left this plane, and I always enjoyed our girl talks and moments alone. She gave me such full seeds of wisdom and was the most compassionate woman I knew. And I’m thankful she’s still around sharing her wisdom. I am still exhausted, still wishing for Supernanny to come do my laundry and wash my dishes, but when I put the chicken soup, candied yams, biscuits and gravy and black-eyed peas on the table for my family to eat, I will smile and know from whence cometh my help. Thanks Mom-Mom.
Do you ever feel your ancestors near?
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