Podcast and Update

I was on the Racialicious/Anti-Racist Parent podcast this week!

I loved having the conversation with Carmen and Tami. But I stuttered too much, and compensated with too many "likes" and "you knows". I'm very self-conscious about stuttering. I've had a problem with it since I was a young child. I always try not to use it as an excuse or crutch, so I force myself not to turn down tasks and jobs where I have to speak before groups, like teaching. I usually manage to compensate fairly well. I asked Guy today if he ever notices me stuttering, and he said, "you have a stuttering problem? I never noticed!" It's just so obvious to me whenever I'm in any sort of new situation... sometimes I'm introduced to people, they'll ask me, "what's your name?" and I get stuck for a few seconds in open-mouth-freeze-arrested-head-bob mode and I feel absolutely awful. So I'll pretend I'm distracted by something off in the distance, and once I turn my head back around I'll be ready to actually say my own name. I'm often a worse speaker on the phone than I am in person because I can't use that kind of compensating body language on the phone.

Anyway, enough neuroticism about stuttering. I think the discussion went really well. The main part for me was the transracial/transnational adoption and capitalism topic. I went over some things I'd already outlined in comments on this post. People who read this blog frequently will be pretty familiar with my positions. The other parts of the discussion were also interesting, although I wasn't really prepped for the black Barbie portion, so I feel like I trailed off on a tangent instead of focusing and tying into Tami's analysis.

As for the update, Sunny's behavior was absolutely wretched on Sunday. I think it was mostly fall-out from the flaming pinecone episode. He backtalked all day and had TWO fits. We were really stressed out by the end of it all.

Today, his behavior was a lot better. He had his chess club tonight. Sunny loves this so much that he put a lot of creative thought into getting into the exact right frame of mind to play chess. He started running laps indoors... a circuit at full speed through the hallway, then through the den and kitchen and dining room, into the computer room, jumping onto an ottoman then doing a flying leap back into the hallway, and had me help count off the laps, first in even numbers 2-4-6-8 and then in odd numbers. After about 15 minutes of intense running, leaping and yelling numbers, he was sweaty and out of breath. "I got out my energy so I can focus when I play chess!" he said. This was all his own idea, which is pretty cool. He ended up winning only 1 game out of 3, but since he beat a 13-year-old on the winning game, he was very proud of himself.