Bourgie [boo-zhee]=Stemming from the French word bourgeoisie. Someone who is class-conscious, with educated and discerning tastes, and interested in enjoying the finer things in life. It is definitely not high-class, aristoratic, snooty, or snobbish. “Bourgie” is as much an idea, and a state of mind, as it is an attitude towards enjoying good food, good friends, and good conversation, everyday. It evokes a mood of simple elegance, casual yet sophisticated—modern (taken from UrbanDictionary.com).
I have come believe that a mother's forgiveness is necessary in the sustainability of any mother-daughter relationship. Lord knows me and my mom had our blow ups during my teenage years but I know right now, she is somewhere sipping coffee, humored by my weariness dealing with a toddler adamant on stinging me with the tears of guilt, as if pelted from some junior sized laser gun.
As I type these words, she is literally inching into our bedroom, looking pitiful...peering at me under-eyed carrying an empty Easter basket...hoping, just hoping, I will take her out of timeout. It's been going for 15 minutes, with no end in sight.
Doesn't she realize that Black people operate on the wish factor? Maybe she IS operating on the wish factor..."I wish mommy would put me in timeout!" She's not even taking me seriously. Her tears - only crocodile tears; her misery - only the oldest trick in the book. She doesn't even take me seriously. Just look at the little monster:
It's not to this point but I know, it will all come in time...
So, Papa Bear got the Noodle for the weekend and all I can do is sit in my bed. Why am I not out and about, enjoying a $20.09 meal?
All I can do is recuperate the energy and enjoy the solitude and peace. But all I think about is how my Noodle is doing, is her hair together, does she have an undershirt on...Let me get out the bed and enjoy some sunshine.
I can honestly say I talk on the phone and Twitter and FB and email a little too much and a lot of the times, I'm doing it from my cell phone. Unfortunately the bourgie babe has developed a nasty habit of using up her daytime minutes on her VTech phone.
Her mannerisms and gestures are spot on imitations of me. This new epiphany of me raising myself recently is now my quest to truly understand myself and see what can be changed. Is motherhood like another form of time travel?
Bourgie moms...where are we officially standing on discipline of our bourgie babes? It seems that me and Noodle are at a cross roads in our relationship...a bi-polar universe of devilish defiance and conceding bouts of nurturing affection.
How can I discipline and have a holding period where she renounces her ways in the corner while I actually consider holding back the hug she wants to give me as soon as she knows she's got my eye's attention. She coyly turns to the side to see if I'm watching her in the corner...some jubilant mutter that vobbles between a whisper and cooing (a baby purr, perhaps?). Surely she has a sly cat tale somewhere...toddlers truly know how to stalk their pray because they cut their fangs into their poor mothers, the first victims of child manipulation.
Lord knows I don't want her to be a self doubting, gnagging, idle bourgie chap like that Harlem Heights crew. But how can I deal with an increasingly defiant only child bourgie virago that mirrors my ways and temperament...My God...I'm raising myself, cosmic MOMMY KARMA...the very thing that every baby boomer mother has claimed they want to live to see be walloped onto their Gen X sassily indignant daughters.
Since we began potty training when the bourgie baby turned 1, it has been an ever present issue between our relationship. She views her training panties as a skull cap; her potty chair as a step ladder, and toilet tissue as confetti. Is there a waning gibbous in the sky? Today, something odd occurred. After two accidents in her training pants I decided to move the chair into the bedroom to make it more accessible as I hole her up in the bedroom as I grade my online classes. Now, I think she's just messing with me. She's using the chair as a recliner. Sometimes she is sitting there attempting to potty, she'll leave and come back 2-3 times until she's got a good assortment of toys - each time cautious to pull up her training pants as she walks away and pulls them back down when she returns. But now, she's just sitting there with her training pants up playing.
I don't think there's a magic trick to make this happen; similar to how people put hot sauce on a child's thumb or crushing up their vitamins in their morning juice, what would be the potty equivalent? Double sided tape on the rim, cheerios in the bowl, threats punctuated with a spatula?
The other day, the bourgie baby was eating up her baked chicken and smashed potatoes when my friend exclaimed, "Uh oh, look at the b-girl over there!" Sure enough, my babe was sitting in her booster seat arms crossed across her chest, head to a mild gansta lean. What was this? This look wasn't becoming and it sure wasn't my Noodle. She has been known to bust a move on the dance floor and awkwardly stomp in place and in a circle when the credits roll at the conclusion of The Game. But the b-girl stance, this was totally new.
This morning, out of sheer randomness, I decided to stay behind and chill at her new daycare. Since moving back to Memphis, the bourgie baby has adjusted to her new urban lifestyle as she adapts to life in our predominately Jewish neighborhood where all non-Kosher meats stay on the reduced rack. She is delighted by traffic and the hustle and bustle of the 240 loop and the tree lined streets whizzing through Mid Town to the barren landscape of Downtown.
Her daycare has been an awesome oasis for crafts, and science, and art. How do toddlers manage to understand these concepts? I've been pretty clueless when I blindly drop her off and zoom back out the door to get to work on time. In the evenings, Noodle looks flushed and eager to give me her daily report that says things in the daily lesson list "Skin over my body", "Snakes", and "Splish Splash". I deduced it to pictures and random acts of play throughout the day. But what I saw this morning had nothing to do with babies shaking their ass.
Today was fun Friday and all tots were to bring a stuffed animal. Yeah, they have homework and the Noodle got a 75% this week. I managed to get her mini pumpkin but uh, yeah, forgot about that stuffed animal...There was a lot of buzz about everyone's stuffed toys and they were eager to share. During circle time, the tots sat with their toys as if it were another student in the room...then they commenced to sing. "Good morning everybody! How do you do? Good morning everybody! How do you do? I'm so glad to see you here! How do you do?...(wait for applause) Alright class, how is the weather today, anybody want to tell me?" A chubby cherub tot gets up to run to the window and blabbers something...I sit amazed...they really understand? Maybe me and Papa Bear should cease and desist with our candid conversations in the car as she quietly sits in the back seat "pretending" to look out the window. She's a NARC! Then they sing "It's cloudy today...." Everything is a song.
Then they go into their preschool song list including the oldie but goodie "Baby Bumblebee."
By the second verse, I was in tears laughing at their glee and participation. "I'm picking up the baby bumble bee. Ow! It stung me!" The entire class folds their arms across their chest in mock disbelief. Were they about to go into a verse of LL Cool J's "I'm Bad!"? It was too cute for words. Then it was just a whirl of activities: they discussed snakes, a continuation of their lesson on "The Skin I'm in", went to separate activities that included the art table where a group "drew" snakes, then manipulatives, reading books, Elmo's World, snake throwing, more dancing, and visiting the science center. Who knew that randomly choosing a daycare would have resulted in a world class and nurturing school that any bourgie mom could be proud of...and one doesn't have to go for broke just to educate their kid.
I must admit...being a mom to this bourgie babe has made me look at myself in the mirror on a few occasions and ask myself:
1. Did I just sing that corny ass song? 2. Did I just scream at a child who may not clearly understand English? 3. Why did I allow her to rip up my new magazine that I have not read yet? Am I just that desperate for silence? 4. Am I just as childlike as the child?
Whatever my motivations may be, motherhood has changed the way I interact with other kids and people. Its kind of tough listening to a young 20 something talk about how tough it is and BLAH BLAH BLAH as I roll my eyes like a bitchy school counselor. Motherhood has made me self-absorbed...convinced that yeah, Oprah is right...Motherhood is the hardest job in the world. Yeah, she should know...
The little one has been a delight and half over the last month as she provides endless entertainment with her new found freedom. She wants to feed herself, bathe herself, brush her hair, run into the street, dive across couches, and break out into spontaneous dance moves. She has mastered the art of the evil eye. She wags her finger at people as much as I use my hands to talk. She's a grouch when tired at night, and perky as a spring chicken in the morning. She rises before the clock hits 7am.
Me and the hubby have found it necessary to give each other breaks. He vamped to Michigan for a week to hang with the fellas and I scuttled to Memphis in the smallest rental car ever to do the Beale Street Music Festival with my good friend Ash. We enjoyed The Barkays, The Roots, & George Clinton and the P-Funk All-Stars.
George Clinton was definitely the highlight. They might as well sprayed us down with cocaine and let us loose to the street. It had to have been the wildest show I've ever been to...a hedonistic explosion of comic proportions. A grown ass man in a diaper who will blow your mind on the electric guitar; a young, virile brother in shaggy fur chaps, shaggy fur trench with matching hat gyrating and doing handstands and stripper moves carrying a sign that says "F&%# George"; and the man who embodies the "Hollywood funk movement", according to George, who they like to call the Doo Doo Man. George did not disappoint as we endured it all in the rain, wind, and the heavy cloud of weed smoke. Watch me and Ashley get free without the worry of kids:
Mothering, you know, being somebody's mammy...nobody told me that being a mom is like a whole other shift that runs consecutively with and after work.
I love that kid. The bourgie babe is laughing, talking, babbling, falling out, carries buckets and baskets out the door thinking she will bring them to school. Loves bananas and long walks that involve running out of the yard and into the road. My friend says she's going to call the folks on us...but what control do I have over Baby Thanatos?
But I am so glad to be back in the real world again. Lord knows the social life has been in a definite down turn but I get geeked over my recent tour de forces to here, here, and eventually here in May and here in June. I made a promise to myself that I would still travel, do the friend thing, but still be a great mom and wife in between. So I trick myself into thinking that if I buy her the cutest things on Carter's clearance rack and make sure she gets her Juicy Juice and fruit newtons, she won't notice I'm gone that much. Can somebody tell this little sista I'm making up for lost time unlike this guy who may die an early death.
But through it all, she makes me laugh. She is quite the dancer, but I'm not sure if these guys are the ones who will lead the new dance revolution of the bourgie baby's generation: NOT MY KID BUT SO LOOKS LIKE HER DANCING:
