i saw this video on model coco rocha‘s site and i thought it was so beautiful that i had to post it here. the children’s little smiling faces just warmed my heart this morning.
about the vid: in february coco rocha, behati prinsloo and a small team of friends traveled to port-au-prince, haiti. they brought with them letters from hundreds of people around the world, in effort to not only lift spirits but to make the world a smaller place.
‘Letters to Haiti’ trailer from Coco Rocha on Vimeo.
niki: give me three words that describe you.
sharlene: i am creative, flamboyant, and i have always been an individual.
niki: how long have you been painting?
sharlene: it started when i bought my first house in 1995. first i experimented with blending unusual color schemes and trying out different faux wall techniques. then when i gave birth to my daughter in july 1999, i was inspired to create a special room created just for her, a unique gift that would come straight from my heart. a gift she would wake up to everyday and be reminded of the labor of love i poured into it. i painted a jungle theme mural, made lion shaped valances and designed the room with jungle theme accessories. i was hooked after that. it was such a natural and fulfilling expression of who i am as a person.
niki: what made you choose murals as an artistic expression?
sharlene: painting is such a peaceful and relaxing feeling, developing the perfect image to match a child’s personality satisfies the creative side in me. the most rewarding experience i take away from it is the pure joy i see in a child when they see the final result. the happiness on their faces is so pure and innocent. it’s the kind of joy many of us lose as adults. the simplest things in life can be the most rewarding. i am reminded of that every time i see the light in their eyes when they see the finished project.
niki: where do you draw inspiration for your work?
sharlene: my inspiration comes from children and my own childhood memories . when you think of kids in general what comes to my mind are bright colors, happiness, fun, simplicity, and innocence. i try to bring all of these qualities into every mural i create and every room i design.
niki: what has been your favorite project so far?
sharlene: i really enjoyed creating designs for my children at different stages of their development. they are my most challenging clients. if they don’t like something they have no problems telling me!
niki: what creative power do you wish you had?
sharlene: i wish i had the creative power to make everyone feel comfortable in expressing the creative power within themselves, even if it means not following the crowd. imagine how much more interesting the world would be if everyone dropped the mask and revealed their true, authentic selves.
niki: what music gets your creative juices flowing?
sharlene: it is so funny you are asking me this question. i am a diehard music fan. there’s not a day that goes by when i’m not listening to music, looking up underground artists or trying to expose people to a sound other than the same tired grooves you hear on the radio. i listen to a little of everything really…neo-soul, rap, alternative. my favorite artist is prince. lately i have been listening heavily to bilal, van hunt, nikka costa, eric roberson and the great erykah badu… need i say more?
…
sharlene lewter-flood and child’s play designs serve the dc metro area (dc, md & va)
>kindergarten is making my child sick. literally. he first got sick just a couple months after starting school.
he had a nasty little bug otherwise known as strep. so we got some antibiotics (and tons of popsicles) and knocked that sucka clean out.
only to have it come right back after two months.
my child has never been this sick…ever. i feel like i need to send him to school in one of those all white germ free suits with a mask and four cans of lysol. i mean, really, school = cess pool of icky germs. and the kids just pass it back and forth and forth and back like a game of hot potato.
so anyway yesterday around 3pm i get yet another call while at work from the clinic at dutch’s school. yeah, they don’t call it the nurse’s office anymore. it’s now called the “clinic.” dutch had a temperature of 101. come get him now, they said. good thing his dad had taken off early for an appointment so he was able to get him right away.
sidenote: my child must’ve really been out of it because he thought that the nurse said it would take me a while to get there to pick him up because i was coming from africa. yeah, africa. is this what a fever does to a little child’s brain?
but back to my lil’ story. when the husband got there he was told there was a nasty bug going around (no kidding) and that in order for dutch to return to school he would have to be feverless for 24 hours. “he won’t be coming to school tomorrow,” said the nurse to the husband.
so now i’m here with a feverless child who is trying his best to keep himself occupied while i work from home. he decided to check out the balance of his piggy bank account and surmised that he has enough money for us to go somewhere. “let’s go!! we can go anywhere!!”
anywhere? not quite kid.
and the only pain he now feels is in his foot. from jumping around playing wii.
there’s a video issue… trying to work it out. sorry!
>yesterday evening i was in the kitchen and dutch said to me, “hey mom, i know how to spell tv.”
“oh really now? how do you spell it?” i asked.
“t-v,” he responded.
told you. my boy’s a genius.
don’t hate.
>we don’t do santa. never have. dutch is 5 and we’ve always told him that Christmas is about the birth of Jesus. yes, we celebrate by decorating a Christmas tree and yes, we exchange gifts, but we’ve always told him that we buy his gifts.
but now he’s convinced otherwise. it seems one of his classmates has convinced him that there is indeed a santa claus. that santa will visit and leave toys, blah, blah, blah…
“he’s going to come down our chimney!”
i said, “ummmm, no, actually, he’s not. in fact, dutch, look at our fireplace, does it look like a man could fit in there?”
he looked at me and thought for a second and said, “santa could.”
my husband even jumped in and said, “buddy, we buy your gifts. there’s no such thing as santa.”
dutch still decided to believe his 5-year-old classmate over us. he said, “dad, there IS a santa…”
then my husband said, “look, i’m 32…”
that’s when i cut in and said, “uhhhhh, honey, actually, you’re not.”
my husband stood there and thought about it and dutch said, “yeah, dad, you’re 33.”
so i guess if dad doesn’t even know how old he is, he really must not know about santa.
one thing i love about little kids is they make friends with everyone. it doesn’t matter what color a kid is, what size a kid is…a friend is a friend is a friend. there’s no black or white, brown or yellow. if only the world could be as color blind as small children.
about a year ago i showed dutch, my five-year-old son, this picture:
i told him that his lolo (his grandfather) was in this picture and his response was, “look at lolo with his brothers!” and all i could do was laugh.
see that cool white dude sittin’ up there on the fence? that’s my pop. dutch didn’t make a color distinction when he saw this picture. he just saw his lolo with some other dudes and thought, they must be brothers.
and you know, i thought that was pretty daggone cool. especially knowing my pop and his feelings about his friends that he grew up with in his s.e. dc high school. they were brothers. black. white. it didn’t make a difference.
not to them anyway.
yesterday dutch brought home a book from his school library about jackie robinson. me and my husband were excited about his choice because up until this point he’s picked out books about wolves and sharks and crocodiles. so we were all siced, like yeah, jackie robinson!!
but you know, there’s really no way you can tell jackie robinson’s story without mentioning that although he was great, he endured a tremendous amount of racism as the first black baseball player.
so here it was, the moment when i’d have to explain skin color to dutch. black is not a description he uses to explain himself. black? he doesn’t know anything about being black. ask dutch who he is and he’ll tell you he’s five and he’s a big boy (of course, because he’s five now, remember?) and he wants to play football when he gets older and have a black motorcycle. but this book all of a sudden brought color to the forefront. black. white. differences that he never paid attention to.
so i explained his skin color to him, and also that i’m half black and half white. i told him that’s he’s black and so is his daddy and brother and most of his family. it was an interesting experience to say the least and yet another thing i’ll add to the checklist of things my friends and family didn’t tell me about parenthood.
it’s not like telling my son he’s black is information i was trying to withhold from him. i mean, really, imagine that! but honestly, it wasn’t a conversation i was necessarily ready to have. reading a book that tells about the horrible experiences jackie robinson dealt with at the hands of white folk, and then saying, and oh by the way, you’ve noticed you’re lolo and your nana are white, right? was a wee bit awkward.
obviously, we don’t live in a colorblind world and in time dutch will learn more than enough about his blackness and the injustices that blacks have experienced. but i want him to understand that not all white people are racists who just want to keep the black man down.
i’ll tell him that although some white people hate black people, i was never a shame to my white side of my family. in fact, my pop’s brother was mixed also. i realize that my experience growing up biracial in the washington, dc area is different from what many other biracial women experienced. sure, i was the lightest brightest thing in my anacostia elementary school and i was later teased and called oreo when i transferred to pg county schools in maryland, but it never fazed me because somehow i had a strong sense of self about being mixed. i just figured that the other kids had the problem and not me.
one day i’ll tell dutch about how his great-grandmother (my paternal grandmother) worked for a black man named andy who disrespected her and treated her horribly, but when he became older and had no family and nowhere to go she took him in her home because that’s how big her heart was. i’ll tell him that when my grandmother passed there were more black folk there than white folk because people loved my grandmother. and not because she was a little nice white lady, but because she was a good woman. period. a lil’ feisty in her younger years, but good nonetheless.
oh, and andy? well, he outlived my grandmother and as my grandmother wished, he stayed in her home. i’ll tell dutch about how his lolo went over to see him, took him to doctors appointments and cared for him just like family, and when andy became elderly and ill and later passed it was my pop and stepmother who were there. his ashes sit on a shelf in my pop’s home.
me and dutch talked for a little while yesterday about skin color and i’m not sure that he fully grasped it all. in time he will. and i can’t wait to share the stories of our family so that he will know that although skin comes in different shades, it ain’t always about color. as corny or cliche as it might sound, it’s what inside that truly counts the most.
what does it mean when your 2-year-old son wants to be butt nakedy as soon as he comes home in the evening?
how about when he decides to do a lap around the kitchen and living room in the buff? like 23 times. even after you’ve told him that he’ll probably hurt his woohoo if he falls because “you know, that’s why God made diapers, dutch…to protect your woohoo from falls.”
what about when he doesn’t listen?
what about when he falls right there in the kitchen, just like you told him he would, and decides to make a little puddle and then looks up at you and says, “uhhhohhhhhhhhhh!!”??
i picked dutch up from daycare yesterday and i noticed that he kept doing this weird blinking thing.
“yeah, he’s been doing that all day. watch him and make sure he’s okay,” eva the daycare provider said.
no. i’m planning on going home and ignoring him! of course i’m going to watch him, lady!!
as soon as we got in the car i asked, “dutch, do your eyes hurt?”
blink. blink. “no, mommy…”
“are you sure ‘cause you keep blinking and mommy just wants to make sure your eyes don’t hurt.”
blink. blink. “look mommy, truck!!” blink. nose scrunch. blink.
uhhhh. okay. he can see the truck so maybe that’s a good thing, right?
i looked in the rearview mirror and he just kept doing this blinking thing and all i could think of was the little kid from jerry maguire. you know, “did you know that that human head weighs 8 pounds?”
i mean, sure he was cute and all, but i don’t want that for my dutch. i mean, could all this blinking stuff really mean that something’s wrong with my child’s eyes? oh goodness, there he goes again. he’s blinking nonstop!!
i asked him about things that we were passing just to make sure he was seeing things okay.
“hey dutch, what are those kids doing over there?”
“play ball, mommy.”
okay good. but then i figured even if his vision was a little blurry he would probably be able to guess at that one.
so later on that evening after quite a few more blinks and nose scrunches he asked to watch “go, diego, go”. i popped in the dvd and then stood in the kitchen where i knew he’d be able to see me and i held up various objects.
i held up his monkey cup.
“hey dutch, what’s this?”
“monkey.”
then i picked up a shoe.
“hey dutch, what about this? what’s this, buddy?”
“shoe.”
then i found a smaller item. a matchbox car.
“hey dutch, and what’s this?”
“pizza.”
uh-oh!! i wasn’t sure what to do. should i google “toddler blinks a lot”? or call his doctor (who he just saw last week for his check-up) and say, “hey doc, dutch sure has been doing a lot of blinking today. what do you think that could be?”
so i did the next best thing. i asked my best friend who just happens to work in dutch’s doctor’s office and she said, “well, you know the pollen and ragweed is pretty bad…”
oh, ragweed and pollen!! so he won’t have to wear silly goggles?
great!
two years old is such an interesting age. dutch has an entire vocabulary of words. some are made up (i like to think of him as like an e-40), some are dead on correct and clear and some of it still a bunch of mush that no one can really distinguish.he started out with the basics: mama, dada, dutch (yes, his own name was actually one of his first words, go figure…), bird, woof-woof and so on and so forth. then he started to string them and form sentences. how exciting!!that brings me to last tuesday morning.we were heading out the door on our way to daycare. late as usual. he was searching for a last minute toy to grab (a little car ride entertainment) and i was searching for my keys (again, as usual) and trying to make sure that i had everything we needed when dutch stood firmly in front of me, looked up, and said, “i don’t wanna go eva’s…”
eva is his daycare provider. a kind and loving woman from ghana who has done daycare for over 12 years and who loves our son to pieces. she always called him the “prince” and it’s something i think we’re paying for today, but more on that later.
“you don’t want to go?? why?”
as if my child could actually articulate a “why” i asked over and over… “but why, dutchie, why?? did something happen at eva’s? tell mommy.”
of course he didn’t go into a long explanation of why he just kept repeating “i don’t wanna go eva’s.” the whole way to eva’s he repeated, “i don’t wanna go, eva’s… i don’t wanna go, eva’s…” and he was still saying it as we pulled into her driveway and around to her front door.i explained to him that i had to go to work and that i’d be back to get him as soon as i could. and he responded with his usual, “o-tay, mama…” sounding sad and the whole nine.the more and more i thought about dutch saying he didn’t want to go the more and more concerned i got. i’m sure you’ve heard the horror stories and crazy things that happen at some daycare centers. the abuse that sometimes happens. the lack of attention. the intense punishments. the yelling and cursing. all that. so i decided that when i got to work i’d give eva a call to find out just what happened on monday that made dutch not want to come back.but first i emailed my husband.
if you know my husband, you’d be surprised at how cool he was when i first explained how the morning went. he figured that it was all a part of dutch working out his new vocab and that everything was probably fine.
then i called eva and she assured me that dutch’s day had gone swell and that he didn’t want to leave when his daddy came to pick him up the day before.
so why’d he say he didn’t want to go? well, i figure that he probably just thinks we ditch him at daycare so we can come back home and watch tv all day and eat popsicles. i mean, who wouldn’t want to stay home and watch “hip hop harry” and “calliou” all day? not to mention we keep a stock of popsicles and eva doesn’t.
i’m sure a lot of words like “work” get lost in translation when you’re talking to a 2-year-old. i remember distinctly when i was in the 2nd grade and my teacher said that she was going on a diet. i was horrified. not because she didn’t need to lose the weight, but i truly had no clue of what a diet was. i thought a diet meant going on a cruise vacation. i can recall picturing her on a huge white ship that looked much like the love boat. and the worse thing about this “diet” was that i thought it meant we’d have to have a substitute teacher and being the little nerd that i was, i hated subs. so you just never know what a child is thinking.
after work i went to pick up dutch and he was his normal, cheery self. it was if he had totally forgotten that he had been stuck at the one place he didn’t want to be all day. once we got situated in the car and were on our way home i asked him how his day went and he said, “mama, i wan go to eva’s…”
