OmegaMom

Thank you all for the sweet comments on my Brown Bear post.

Miss Cellania posted some links to pics of lovely, non-blonde contestants of the Miss Universe contest for the past few years, suggesting I show them to the dotter:

Awesomely gorgeous (but disturbingly gaunt) Miss China, Ying Hui Gao
Stunning Miss Japan, Kurara Chibana
Miss Universe 2000, Lara Dutta of India
A totally shocked Miss Botswana (Mpule Kwelagobe) winning the Miss Universe pageant of 1999
Miss Trinidad and Tobago, Wendy Fitzwilliam, winner of the 1998 Miss Universe pageant

So the dotter and I perused pageant contestants for a while. I thought they were gorgeous. The dotter, however, was more interested in the dresses than the looks, and declared that the ones that are best are the ones wearing dresses that look like mermaids.

OmegaGranny suggested that I point out that OmegaBro is married to Japanese-American Aunt L., thus people with brown skin can get married. When the subject comes up again, I will definitely mention this.

Johnny chimed in with a comment on the beauty industry, which makes its sales by first telling girls they have to look a certain way to be “beautiful”, then advertising its wares as a sure path to that particular style of “beauty”. This reminds me of one type of “beauty” issue with Asian women–the eyelid surgery, to get a double-eyelid to look more Caucasian. Sigh.

As a result of all of this (plus a gentle nudge from OmegaGranny via email), yesterday after school I cornered Miss Beth, the daycare administrator, when OmegaDotter was getting her stuff from her cubby. I gave her the Hairy Eyeball and said, “Can we talk?” I explained our dilemma, and asked if the school could be doing something on “diversity” and suchlike.

Much to my surprise, Miss Beth immediately launched into a discussion of how she’s revamping the curriculum (woohoo!), hoping to get the daycare accredited as an official pre-school (and more?), and said that her theory is that kids get more into such visual differences if they aren’t being kept busy (hmm). She said that she encounters this on a yearly basis. She further mentioned that she had taken over Miss Kalyn’s class (the one OmegaDotter is in) for a week while Miss K. was on vacation, and that she was appalled at how “hungry for knowledge” the kids were.

Now. Our daycare uses sweet young thangs from Small Mountain University’s early childhood development program as their teachers. (Except for Miss Betty, who is about 50 and an awesome–AWESOME–teacher.) Some of these young things are better than the others. To be frank, I haven’t been really impressed with Miss K.

Neither, it turns out, is Miss Beth.

Miss Beth announced to me that Miss K. was On Her Way Out, that in two weeks, a new teacher would be in the 4’s classroom, and that we all would be “pleasantly surprised”.

Ahah.

Soooo. I’m left wondering if the Totally Awesome Miss Betty is being moved up to an older classroom (she teaches the 3’s), or if it’s Miss Rachel (a sweet young thang who OmegaDotter is totally smitten with, who has the 2’s class right now).

We shall see.

We shall also see if there’s some more diverse stuff being presented in the classroom.

In the meantime, rather than an all-out assault on “brown is beautiful” and “blondes are boring” (which is what OmegaDad’s approach felt like), I am going to work on small doses sprinkled here and there.

My last cat to go on to the Great Cat Beyond was named LittleJohn and nicknamed “Monster”. His nickname came about because, when he was a kitten, he was into everything and destroyed so much stuff. I would come home from work, enter my apartment, and see my four-foot-tall three-trunked potted palm lying in disarray on its side on my living room floor, dirt sprawling across the carpeting, and a happy kitten peeping out from under the leaves, ready to pounce. Anything I had left on the dining table would be strewn about, leaking into the kitchen. Ribbons were especially lovely for that cat. Upon glimpsing the massacre, I would shriek, “Oh! You little monster!”

The four-foot-tall, three-trunked potted palm ended up as a three-stubbed, four-inch-high potted dead palm very quickly.

“Monster” stuck.

But he grew into a dignified, portly cat who would sprawl on his back in the sunlight, waiting for me to rub his curly belly hair. Far removed from the “monster kitten” he had been. He was 12 when he lapped at a teaspoon of antifreeze that had leaked onto the pavement beneath our car; he lasted six months after a frantic stay at the veterinarian’s during which he wasted away to a bony shadow of himself. One day, I let him out on the back deck to lie in the sun…he never came back.

So I was finally ready this summer to get a new cat.

Remember this sweet little ball of fluff?

He has entered the Demon Kitten From Hell stage.

Many of our houseplants are being shredded.

He tangles himself up in OmegaDotter’s elaborate creations during the day when we’re away, knocks over her stuffed animals which are so very carefully placed this way or that way in some specific order which only OD’s mind remembers. (But trust me, she remembers!)

He has discovered the toilet paper rolls in both bathrooms. As a result, for the duration, the toilet paper rolls have been taken off the rollers and stashed on the top of the toilet tanks.

He drives the Dawg crazy by sitting in his food dish.

He tries to sneak into the refrigerator every time we have it open.

He chews on the basketry.

He climbs onto the dining table and knocks the flowers over and pushes all the paper onto the floor.

He tries to jump onto the dining table when we’re eating dinner, or sneak a piece of food off anyone’s plate if he’s on their lap.

When I’m sacked out with OmegaDotter in her bedroom and OmegaDad sleeps alone in our bed, the kitten turns into a serial killer who leaps and pounces on OmegaDad’s toes, chews his beard, pulls his hair, and, in general, keeps him up all night.

But when I‘m in bed with OmegaDad, the kitten comes, curls up on my head or under my chin, and purrs loudly every time I stir.

He climbs on my shoulders, sticks his nose in my ear, and purrs.

He puts up with an amazing amount of physical mayhem from the dotter.

He’s very, very cute.