Love and Basketball

By now, it should be clearly established that it's Little M's world, and she just lets me live in it.  It's one adventure after the next, and the good news is that she allows me to accompany her on these adventures.  Hell, who am I kidding?  She allows me to play chauffeur and to bankroll the advenutres.  It's all good.

Despite being all of 40.75 inches tall, her new obsession is basketball.  (With genes like hers, those quarter inches count, by the way).  Every Saturday after soccer, she wants to play basketball (with her soccer ball).  It's hilarious.  There are a few good traits that she could have inherited from me, but unfortunately for her, it appears that she might have acquired my hand-eye coordination.  Poor kid.

She did, however, LOVE her first ever Sixers game.  In under a minute, she learned that the "green team" (aka Milwaukee Bucks) needed to go home.  She cheered at the right points, quickly adopted the Philly fan arm gestures (limited to the not-obscene ones, thank you very much), and even learned to make a "T" with her hands after a technical.  Thankfully, she was more interested in the actual basketball than by the dance squad, despite her shimmying in her seat--though, unfortunately, she did learn the term "underboob" after the first dance routine.  Incidentally, that was my bad.

Little M's post-game verdict?  In her words, "I love basketball."  Is it possible that we have Best Dressed Tomboy (Junior) in our midst?  Speaking of the clothes, Junior and I were dressed nearly identically today in black skinny cords, striped shirts and boots.  It was an accident- I'm not a fan of dressing my daughter like a mini-me (though it doesn't bother me when other people do it, strangely enough).   We have very different personal styles-  my outfits are generally coordinated and her outfits reflect a ( shall we say) slightly more eclectic style.

Of course, the only reason that we were able to take her to a basketball game on a Monday afternoon is because we had the day off of work for the Martin Luther King holiday.   In my mind, this isn't a "freebie" day off and I'd be remiss if I didn't mention the holiday here, and more importantly, spend time talking about Dr. King and his legacy to Little M (in 3 year old terms, anyway).

I'm thankful that my daughter is growing up in the aftermath of Dr. King's legacy.  It's a better world than I grew up in, and certainly a better world than my parents and grandparents grew up in.  I'd be completely moronic, however, if I didn't freely and publicly acknowledge that there isn't tons of work still left to be done....tons of behaviors and thought patterns still requiring change.

At this point, I've lived a reasonably long time...and not once, has someone deliberately crossed the street to get away from me.  No one has ever locked their car doors while driving through my neighborhood.  No one has cast a suspicious glance at me in a convenience store late at night.  No one has ever suspiciously looked at me while walking to their seat on a plane.  Until the day arrives where these more subtle instances of racism are eradicated--and these behaviors are, unfortunately, pervasive and engrained--there is still much work left to do.

Love knows no color,

Little Miss Sunshine