Our Interracial Family 👩🏼👶🏽👨🏾

I love this face that you make. I think you know I love it too. I love how you fell asleep holding both of my hands in yours. I love how during the weekends, you want to be around me 100% of the time. Yet at the same time, you play so independently. After some time though, your brain acknowledges you’ve been far from me. And you come and hug me, and I hug you back. I miss you still being away from you for five minutes. We have such a deep bond that is beautiful. You do things every day that make my heart explode. The new words you say. The things you try. The expressions you make. You are so bold.  You’re an explorer. You’re SO loving. You’re absolutely brilliant. Whether you were my blood or not, I would admire all the same things about you. You’re incredible, son, just as you are. You amaze me every day. Words can’t explain the love I have for you... but I will try. I love you with my whole heart!  ❤️Your Mama

The Search for my Son’s Name When I found out my husband and I would be having a boy, the search for his name began. My husband didn’t have any specific passions for naming our son, so he really let me lead the effort.  My husband’s reaction finding out we were having a boy. When I thought about what I wanted for our son and future children, it was to have powerful names that also reflect their ethnic identity. Me, being 50% Polish and 50% Ashkenazi Jewish, and my husband being 100% African American, meant we either name our first child after me or after my husband. My husband agreed to allow our first child to be named after me! My name is Jessica so I wanted our son’s name to start with a J as well. When I started researching names, I looked up Hebrew, Polish, and Lithuanian names (Lithuania is where my parents are from 🇱🇹). When my parents lived in their homeland though, it was the Soviet Union so they largely lost their native tongues because it was replaced ...

Breastmilk is magic. I am so forever grateful to work at a school that still supports me with pumping- 14 months after Jairus’s birth. I know so many women can’t claim that for their work situations, and it’s an injustice to their personal health and their baby’s optimal health. I went back to work when Jairus was 14 weeks old. Julia made personal sacrifices as my co-teacher that school-year to allow me to pump 3-4 times a day- every day- and my amazing boss Emily continues to support my desire to this day to pump milk (even though I am past the one year limit of legal protection as a breastfeeding mom). She oftentimes forfeits the comfort of her own office to meet me where I pump. This school year, Carmen continues to support me pumping 2-3 times a day... going out of her way to make sure her after-school clubs are temporarily rerouted from our room until I’m done (and she’s handled some awkward situations when people walked in on me pumping, such a bold and kind woman)! Our second ...

Jairus started walking yesterday, on the first day of February, 2019. My husband asked if we can go to The Detroit Historical Museum, and I said yes! It was the first time I held Jairus’s hand and let him “walk” down the stairs out to the car. He was giggling! Then when he saw the snow, he said “WOOOW.” It’s his way of asking sometimes. At the museum, me and his daddy held his hands (the first time we’ve ever done that ❤️), and walked around the museum. When Daddy went exploring things on his own, me and Jairus walked around. This was the longest stretch I ever held his hand and let him walk! I think the muscle memory of his feet walking and the growing familiarity of life higher up from the ground clicked for him. I could feel it... like this exercise and length of time walking would really do something, and it did! Jairus grew more confident and started walking that day! Now he is officially a toddler- toddling around. Walking and falling. Rising and walking. Falling again. It’s ad...

Hey all! This documents my son’s hair growth journey from birth to now (he is 14 months old). As you can see, his hair growth has been pretty slow. I started noticing his hair really coming in in various textures around 12 months old, which is also when I noticed and fell in love with his first spiral curl. It’s been fun learning about and caring for his hair ever since! There’s a gap between him being one day old and 8 months old because I erased a ton of photos to save space on my phone and uploaded them to Dropbox! I also feel his hair growth was pretty slow at that time that you might not even notice a difference in pictures. So I’m leaving it like this! You’ll notice the mass of his curly hair is concentrated at the back and top of his head. It’s like a little curly mowhawk! He also has hair that flips out all along the bottom of his head- almost ear to ear. Enjoy your baby’s hair growth! This little guy still has a long way to go, and I’ll be right beside him for...