Chaos and Confusion of the Children Kind

I love my younger siblings. They bring joy to my life and make me smile when I really don't feel like it. And my Shamira's smile can brighten up an overcast day. But sometimes, I can't help but wish that I can use a big rope to tie them all together in the middle of my living room and leave them there until my parents return or take them for a good old-fashioned car ride to talk (see picture). Okay, so that's just a bit drastic and I would never do it (although its a nice thought) but trying by my lonesome to keep seven children out of trouble for hours, and me being just a teenager myself, is no walk in the park on a nice summer day. Me being a good daughter or just being stupid (kind of hard for me to tell the difference at times), I volunteered to babysit while my mother and father took some time to themselves even though I know that every time they get in the wind, it could be hours and hours before I see them again.

This time I thought that I was prepared, as I had found Sorry, Monopoly, and cards for them to play with. I figured that we could have a good, old-fashioned night of family fun. Wrong! Three of the older children shut my 7-year-old sister out of the game. She sarted crying, they started to tease her, and chaos ensued. My 4-year-old sister decided that she wanted to kick the teasing up a notch and slapped her sister. They started fighting and everyone started to choose sides. I tried to stop the fight and they all ignored my pleas to be kind to one another. Shamira, my 2-year-old daughter, decided to pull up a chair and get a front row seat to the action. I don't know who, but someone pushed someone else, who tripped over the chair she was sitting in and they all fell.

After all of this, I was completely fed up and I knew I had to regain control of the situation. I took the games away, turned off the television in the living room, and demanded quiet time. I thought I had gotten the job done until my 7-year-old sister began crying again and saying that my little brothers were making faces at her every time I turned my back. I did not want to be cruel to them, but my efforts were appearing fruitless and desperate times called for desperate measures.

I sent each of them to their respective rooms and told them they were not allowed to come out. I enlisted Shamira as a hall monitor and together we patrolled the hallways to make sure that everyone was following the rules and did not step a foot outside of their rooms. I felt like a corrections officer and I'm sure my younger siblings felt like prisoners but it was the only way I felt I could teach them a lesson. I could lie and say that, after lockdown, my house was so quiet you could hear a pindrop. I heard booms, bangs, and other noises that I dared not guess the origin of. My brothers were wrestling and pushing each other from the bunk bed and the girls were playing school with my 12-year-old sister as the school marm, but in her school all pupils had to do WHATEVER she said and be at her beck and call.

Always one to persevere, I am far from a quitter. But, at the hands of seven children from the ages of 2-13, I couldn't help but drop to my knees and beg for mercy. Another win for the young ones...

My Valentine's Day Validation

Okay, so I had big plans for this Valentine's Day. It was the first time I would really celebrate it and I was really excited and anxious to make everything picture perfect. So, naturally, everything started to go wrong from square one.

My procrastinating significant other asked me at the last minute (day before) to cook for him because he enjoyed my cooking and wanted our time together to be a nice, cozy private affair. I agreed to it and Brittany, loving friend and sister that she is, decided to help pull everything together. So, after class yesterday, after deciding that our ride to the supermarket was taking too long to come, we made a pilgrimage there on our own. After getting there and realizing the prices were too high and the products were not of a good quality, our friend called and said that she would come get us and take us to a different supermarket. Of course, we had trouble finding every single item on our list and by the time we were done and ready to go an hour later, our friend decided to go to 150 (exaggeration) different stores to get gifts.

So, after all of that, I did not get back to my apartment to start cooking until 6:30 and he was due at 8:30, so it was really crunch time. As I had decided to make shrimp linguine with alfredo sauce, garlic bread, a Red Velvet cake, and chocolate strawberries, I was not sure if I could finish it all in that short amount of time. Brittany, like the commanding general of an army, snapped me out of it and threw herself right into the task of making the strawberries. So, I did the same.

Miraculously, we pulled it off and were finished with everything in time and it was a beautiful dinner and a memorable Valentine's Day. Oh, in case you're wondering why the title is "My Valetine's Day Validation"... The experience validated the facts in my mind that Brittany is a great friend and that anyone who is so lucky to have a girlfriend like me who would go all out for them should count their blessings. Consider yourself lucky, J! : D

I Just Get A Kick Out of Your Baby!

Parents these days need to learn to watch their children more closely. I mean, with a precocious toddler, it is easy to lose track of them if you aren't watching them like a hawk. In the house, if a person has taken all the necessary precautions (though I've never seen a house that is completely baby-proof), they can let their child roam a little as long as they are somewhere in the parents' line of vision. But, in public, a person should never lose track of their child. Something terrible could happen such as an innocent, trusting child walking off with a stranger or, say.... getting kicked in the face by a breakdancer. Don't believe me? Just watch...

17 Years, 5 Months Down...7 More Months to Go

So...today is Super Tuesday and I am feeling very unimportant and anonymous. Unlike most of my peers, I am unable to let my voice be heard because I have not yet reached "legal" age, whatever that means. It doesn't matter that I've proved myself worthy enough to graduate early from high school and be accepted to an accredited university, nor that I WILL be able to vote to choose our next President in the fall. It doesn't even matter that I am one of a limited amount of teenagers who take their voting responsibilities seriously and follow political news so that they are sure that they will choose the most worthy candidate. All that matters right now is that I am 17 years and 5 months old as of today, 7 months shy of reaching my eighteenth birthday, and thus unable to vote in the primary election.

So I ask...how much more am I really going to mature in 7 more months that would qualify me to have a say in who will be the leader of our beloved United States. On the eve of my eighteenth birthday, will I suddenly have an epiphany or sudden transformation that will make me into a mature adult with a well-rounded education who is concerned about world news and poverty? I am not trying to be disrespectful of the law or irreverent (though I very often am), but I am just not understanding a few things right now.

Okay, I do understand why 18 is the legal age because that is when most people graduate high school and go on to college and a new phase of their lives, beginning to learn to depend on themselves rather than their parents to succeed in life. But why can't a person be able to vote as long as they will reach 18 that same year? Why do I have to wait until it is time to vote for our President and not be able to choose who I would like to vote for in the fall? Well, even if I cannot let my voice be heard in the voting booths today, at least I can let it be heard here even if I am not deriving much of a sense of purpose or satisfaction from it...

My Superbowl Party: The Giants' "Cinderella" Story

THE GIANTS WON THE SUPERBOWL!!!!!! It isn’t as if I didn’t already know that they would, but I just wanted to say it again with capital letters and exclamation points to add insult to injury for all of those who were rooting for the Patriots to win. Yeah, it might be a cheap shot but if I’m wrong, I don’t wanna be right! So confident was I that my Giants would not let me down and they would be victorious even though they were dubbed the “underdog” in the competition, I threw a Superbowl party.

Before I go any further, I would like everyone to know that I did not simply jump on the Giants bandwagon when I saw that that they were on the road to victory. I have liked them ever since I was younger and I beat my older brother in a football game on the Playstation after selecting the Giants as the team I would play with. It didn’t matter to me that I lost a few (many) games with them after that first time, because they were already the ultimate to me. I do admit to not following football very closely, but I was still a big supporter of the Giants.

Okay, now back to the party. So, my mother and I decided that we would throw a Superbowl party even though my mother knows absolutely nothing about football, but she somehow got caught up in the Superbowl fever, though she refused to choose sides. My mother, believing that football is more of a man’s sport, had the intention of throwing the party for my brothers and their friends, but I had other plans. So, with my pizza, chicken, ribs, potato salad, cheese and crackers, Tostitos, and seven-layer dip in front of me, I settled myself on my couch in front of my father’s new 61-inch HDTV and prepared to see the Giants make history. My aunts, mother, cousin, and little sisters followed suit and it was official that the women had taken over and the boys would have to go find somewhere else to watch the game. Man, did we get caught up in it! We were shouting at the ref, cheering our respective teams on, and gloating when they pulled ahead of their opponents.

It was an intense game and I was positive that my team would win…and then the Patriots scored a touchdown and kicked a field goal, pulling ahead and bringing the score to 14-10. There was only about two and a half minutes left in the game and the Giants could not win without a touchdown. With my younger brother yelling in the background about how it was over and the Patriots had it, my faith started to waver a little bit. But in the last minute of the game, the Giants miraculously pulled ahead of the Patriots again and I rejoiced. I knew the battle was won and the Giants had done what many had doubted they could do. They had won the Superbowl against the Patriots and destroyed their perfect record, handing them their first loss of the season. I screamed, my aunts cried, and we ended our party elated and just a little richer (both in spirit and money because some of us had bet on the game). :D

Shaniqua's State of the Music Address

I am a music lover to the tenth power! I love music and, being the eclectic person that I am, I listen to a wide variety. I find it rather boring and repetitious to be limited to only one genre of music. While R&B is my favorite hands down, I pay attention to new music hitting the airwaves.

One genre that I have noticed becoming increasingly popular is Southern rap, known in some parts of the world as crunk music. The music is catchy and, despite my initial resistance, I couldn’t help but find myself singing along when I heard the songs playing over the radio or at gatherings. Also, despite at first being repulsed by the “Soulja Boy,” I began to dance along at parties because it is a fun time when surrounded by friends. I even went so far as to put the song “Low” on my ringtone because I found myself bursting out singing it at random and sometimes inopportune times anyway so I figured if I put it on my ringtone I might get a little tired of it and stop singing it so much. It hasn’t happened yet, but I am sure that it is soon to come.

With all of this being said, I can’t help but feel that there is a line that should not be crossed with music and a few of these “musicians” have ventured far and beyond that border. When I turn on my television and see Soulja Boy jumping around screaming “Yahhh, trick, yahhh!” and telling his teacher to “Throw some Ds on it” when he receives a report card full of Fs, I can’t help but question if he feels bad for giving rap in general a bad name or for sending children a message that it is okay for them to be less than productive in the classroom and settle for mediocrity.

There was a time when rappers did not say anything at all if they did not have a purpose to it and something intelligent to say. I am not in any way trying to undermine the skills of today’s artists because there is still some music being made that sends a message or tells a story, which is the type of music that I most often like to hear. And I also understand the pressure to make popular, mainstream music that people will want to hear and have fun with when they go out for a night on the town, thus the catchy though sometimes purposeless music that has been making its debut on our radios recently. But I can’t help but feel that my I.Q. has dropped drastically every time I finish listening to certain songs that are along the lines of Soulja Boy’s “Yahhh!” And, correct me if I’m wrong, but I am pretty sure that is NOT the feeling you are supposed to be left with when you listen to GOOD music.