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mommyblessing-fyi · 2 years

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get vaccinated & go… where ?

12/20/21

I was on the lookout for a destination that’s drivable from Kansas City for a vacation that would tease Daddy Blessing into getting vaccinated.

A college student whose family is also mixed race said privately that she didn’t think Lake of the Ozarks was such a good idea… and per a summer 2021 article it looked as though people at the Ozarks are pretty much anti-vax and anti-mask, too.

Another of my students made a trip to the International Hot Air Balloon Fiesta with her teen-aged daughter this fall. I’ve been wanting to explore Albuquerque/Santa Fe, and I’m acquainted with a couple Nigerian-Americans living in Santa Fe. I remember how, once when driving westward, it was as though the backdrop suddenly changed upon entering New Mexico.

Alas, Santa Fe was too far to drive with what time we had.

When Daddy B got his first shot I decided on St. Louis, about four hours away, and booked an AirBnB duplex for two nights. I also got timed tickets to the top of the Arch for midday Monday to push us out of Kansas City and on our way by 7am that morning.

The long drive-thru line for a “fast” breakfast on the way had me a little anxious, still we arrived on schedule and parked in a metered spot by the footbridge to Gateway Arch Park.

I had gone up in the arch once before, on my way home for Christmas from college. Looking down from the top I saw a pristine lawn of snow. Back on ground I took my afghan hound for a run. With our six feet we marked a giant figure eight - an infinity sign - on that blank canvas. We went round, and round again, to win the attention of onlookers 600 feet above.

I’d forgotten all about climbing aboard the little Arch tram car with jolting rides up & down and views of the structure’s innards along the way…

At the top Blessing and Daddy B pulled phones out of pockets and began framing up views of Missouri to the west and Illinois, just over the Mississippi River, to our east. You feel God-like looking out on the world below where teensy people and cars are moving about.

The exit from the arch complex sent us straight out to the foot of a leg where Blessing posed for photos by the end of the silver rainbow. What a mighty work for the public sphere, thank you Eero Saarinen. It looks contemporary at 55 years plus.

Later that first day it appeared that our AirBnB had only one bedroom ! We opened this door and that... to find B’s room downstairs - with its freshly-made bed, mirror wall, and snaking remote-control mood light. Blessing gave me a hug.

During our stay we took in the Aquarium, where a stingray circling the petting pool gave B a big splash (these rays have had their barbs removed, btw). We did the free behind-the-scenes tour of Shark Canyon which was simply a view from above narrated by a well informed guide. The Canyon is vast with many species and dramatic tank-side views. Beyond that were aquaria with leafy sea dragons, sea nettles (jellyfish with long, flowing tentacles)… and a ruffly octopus colored orange (at least for the moment) that receives “enrichment” through being given puzzles to solve.

When I look back through my videos, it’s as though my phone’s a window to an aquarium ~

Our other stops included Laumeier Sculpture Park, the Cathedral, the Art Museum, and lastly the Zoo. Close up views of gorillas had us marveling at how their feet seemed like hands and how their ears and hands looked almost human.

We prepared most meals at our vacation abode and enjoyed a supper out at Lona’s Li’l Eats, “home of the giant rice paper wrap.”

Back in Kansas City I’ve been dreaming of Christmas Eve in Santa Fe: the Farolito Walk, midnight service at the Cathedral of St. Francis of Assisi…

(Maybe next Christmas !)

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mommyblessing-fyi · 2 years

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Why trust social media vs. major news sources ?

12/18/21

Daddy Blessing was vaccine-hesitant for the longest time.

One of the things I’ve always cherished about him is that he’s typically open to changing his mind. This was different. Just about anytime the matter would come up he grew more resistant.

[ Blessing supposed her dad might be quite upset with her if she’d been the one holding out. ]

I can see how Daddy B could be swayed by social media controversies about vaccines. He’s shown me how Nigerians share videos of violent clashes in the moment via social media - stories that Nigerian mainstream news might miss, play down, or intentionally omit.

While I like to listen to BBC World Service reporting on Africa, Daddy B does not. In his eyes Great Britain is a colonizer, the oppressor.

I can imagine how people outside of Africa and the African diaspora might miss the nuances in BBC reporting that Daddy B finds objectionable. And while bias in reporting may be waning due to Black Lives Matter and increased attention to unintended microaggressions, trust isn’t earned overnight.

All in all, Daddy B is liable to trust social media over mainstream news, and perhaps especially over news coming out of the western world.

His primary reason for putting off getting vaccinated was concern over possible unforeseen side effects. I researched matters from all angles (and was hugely alarmed by the minuscule chance of death due to blood clots with the AstraZeneca vaccine !).

I set up our annual physicals early with hope this would give Daddy B the chance to discuss Covid-19 vaccination options with his doctor… but Daddy B wouldn’t talk to the doctor about it at all. Sigh…

How could we make a vaccination appointment for Daddy B ? If he changed his mind at the last minute, would it be possible to secure another appointment at a later date ?

Truman Medical Center/University Health at 2211 Charlotte Street in Kansas City, Missouri takes walk-ins from 7am-3:20pm Monday through Friday. I like the idea of going to a hospital versus a drug store or Walmart. Blessing and I got vaccinated there earlier this year.

I posted a note inside our front door with the University Health vaccination center’s details and pointed the location out to Daddy B when we happened to be driving by that way after hours…

How about a little vacation over Thanksgiving break to celebrate Daddy B’s November birthday ?

If we were going to travel, he’d have to get vaccinated.

Monday, November 8th, with heavy hearts, we attended the home-going of Blessing’s best friend’s dad. This father, adored by all, had been so alive to us. Now he was… gone.

As we drove in the cortege to the cemetery, Blessing wondered why a fellow on the roadside was taking off his hat. Daddy B explained, “out of respect for the dead.”

This dad’s passing is a complicated story wherein he was separated from all his family due to Covid-19 regulations at St. Luke’s. Circumstances surrounding his death painted a vivid picture of what being in a hospital Covid ward entails.

I continued to ask around about vaccine hesitancy in an effort to find out what seemed to sway people’s loved ones to get vaccinated at last. I saw that offering to accompany the individual to get vaccinated was a way to encourage and support him or her.

On Monday, November 15th I accompanied Daddy B to get his first Pfizer vaccination at University Health. As we waited for doors to open at 7am, we observed a nurse carrying a cooler of vaccines over from the pharmacy.

Then Monday, November 22nd we were off to St. Louis on holiday ~

Monday, December 6th Daddy B got his second shot.

And Wednesday this week Daddy Blessing called me up to get the address of the University Health vaccination center for a workmate ~

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mommyblessing-fyi · 2 years

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where/wear your glasses

12/17/21

Oh, hi. Mommy Blessing here.

It wasn’t so long before I married my husband when he shyly told me of Blessing, his 10 year old daughter. His parents were raising her.

Fast forward five years and Blessing joins us in Kansas City.

B often talks of my husband’s sisters in Nigeria: Mommy Faithful, Mommy Ella, and Mommy Twins - known to family friends and younger family members as “mommy” with the name of their first- or last-born children appended. Mommy Faithful’s eldest is Faithful... and Mommy Twins’ youngest children are twins.

And so I’m Mommy Blessing, mothering Blessing, a Nigerian-born girl here in America.

I secured a place for B at a good charter school through appealing to the principal (who’s Nigerian, as it happens) - though she was held back so as to have a chance to catch up to the school standards here.

B’s a junior in high school, and I can admit that the determination I’ve admired in Nigerians seems to be the wild card where it comes to parenting a Nigerian teenager - and one who’s quickly taking hold of what turning 18 can mean when you’re in the US.

Lately B was thinking to give up glasses for glamour.

It used to be that she couldn’t leave the house without glasses. If she forgot her glasses she’d want to go back for them. She used to say she couldn’t see without them...

When her favorites got a little bent out of shape a while back, she began wearing her 2nd pair. If these were misplaced they’d typically be under her bed - however she lost them at work for good just before mid-November. She and her workmates searched the store, and I called the next day. No glasses. So I zipped over to Costco and had her other pair adjusted. B put them on immediately, it was a Sunday afternoon.

The next Saturday I came to see B hadn’t been wearing glasses to school. She wasn’t planning to wear them to work that day either…

We went on a jaunt to St. Louis in the first days of Thanksgiving week. She brought her glasses with. Things seemed good.

Yet on coming home from school this Monday, December 13, B said she had no idea where her glasses were. It looked to me like she hadn’t been wearing glasses in school for a month, and she said she wasn’t going to be wearing them.

(All this while she’s sporting the thickest false eyelashes I’ve ever seen !)

I had a little back and forth with Daddy Blessing over this: he said I started it all by letting B choose to get vaccinated (I figured it was her choice, she was 18… though this did lead to B seizing onto other things she could now do at 18). My retort to daddy was that he’d set an example of throwing health & well-being to the wind by objecting to getting vaccinated for what seemed like forever.

I couldn’t see going into the new year fighting this same battle over glasses, so I asked B’s auntie, Mommy Treasure, whether she could help. She called B and they had a heart-to-heart over the phone. I checked in with the moms of B’s two closest friends via texting and showed B what they thought… I made a poster with photos of cute girls in glasses and smacked that up in an un-missable spot in the kitchen...

In a last ditch effort to evade further arguments over the matter, I called the phone company and found they could easily suspend service to any of our lines. And service could be restored immediately at my request (anytime within three months, I believe they said). So I had service to B’s phone cut off - and then restored again the next day after she rediscovered her enthusiasm for wearing glasses to school.

Yesterday we received an email from school expressing concern about a nation-wide threat to school safety circulating on TikTok for today, the last day of the semester. B and I talked about that, about how it was important to be wary. B explained that she’d be with her English Language Learning teacher all day taking exams.

I didn’t mention how I noticed that B was wearing her glasses when I gave her big hugs at the bus stop this morning… I waved heartily as the bus headed off to school with Blessing on board.

#parentingteens #dontwannawearglasses #eighteen #blendedfamily #familymatters #mommyblessingfyi #mommyblessing #teenagekid

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