A Thousand Words of Gratitude

April 4th marked seven years since I regained custody of my daughter. In spite of not seeing her father for five months, the little thirteen month old baby took a brief look at the man holding her and intuitively felt a sense of connection. Once it clicked, it didn’t matter her grandparents she’d spent the […]

The Reverend Mason Betha Devotional: Book of Life After Death, Chapter 10

Every Monday I will share an anecdote and/or existential life lesson based on teachings from your favorite rapper’s favorite pastor, Ma$e. “Stay humble, stay low, blow like Hootie.” Prosperity preachers often get a bad rap. The public perceive them as pompous and pious people who pillage Peter to pay themselves. Most miss the undercurrent of […]

The Homework Struggle

April 28 will mark one year since Cydney started preschool. My first post on this blog was titled “I Wasn’t Ready,” in which I lamented about my then eighteen month old daughter starting daycare that ended with me saying “That first day is going to be a bitch.” (Looking back at that first post made […]

Two Years Later: What I Have Learned After Regaining Custody of My Daughter

On April 3, 2012 my mother and I left New York around midnight to drive to Hampton Virginia to get my daughter Cydney who had been in her grandparents’ custody since her mother Timile passed away months earlier. For my new readers, this story can be read in detail here. We got to the Hampton […]

Starting Preschool At Home With Cydney

Cydney may not be in school, but we’re starting homework. She’s really smart and it’s time to get started. My mother came up with the idea of giving her stuff to do that kids in preschool do. She has a book where we’re starting off with sight words, coloring in shapes, and counting. She can […]

Confident Parenting

In my college Educational Psychology class, my professor mentioned two things that have stood out to me for the last seven years: 1) Children are geniuses until they’re five years old. Parents mess it up. 2) A child’s fears are learned behavior they pick up from their parents. I want to expound on these. It […]

Watch The Throne-Potty Training pt. 9: Pee Like a Dinosaur

I went into potty training hardcore last month. One day it was diapers, the next day it was panties and I didn’t look back; well until about a week ago. I went back to pull ups. Pull ups made me lazy. They made potty time less urgent. There was a reason for it though. Since […]

Jaded

I had a conversation with my mother yesterday. She told me that my nephew was heartbroken the other day from our first go round of tossing the football around. He signed up for football in August and he’s excited about it. He told my mother that he needs to practice throwing the ball with me […]