Kids and Such

Elliott Escalante, Hazel Montgomery, Caiden Escalante, Jade Montgomery

Aren't kids funny?  That's pretty much all I have to say about that picture right there.  Yah.  See?  I tried.  Nothing came.  Oh, that's a little plastic wobbly head turtle that Hazel Rei is holding.  Caiden and Jade have food, of course.  And Elliott?  Well, he's probably wondering whether his clothes are dirty.  I'm serious.  He's really paranoid about it.  You know how people talk about the care-free days of their youth?  Those memories won't exist for Elliott.  He never has such a thing as a care-free day.  I love him to death, but that boy gets stressed, I'm telling ya.

Here is a fun little factoid for you.  All four of these kids have some Hispanic blood in their veins.  No kidding.  My kids are the extremely white boy and the little bit more tan girl in the pink flower dress.  The other two girls are my brothers.  My brother and I both married people who are about half some kind of Hispanic.  But look how non-Hispanic looking all of our kids turned out.  There's only one brown haired one out of the bunch!  Interesting.  My mom had very strong genes.  You should see the six of us kids line up together.  We're all pretty much identical... To each other and my mom.  Sorry, Dad, you only get one look-a-like.

I find this so very interesting.  I always thought it would be so amazing to be able to check some other box other than "Caucasian" on those survey thingies.  I would love to have a fascinating heritage to talk about.  My great-grandfather's last name was "Bruce"  and for so many years I clung to the fact (well, I'm not really sure its a fact) that I AM RELATED TO ROBERT THE BRUCE.  And I would actually tell people I had some royal Scottish blood (I no longer do that, nor do I condone those who do).  So when I found out that my husband was an interesting mix I hounded him about the race box.  "So what box do you check?" I wanted to know.  He always checks "Caucasian."  Oooo, I used to yell at him for that.  I so wish I could check another box and he actually can, but doesn't.  I've since learned to let it go.  You know, breathing is supposed to really help? 

Now my kids actually have some interesting heritage to trace back--to Spain and such--but nobody will ever ask them about it, because you can't even tell!  But maybe, just maybe, they'll want to check that other little box.