Proud mama

Last summer, Luca had the idea of raising dollars to help endangered animals (a word she still sometimes mispronounces as ingendered). A combination of factors - a fundraising mama, two parents who are slightly obsessed about what it means to responsibly raise a privileged child, reading the book Alex's lemonade stand, and multiple trips to the zoo led Luca to consider raising bucks for animals. In this case, the Hyacinth Macaw - an endangered bird living in the Brazilian Amazon.

So, rather than explain it all here, the zoo did a story on it. Go here to Zoo Tracks, download it, and read page three. http://www.mnzoo.com/zootracks/

And yeah, we're so very proud and it is embarrassing to be this proud. I haven't felt something like this before - I mean, I'm proud of Luca, but this kind of public "look at my kid" pride. I always feel a little bit squeamish, a bit embarrassed or uncomfortable when people say too many nice things about Luca. Because I certainly don't get that from my mother and because I am certainly far more transcended and child-separated than to assume that kind words about Luca are kind words about me (snort), I usually just assume it's some ancient Sicilian ancestor, drawing a grimace and holding her fingers up in the horn, croaking "mal occhio, mal occhio." You know, bad luck to draw attention to a child because then someone will zap her with the evil eye.

But here I am, doing it. So if you're going to send the evil eye somewhere, send it at me.