Prince Mekhi

For those who don’t yet know, Brian and I help take care of an eight-year-old boy named Mekhi. His biological mother Lisa, aka Mom #1, is a single mother of five kids to four fathers. Mekhi’s biological father is the only one of these who is a deadbeat. To make matters worse, Mekhi is the exact middle child, the oldest boy, two of his siblings are special needs (his younger brother is highly autistic), and like President Obama, Mekhi’s mother is Caucasian and his father is African-American. Lisa describes his skin as “caramel-colored.” He is a handsome boy, growing like the proverbial weed.

Years ago, Lisa worked as a live-in aid to Don, who had severe diabetes. Don was a father-figure to Mekhi until he passed away because Don didn’t have health insurance to take care of his disease (this was before the ACA). Lisa asked my Brian (the World’s Greatest Husband) to step in and be a father-figure to Mekhi, and she since labeled me as Mom #2.

Brian is just Dad. Sometimes Mekhi talks about his “real dad”, i. e. the deadbeat, but I try to get Mekhi to use the term “biological dad,” saying that a real dad does more than just contribute genetic material.

Helping to care for Mekhi is both fun and challenging, in that order. Most of the time, he is an energetic and playful boy. Sometimes he gets into fights at school or his after school program (he once was annoyed that his female classmates kept singing “Let it Go” from Frozen), and we have to ground him from all electronics (TV, PlayStation, Nintendo, etc.). He especially has been concerned about police, considering recent race-related events.

Summer 2013, we took Mekhi to a lot of church and community festivals, and he was enthralled with martial arts demonstrations by local dojos. In December of that year, we signed him up at Kicks Unlimited (KU) in Sun Prairie, and now he is a green belt about to test for his next belt. Also, his ninth birthday party at the end of March will take place at KU. When Mekhi earned his gold belt, Brian said, “It was all I could to not start bawling.”

A year ago and on a whim, I bought Mekhi some sticker books, especially from The Lego Movie. He loves them. We’re also encouraging him to read, so he has a subscription to Highlights for Children magazine and their Hidden Pictures books. He lets me do the three sticker pages in those latter books. Yes, I’m still a kid at heart.

Recently Mekhi’s school had a fundraiser, and I asked my siblings to contribute because I contributed to a lot of fundraisers for their kids. Of course, the only one who responded was my brother Fran (more on my siblings in a later entry – maybe).

Sometimes it’s hard being Mom #2: Mekhi still clings to Lisa when he needs motherly love. I’ll take what blessings I can get, though. I love Mekhi very much. Last year was the first time ever that I truly enjoyed Mother’s Day.

Probably the best quality about Mekhi is his quick wit. Recently I was cleaning my home office; lamenting that it had been so long since I did that, the calendar showed October. Mekhi asked, “What year?”

Pog ma thoin!

-Lori

“FTR: the calendar said October 2014.” – LAC