I just looked back at a facebook post from the end of 2019 that said this “Happy New year to all my friends across the globe, miss you, love you and hope 2020 brings great joy.” Sure Laura nice sentiment if only foresight was my thing.

This year has seen America become even more divided, we are seeing people march to the streets in protest of police brutality and the institutionalized racism that is so embedded in our society. All while COVID-19 is spreading like wildfire through the world. Schools have shut down and so many people like my husband are working from home. I have had some difficult conversations with friends, looked at myself and how I contribute to racism and read all kinds of books trying to make sense of my world right now.

Books like:

• “Me and White Supremacy,” by Layla Saad.
• “The Danish Way of Parenting,” by Jessica Joelle Alexander and Iben Sandahl.
• “White Fragility,” by Dr. Robin DiAngelo.
• “Siblings without Rivalry” by Adele Faber.
• “This is Going to Hurt: Secret Diaries of Junior Doctor” by Adam Kay (This one is purely for the laughs).

Next up is “How to Be and Anti-Racist,” by Ibram Kendi. I saw something recently that said something like reading about climbing doesn’t make you a climber and neither does reading about racism make you an anti-racist I get it but I have to start somewhere.

On top of the disorganized reading I have going on I have as you can imagine spent many many moments with my children. In the last three months I have made a Pikachu out of paper mâché that my kids were super excited about but lets face it I did most of the work, researched how the earth was made to answer a question Jack posed, we adopted a pet snail called Gary he escaped a few weeks ago never to be seen again I don’t blame him captivity is no fun. I have tried to get Nash to work on his letters much to his dismay, played endless games of hide and seek, red light, green light and fake snowball fights not to mention Monopoly and giant Jenga. As a preschool teacher I am made for this but I also got paid I wonder if I should talk to my husband about my salary.

I digress I really came on here to talk about the National Organization for Albinism and Hypopigmentation Conference 2020 (thats free by the way) and accessible online starting July 9th to July 12th. So if any family members or friends are reading this and want to learn more about albinism this would be a great time.

Featured Image: Nash on the right holding a paintbrush applying glue to our Pikachu on the left image is in black and white.