Can I be critical and opinionated for just a quick second? Okay, thanks.

I think that immigrant parents who don't speak their native tongue to their kids are doing them a huge disservice. And whenever I encounter one speaking in often broken and accented English with their offspring I have to take deep breaths to overcome the overwhelming desire I get to slap some sense into them. Don't they realize that speaking a foreign language to their kids now pretty much guarantees them a successful career in the future? Don't they know that those kids are going to learn English anyway from TV and school? Ugh!

Well, I've already introduced myself, so I feel like we are close enough to discuss something that is near and dear to my heart. I dare say, near and dear to the hearts of all mothers. Something that, until I became a mom, was hardly ever given a second thought and was never the topic of public discourse. Something that used to be private and disgusting and is now the cause of promises, bribes, and celebrations. Yes my friends, this is my third post, and I am ready to talk about poop.

This morning on the way to daycare, I asked Luki if we could hold off on our conversation about the weather and the seasons for a few minutes. There was a story on NPR I wanted to listen to. It was an update on the Trayvon Martin saga, a news piece I’ve been following closely with shock and disbelief.

Yes, my first reaction to blatant acts of discrimination continues to be disbelief. Rationally, I know it’s real, I know it happens every single day, but whenever I encounter an actual, tangible example of it… I just… I can’t accept it as commonplace. Really? This poor kid got shot and killed just because he’s black? And the white killer didn’t even get arrested? Really? For real? Am I being punked?

All signs point to yes, for real. That actually happened. In the United States. In 2012.

Perhaps the reason I’m so unsuspecting about discrimination is because my parents never really talked to me about race when I was growing up. My mom loves to tell a story about how, when I was about six or seven, I came home complaining about a little girl who had bothered me at school. A relative heard me mention it and asked, “what color is the girl?” and I responded… “she’s beige with some pink spots.” Back then, white and black were just colors inside my box of crayons.

So far, I’ve taken the same approach with Luki. We haven’t talked about race at all. He’s been exposed to people of all different races in our own family, at his daycare, at church… but he’s never asked me anything about their skin color and I haven’t brought it up. In an ideal world, I shouldn’t have to… right? It shouldn’t matter.

But our world is not ideal.

• The Arreazas: Luki, Tony and Ailen

OK, so this is where this story picks up: I’m a twentysomething Charlottean who is 20-something weeks pregnant with my second child. Married to Tony, a pretty sweet guy (except when he’s pestering me about leaving my shoes strewn across the living room floor again!), and mother of two-and-a-half-year-old Lucas (Luki, for short).

• The Arreazas: Luki, Tony and Ailen

Here are ten other things you should know about me, in no particular order:

* Neither of my pregnancies was exactly planned and my initial reaction to both of them was complete and utter shock. Don’t get me wrong, I love my kid, and I love this fetus in my uterus, but… upon seeing those two pink lines, my first thought was, HOLY CRAP! WHAT ARE WE GOING TO DO?!?!?, with a side of OMG, MY LIFE IS OVEERRR!!

* I was born in Cuba and Tony in Venezuela. We are hoping that at least one of our children will go into baseball or autocratic politics and lead us into early retirement. Also, we only speak Spanish at home. This is one of the few steadfast parenting decisions we’ve made: we want to raise bilingual children.

* It is my deep-rooted belief that mayonnaise is the foulest substance on the planet.

* My dad died, unexpectedly, two years ago. It sucked; it still does. I’m not over it; I’ll never be.

* This is not my first foray into blogging. I blogged here for about a year and a half and then quit for no real reason. It started off with me documenting the very end of my first pregnancy and the first few months of Luki’s life and then got all sad and depressing when my dad died. Things never really got cheery over there again.

* The reason I started blogging in the first place is that, back when I was pregnant with Luki, my mother replaced her perfectly working washer-and-dryer with a new model that had a “Baby Wear” function on it so she could sanitize her unborn grandchild’s clothes properly. I just felt like the world really needed to hear that story.

* Speaking of sanitizing, I, more often than not, wipe my son’s nose with my shirt sleeve.

* My socks usually don’t match, I don’t iron my family’s clothing, and I rarely finish what I start.

* Motherhood is the only thing I’ve never considered quitting.

* I still occasionally make it out to the Neighborhood Theatre, get buzzed (when not pregnant), and sing along, albeit somewhat off-key, to Rock en Español.