"But you're brown Grandma!"

It was just a few months ago that my grandson first started noticing that some people had darker skin than his. It started when he noticed that I was brown and he wasn't.

Over his two & a half years, my grandson had lived in a closed environment that included only family--his African American mom (my daughter) and his Asian dad (my son-in-law) me, his brown Grandma, and occasionally his Asian grandparents. Only after he'd started preschool, did he begin noticing the differences.

"But you're brown, Grandma...," he told me one day. That's when I realized how complicated life could be for a biracial toddler.

We were sitting at the bottom of the steps, reading a book about becoming a big brother. He pointed to an illustration of a pale-faced little boy and asked, "Is that me?"

"It could be," I told him.

"Where are you, Grandma?" he asked. I pointed to the lady standing near the little boy in the book. "But you're brown, grandma," he said. "That's not you. You're not white. You're brown."

I had nothing to say. I was stunned into silence by a two year old.

My grandson wasn't initiating a toddler discussion about race. To his little eyes and mine, it was a simple matter of color, like the difference between a red and blue crayon in a Crayola box.

He's Blasian

I was brown, and he was white. Of course he's not really white. His mom and dad have no idea where he might have picked up that piece of information. My grandson is what his parents lovingly call Blasian (Black & Asian). (He has a shirt that says it and everything.) But I'm just about sure one of his little preschool classmates must have nudged him into thinking about his skin and mine and how different they were.

My little Blasian grandson has a beautifully rich almost pale golden skin color. He's got Asian-esque eyes and straight hair. He's a beautiful mix of his parent's heritage, but they never intended to discuss any of these things--especially not skin color--until at least a few years into the future. It's just another one of those parenthood surprises.

So that was the beginning of my thinking of myself as Brown Grandma. Each day with my grandson, and now my granddaughter, there's a growing list of stories and anecdotes. And I intend to share them with you.