Tuesday, December 30, 2014

Fun Formalities...

I was aware the nightmare that attaining official papers can be before going to the passport office.  So I did a first practice run before the real thing.  I was told I had to have everyone present, including my oldest 5 year old in a fill length leg cast.
2nd visit to Passport Office - both kids and Ema in car outside, waiting:
I hand in all my papers.
[Starts handing everything back to me] You need an original birth certificate.  This one is a copy.  'Oh yeah, the new "original" I'd ordered.' "Here."  It had taken me 4 1/2 years to finally get an accurate "original" but that's another post.
[Reluctantly, she peruses more papers]. "What is this... Takoda?"
"He's my son."
[Starts handing everything back to me] "You cannot do this without both parents present."
"We are both present.  She's in the car with the boys."
"She?  Where's the father?"
"His other mother is in the car with him.  He's not in here right now because he has a full length leg caste on right now.  Your coworker said you wouldn't mind going out to him so he wouldn't have to climb in and out of his wheelchair just to be looked at."
"There's no father?"
"No, there's not."
[Starts handing everything back to me] "Can't do it without the father here."
"Not there is mo father here.  There is no father.  He has two mothers.  We're legally married and have been since before he was born.  Look, see?  Here is the marruage livence and we're both on the birth certificate."
"It says 'father.'"
"It says 'father/parent.'"
"Ahhh..."
Only from here on in, she gave me the benefit of the doubt and stopped handing me back all my papers.




Sunday, November 23, 2014

Anniversary Post

There was a time in our lives when we were always side by side.  Amy and I woke up together, went to school together, took the same classes, worked the same jobs, laughed with the same people, and returned to the same home.  It was, for some who I've expressed this sentiment to, a marital nightmare.
For us it was bliss.
The only problem was that joining of strengths and weaknesses that happens in marriage which left me two weeks late to the first class I had to take in my own major.  16 years later however, she's still my superior in the details - and my have they grown!  Homework, Little League, Tae Kwon Doe, report cards, permission slips, lesson plans, feedback, PTA, UFT, OMG!  I feel inundated with nonsense no ethics and social philosophy major should ever face critical to the ones I love who I'm responsible for.
Thank God I have her here to blame for most of it (the true virtue of marriage!)

I'm superior in something else.
I can remember that exact moment 16 years ago - tomorrow - when I'd just returned home from a short trip.  We weren't together yet, but we were communicating and we'd left off that it was over.  It wasn't going to happen.  She was gonna go her way/I was gonna go mine, and that was gonna be it.
I can remember that exact feeling in my gut that forced my hand to that phone, dialed her number and blurted a few words that basically amounted to "Come here."
I can remember the feeling of relief and other things when I turned around and she was at my door.
   I couldn't tell you who kissed who.  I can't even tell you in all honesty that was our first kiss.  And I really can't tell you much about what happened right after that.

But I can tell you it was the right decision.

Happy "Real" Anniversary Love!  I think we both totally missed the marriage one.

Sunday, September 21, 2014

"One More Tomorrow"

My Pop-pops used to stay up all night and nap all day.  I knew him mostly on vacations, when I'd sleep over my Granny's house or be staying in her country place upstate during the summer.  - Different times - off times, when being up at night could be part of the norm.  My most vivid personal memory is of his waking me in the middle of the night to go see a skunk that was passing by outside.  He was urgent about it, excited.  Even then I giggled at the absurdity - but I got up!  And I marveled at that skunk.  ...Come to think of it, I think it was the first I'd ever seen.
   We lost my Pop-pops during a time in my life when death almost seemed the norm.  It was a bad run, - my mom, my 20 year old aunt, cars, freak crimes and tragedies, etc.  The day my step-mother told me my Pop-pop died, I remember one tear and a kind of "...is-what-it-is..." thought bouncing around my tired vacant 9-year-old brain.
   Now I think back to the kind of man he was.  Surrounded by woman, (one wife, two daughters) smiling all the time.  The kind of man who's family actually owned "Granny's" country house  - who'd worked it his whole life.  The kind of guy who would be told by his women that two eggs a day was not good for him, just before he walked down to the bar (2 miles away) for his 5 o'clock daily martini especially when they got on their kicks about not giving him the keys.
   To this day cigar smoke triggers a familiar vivacity, an occasional burst of energy - a force that wakes me in the middle of the night to go outside and see what's there.
   I can relate to Pop pops.  I even have the Graves disease probably in through his side of the family.  I'm not skinny like he was (because the other side apparently taught me how to eat!) but the hyperthyroidism wakes you.  It can make you anxious.  And tired.  And sad.
   Of all the people I've lost I feel him the most.  He had haunts.  He had loves.  All of them I share.
   My wife and I have a song - one I played for my Granny today and told her I'd always wished she could really hear the words.  (Granny's hearing is not what it once was).  Granny related the title of a song Pop pops had said was their song.  It was an obscure song that never made it big, so she usually can't remember the title.  Earlier this week, she said she looked up and said 'Oh come on Zip [Pop pops] and help me out to remember' and that's when it occurred to her.  She's told me the story before and I'd looked up the title she'd given but somehow couldn't find it.  Tonight however, I did find it.  And I was able to play it for her and order her the record.  It was 1946 "One More Tomorrow" by Frankie Carle and his orchestra - with a woman singing?  There we sat head-to-head, ears and hearing aids, arched around my iPhone playing a You Tube video sporting a pic of a red 78 vinyl, tears running down both our faces.  It was dark.  Didn't matter.  Kids laughing and playing all around us were not even aware the different kind of moment we were experiencing.  So much goes by so quick if you don't stop.  And tonight I'm up, listening to it again… kind of even looking for a skunk.  

Sunday, August 3, 2014

Don Juan not Dona Juana!

Then you have these moments where the little teach the big volumes.
So Kody is approached by a cute little girl who playfully asks him his name.  I was surprised when he responds with a mumble.  (He's usually so responsive to this approach.)  This happens a few times until she eventually gives up.  A few minutes later, I'm alone with him.  I could tell he wanted to play with her.
"You gotta look her in the eye and tell her your name Bud.  Otherwise, she'll think you don't like her.  You like her though, right?"
"Oh.  Yeah."  So he runs back to her and tries to announce his name over giggling and playful swinging on this mass swing-boat thing.  It doesn't work.  I yank him back.
"No Bud.  Try this: Just hang out around her, and if she says anything else to you, just be ready this time and tell her your name."
So he did.  He went back, got right in the middle of things, worked the proximity, but she wandered off before our big moment.
One thing leads to another he winds up in the swing-boat with another girl.  I figure this is good for him and push until they're both laughing and giggling happily.
She comes back.
He's giddy, but dumbstruck.  He really is different with this girl.  I swear, it's too funny to watch.
But he's getting nowhere.  I step in again.
"Kody, give the lady a turn."  He does.  She promptly steps into the swing-boat.  "Push her" I nudge.  He does.  So do two other guys.
He's never pushed another person in a swing before, but I'm impressed by how he's doing and how motivated he is to learn.  I kinda quietly teach/demonstrated how to push and get out of the way.
We do this a while and it works.  Some conversation is started, a little laughter is exchanged.  I leave him to it until I begin to think he's hanging on to his hat too much.
"Kody, gimmie the hat.  Walking around holding your hat to your head is too much.  If it blows off here, it's no big deal.  [He'd lost another hat on a boat in Lake George.]  You're better off giving it to me to hold."
He doesn't.  He expresses some kind of loss of "Kody" if the hat comes off.
"It won't make a difference.  [Doesn't budge]. What's the matter?  Don't you trust me?"
"No Mom.  Sometimes when you do these things that means that you don't trust me."
Boing!  Dumbstruck.  Duh Mom.  I back off.  The two happily play and he later has two girls plying for his attention.
Touché my boy, touché!
What did I ever really know about women anyway!

Thursday, July 10, 2014

Role Confusion, Shifting Paths, and the Speed of Progress

It's an easy issue to succumb to in our world.  I remember dealing with the "Other" mother role.  On one hand, I was not the person giving birth to our child.  On the other, I'm a woman.  I wanted control over every aspect of our child's initiation to this world: from his genetic make up to his independent sleeping rituals.  More important than my gender identification, was my title.  I was (and still am) a mom, not a dad.
Dad's can be aloof.  They can find comfort in being second.  It's part of their role.
So that was fine.  We did it "my" way inseminating with my uncle (so that I was genetically connected) and I co-breastfed and surprisingly often felt like "first" in his life, but 4 years later he still sleeps with us.  (You negotiate these things in a same sex household.)
Then I became "not other" mother.  I'm "first" with one but solidly "second" now with the other.  I lost it in a torrid of tears the other day in a separate room after he casually mentioned how he loves Ema more.  I think the dependency of our second on my breast milk hurt the first and now, well the bed is really crowded now.  It's not always easy to really connect with the first.  I think Ema will still be primarily "first" as long as I'm primarily "first" with our second.
Someone referred to me as "the butch" the other day, and I think it's because they, a fellow "other" mother, felt like a butch.  My high school students refer to "butches" as "Aggs" (short for "Aggressives") and refer to me as such if I wear comfortable clothing.  If my shirt has a low neck line however, or a couple sparkly touches, I've noticed I instantly lose my "Agg" status.
How ridiculous, right?  My role, my status, my very personality changed by whether or not the laundry is done?  I'd utterly reject these roles as a heterosexual if that were my plight and I was keen enough to notice them, but we don't.  It took me a lifetime to become aware of how all encompassing my life was affected due entirely to the fact of my being born a woman, let alone the additional years it took to compartmentalize my life as a queer (although that happened quicker). Now we add family dynamics to the mix.
It makes you worry.  Like when the notion that because we have two boys, we'll "lose" them when they grow up and marry.  This notion reduced me to tears when I found out the sex of my second!  But now, I imagine Niky as a female and can't see how he'd really be any different than he is.  And the way attitudes are changing - like how I read a blog off Facebook about an overheard conversation between two heterosexual dads on a subway as they discussed their gay sons.  When one asks what they "do" now (that they've discovered they both have gay boys) the other says “We don’t do anything. We let em be gay and if some kid calls em a faggot we go to their house and raise hell with the parents like normal.” - This seems normal to me, like it shifts a lot of nonsense around until the path becomes simply obvious.
Maybe that's the way it's going to be with us.  It bothers me when Kody refers to me as a "dad" of sorts, or expresses discomfort with male/female genderized dichotomies but he knows I'm the one who softens the consequences his Ema imparts on him, and I'm the one who makes him his chocolate chip pancakes.  I daresay the differences between the roles of "mom" and "dad" are less and less important as we move away in time from the initial difference of who gave birth.  I think breast feeding perpetuates the mom's role as "first".  How is he going to negotiate all these expectations as he grows to humanhood under our care?  Will it matter much to him?  Will he even notice the differences?
My guess is no, at least not right away.  Until then, at least the speed of progress appears to be increasing.

Thursday, June 26, 2014

Our Bright Future

I could see it.  I know the look now.  It's a look that transpires from the thought 'They're lesbians.'
   "So who's his mother?" a friend's young daughter asks one summer evening at a BBQ.
   My wife was ready.  "I'm his mother" she says pointing to our oldest.  "...and I'm his mother" she said pointing to our youngest.
   After a slight pause, this was understood.  But apparently questions remained.  "Then who's her kid?" she added nodding toward me.
   "I'm his mother" I said pointing to our oldest.  "...and I'm his mother"  I said.  "We're both their mothers."
   And then, it was all perfectly acceptable.  Remarkably simple and sweet.

Monday, June 16, 2014

Dear New York Vital Records,

Four years ago my wife gave birth to our first son, Takoda.  The hospital did not have the proper birth certificate form with a space for two mothers available.  They told me you would send me the proper records within a few months.  

The end of January, you sent me back a birth certificate listing me as the father.  I returned it with a note, the proper forms, and requested that you fix the problem.  

You then sent me back a new birth certificate listing me as the mother - but male.  I sent this back again with the proper forms - again - including a copy of my birth certificate, and a note assuring you that my sexuality had little affect on my gender.

Since then we have had copies of these (albeit inaccurate) records held up in a lawyer's office while my official adopting of my son took place.  (We didn't want to wait on that any longer.). The adoption has just recently concluded.

I understand it is your policy to make parents pay for records beyond a certain date of the birth, however, since much of this delay is due to extremely insulting "errors" on the part of your office, perhaps you would see to it that I receive a proper birth certificate from you finally for free of these erroneous charges and perhaps even with some haste and diligence to get it right this time?

Thank you kindly for your ownership.

Alison -------, Mother (FEMALE)

Sunday, June 8, 2014

My Wife's Big Mouth

Just in case we were wavering in our decision to move to Mineola, NY today provided some insight into that decision.  Even after the years (almost decades) of being with my wife, she still occasionally shocks me.  Lounging around the park with the kids after an open house today, we were discussing the pros and cons of this decision and happened to be amidst a group of teenagers when one boy calls another the dreaded "f" word.  Without missing a beat my wife launches into a very loud conversation that she hoped that kind of language wasn't typical of the area.  I'm not certain her passive aggressiveness registered because a similar slur erupted within a few minutes.  This launched my wife out of her seat to announce her objections of the local vocabulary as well as our sensitive statuses as lesbian moms.  I found myself braced and frozen on my bench trying not to be obvious about my interest in the expressions these events would incite on the young couple we'd been sharing this play set with for the past 5 formerly quiet minutes.  Turns out there was no objection made either by that couple (at least toward us) nor the mess of teenagers we were amongst - at least not right away.  It was a park and there was a fair going on, so there was an ebb and flow as people going and coming on their respective ways but amongst the chatter there arose a voice of one teen objection.  He was passing the few teens who had originally committed the infraction and who were now hurriedly leaving the park.  It was a lower conversational tone at first and then rose into obvious proud projection.  He was reminding someone of the need to "watch your mouth in public" and reprimanding them for not thinking before they speak.  He was defending us.
I'm ashamed to say that it was only at this point that I turned around to really face this neighborhood as the out and "proud" lesbian mom I have come to - aspire to be.  My wife, already facing them, thanked them and expressed appreciation for the young man's maturity.  The kid went even father to say the exact thing we were so grateful to hear.  "Those kids are not representative of this community."
What followed was a wash of young teenage girls in this young man's wake all smiling and commenting in how cute our boys were.  As they passed I searched their faces for any hint of sarcasm.  And I didn't find any.  I actually saw only genuine sincerity, even a certain empathy for us.  Even later, talking to some other families, our sexuality never even came out and yet had to be obvious.  Not a flicker of reserve.  No acceptance requested nor granted.  Nothing about that label even seemed to require energy.  Just commonalities (schools, houses, mortgage interest rates, etc.).
'I guess we could live here' I thought.  Even with my wife's big mouth.  Lol.  I love you Honey!

Link to JP Howard Interview

http://www.gayparentmag.com/digital-downloads/january-february-2014-issue-92-digital-download

Friday, June 6, 2014

Preschool Graduation Speech

This is my Kody, - Takoda.  When asked to speak today the first thing I did was peruse my phone for old pictures and videos of him from the last year.  As you know it's all too easy to get lost in the day-to-day.  Sometimes we need to step back a bit.  I scanned my photos and even probed my pre-iPhone 5s pics from Facebook to really see his progress.  Truth is, he hasn't changed too much - his face is still beautifully baby - not like other years where he's sometimes looked like a completely different kid from one to the next.  Not this year.  This year, if anything, it's been his body that changed - especially recently.  He's just so big!  He certainly has me wondering about that "super stretchiness" which is his professed superpower of the month.
   Change can be scary.  Most of you are here with your children all about the same age, but we're all coming from such vastly different backgrounds.  It's because of this diversity that school can sometimes be so scary.  It's hard enough dealing with the differences inherent in our own families, but now we have to deal with all kinds of differences.  Some we're ready for.  Some we run from.
   It took a long time for my wife and I to conceive Takoda.  Beyond all the regular difficulties of two women trying to make a baby together, we were using a donor who lived 200 miles away!  But I wasn't worried.  We were a fearless couple in our youth - jumping out of planes and swimming with sharks.  I knew nothing was gonna stop us.  We were together 10 years before taking this leap into family life and actually having a kid seemed like the most mundane of our aspirations.  I can still remember a moment on the way to the hospital when a cab driver warned that as happy as she was she'd never known fear until she'd had a kid.  I remember thinking, she'd never known us.  Boy, was I wrong!  I've been back to the hospital 4 times in 2 years since and only once was to give birth to our second!
   Since kids, it's all been a whirlwind of joy ...and fears, growth spurts and fevers, nursemaid elbows, bouncy house limps, but mostly lots and lots of love and laughs.  Every parent knows this whirlwind.  It's one thing we all have in common that regardless of where we come from, or where we're going.  It starts with the conception and pregnancy worries, morphs into obsessive concerns about complicated topics no one completely understands, twists every long-term unresolved issue you ever swept under your rug, and somehow ...connects us to the universe in a way that we could have never foreseen.  My life went from black and white to technicolor in an instant and my dreams have taken on a whole new importance since the day my son was born.  And every day since I feel awake, alive, ...and alerted.  I'm a teacher by profession, but I knew nothing about teaching until I had kids.  Now I'm a teaching critic (aka parent) as these good folks at YAI can tell you.  I bothered them about everything and accepted nothing on their word.  Some of us at work joke about how teachers make the most difficult parents to deal with.  And we do!  Because it's all too easy to see each class graduate year after year, but it another to see the years of learning your child will never get back.
   This school though is on the cutting edge of where education is headed.  We weren't casual about where Kody would spent most of his day.  It came highly recommended by friends and colleagues we knew and trusted.  It was the second one of it's kind that we've known on this level.  And it has been the place I've trusted for my son's main educational experience this entire formative year in his life.  In that time, I've come to know Kody no longer as my baby, but as my son - a realization I suspect we've all had.  Kody loves to learn.  He looks for friends on the playground and anxiously, inventively creates games for them to partake in.  He jokes with family.  He creates elaborate playtime scenarios alone and with his little brother, Nikkan.  Kody loves to act, perform, dance and tell jokes, and their starting to get funny!  He notices everything and feels such immense compassion for those he loves.  He highlights the most interesting parts of his day for me at the dinner table, and asks his most pressing questions at night after bedtime stories.  And each moment is another step for him a little farther into a very big and very scary world that my wife and I are here to help him navigate.
   Many people don't but I remember my preschool.  My friend who was a little older than had gone there the year before, and I remember how big and bad and cavalier she seemed telling me about it, but she wasn't going to be there with me so her complacency didn't relieve much pressure.  I felt out there alone every day for the first time.  I remember the front door, the arch, how large it looked, forbidding.  That stoop was insurmountable.  And I remember passing by later, how progressively smaller and smaller it became over the years every new time that I saw it.  I now see it an entirely different way.  I remember being scared in preschool probably every day, missing my mother, and crying when I was once the "cheese standing alone."  Everyone danced around in a circle holding hands, fast and loud.  I felt like I couldn't hide; I felt like I couldn't join in or escape.  I felt completely alone.
   Growing up is hard.  As much as they're so cute and adorable at this age they have a lot of responsibility on their shoulders.  They're like little people that way - so much to do so much to learn yet so little time.  But as much as Kody has his moments I'm not always in tune with, when he doesn't want to wake up yet, doesn't want to get dressed or go to school; as much as he sometimes pouts in the bus window as we try to lighten his mood by frantically waving goodbye before the bus drives him away from us for the day, - every kid has those days.  He's also started to make really funny observations, to giggle while wiping away our kisses, and to spontaneously sign "I love you" with his thumb, forefinger and pinky sometimes when he waves good bye.  Most of the time, he is a happy child.
   We can talk about all kinds of topics now.  He asks me insightful questions about the world and expresses connections between his life and the lives of others he meets and learns about.  And I can see myself in him - in his humor, his interests, and all his many aspirations.  He's told us he wants to be a "cab driver, a man, and an astronaut" all in one breath.  You just can't make this stuff up!
   He's grown too heavy now to carry around, and yet I'm not ever really ready to put him down.  Luckily though, he's not ready either.  He helps me hold him with his tight hugs arms and legs wrapped around, and he kisses me on my cheek, and he tells me he loves me every day.  And I feel prouder and prouder that he's my son no matter how scary this big bad world can be.  
  Thank you to all the staff and all the parents and all the beautiful children that have peppered his world with challenges and comforts.  And here's to the hope that we will all grow and learn and face our fears as fast in the future.

Friday, May 30, 2014

Know My Place

I can't help that I constantly feel like I'm wrangling for a feminine role in Takoda's mind.
Sensitive-as-usual I had to push it when Kody comes up to me out of nowhere kissing me all up.  "My prince" I mutter without thinking too much about it. 
   "I'm not your prince" he says.
   Hurt, sensitive, defensive even, I attempt reconciliation explaining that he can be both my prince and Ema's prince if he wants to be, and that only a king or queen must be... I don't know - monogamous.   To this he holds his ground blurting "You're my Jester."
   (This is actually pretty insightful, so I accept it and attempt to move on despite being stripped of any femininity when Kody hurls the most ironic insight of the evening over his shoulder at me while walking away:

   "Ema's the Prince."

Tuesday, May 6, 2014

Blame Poem

I blame no one I know.

No one I know is struggle-free.
We all have troubles ...trifles
whether rich or poor
black or white
gay or straight.
They're all the same.

No one I know doesn't long to be free
of danger and of debt
of hope or regret.

No one I know doesn't pray to something
- long for someone
love
fear
cry.

Yet even as this whole world is blue
with water
we are parched.
Scorched.
Raped.
and plowed over;
And so many scramble
to keep alive
to feed their children
to smile
to lick their wounds
Even as they parch
and scorch
rape and plow.
No one I know has been anything but beautiful
victims of the unseen.

Wednesday, April 30, 2014

Recommendation Letter

To whom it may concern:

   I just spent the better part of my day gathering forms and getting signatures notarized for my wife to adopt our son, Niky.  I can't help but find it odd that for all these testimonials to her health, and her job, all her papers and recommendations, - nobody anywhere asks for my opinion.  I have friends going through what we're going through today.  I have family devoted to proving themselves contributors to our cause.  But even they - with all their good intentions and noble efforts - often just don't really get it.
   My wife, Amy, is a doting mother, a fierce advocate, and highly intelligent instructor capable of facilitating the most productively fun, memorable days of all our lives as well as the lives of her lucky students.  She is the fuel my family runs on.  She is the director of the way things go.  She is never too proud to stand up for what is essential and important no matter what the personal effort or cost.
   As for "adopting" Niky, she was there the day Nikkan was born - seconds after he was ripped from me in an emergency C section, I was helpless as they shuffled him off to NICU for some elusive fluid drain.  Laying there trying to wiggle life back into my limbs, I was left to ponder all the plans I'd made that had been abandoned in minutes - between natural child birth, cord blood retrieval, instant breastfeeding... something had gone awry.
   It was my wife, Amy, - Ema as our kids have come to call her - who immediately took off after Niky, stood by his side, demanded no pacifier be given him least he should waste important early precious energy on nonsense and pumped her own breast milk for him to be nourished when there was sudden talk of our dreaded "F" word.  She was the one who calmed me down, who got us a private room, and who saw to it I was allowed to hold Nikkan just as soon as I was able to land myself in that wheelchair to get to him even when the hospital policy said "No" and the nurses said he had to remain immobilized.  She was the only familiar voice he heard for those first few terrifying hours of hurried hands, cold, and lights.  She was the first one to tell him she loved him - who marveled at his beautiful trembling lips.
   Amy left us that night (just as I had to Kody's first night) but she's been there every night and day since we came home.  She nursed me through my recovery, took on half the breastfeeding, cooked, worked, taught, played, snuggled, disciplined, laughed, and hugged him every day since.  She's more than a wife or a husband.  She is a mother.
   Maybe it's because we had to elope when we actually married that I don't feel like I get the opportunity to say this enough publicly, but Amy is the perfect wife.  She's my best friend and often my most diligent competitor.  She's always my sweetest comfort, strongest knight, and funniest comedic relief.  And just as she supported, challenged, and molded us into the most euphoric zone of my existence, I know she'll do the same for our Takoda and Nikkan.  Amy is one choice I made in our lives that created the best of mine.
   So yes, I highly recommend Ms. Amy Rothman, Ema, my incredible wife, for the position of "Adoptive mother" to our son, Nikkan Liam Polizzi Rothman, - not that anyone asked but just in case anybody was wondering.
   Sincerely.


 

Sunday, April 27, 2014

So much for progress in the future!

   First thing after waking up today, I go in the living room where the kids are watching "Mickey Mouse Clubhouse." Something had just occurred that launched Donald Duck onto Goofy's lap.  "Hey what's the big idea!" I hear in angry Duck dialect.
   Really?
   A few minutes later my older son left the room because the younger one requested "Barney and Friends."  He used to light up and giggle in a way that made me believe in magic again when the Barney doll would spin into the full out and proud purple dinosaur everyone would dance and sing around!  I go in after him purple dinosaur doll in hand playing the song it sings when you squeeze him.  He's giggling but physically takes the doll from me and throws it to the side.  My wife playfully engages in this "Barney is the Monster" game "protecting" him from this villianized icon, but how can anyone hate this character?  Maybe be "not like," or even "find annoying," but I find the haters very suspect.  And I find Donald's homophobia inapproproate for the bew millinelum.  I mean, come on people?
   

Friday, April 25, 2014

The Right Questions

It's been consistent.  Since my "So Many Questions" blog, we've all been experimenting with this notion Kody has picked up that boys kiss only girls, and vice versa.  The other day, Grandpa bought Kody an actual Kermit and Fozzy doll from the Disney Store.  When my wife had them so excited to know they were going home together that they kissed, my beautiful, sweet, innocent 4 1/2 year old son said without missing a beat: "Fozzy's not a girl!"  Later when prompted to wonder what marriage is by the most diverse Disney movie to date, Frozen, Kody seemed to think it more appropriate that he marry Ema than me.
   It's real.  It's consistent.  The weedy heterosexist paradigm has taken root in my son's brain.  It's gotten me thinking all week about what it would take to combat this.  Just this morning, on the way to work I heard a transgendered woman of color talking on the radio about the violence she experienced upon arrival to our "progressive" New York City, and found myself agreeing with her assertion, that as many different people as there are here, as much tolerance as we assume, - no where is there more blind prejudice as right here!  Just as she was targeted and beaten right in the same area where the Stonewall Riots changed the course of our cultural history, so I have experienced more back stabbing, blatant homophobia as well.  In addition, almost 500 gay men were attacked last year here alone.  TV images are not enough.  Marriage "Equality" is not even enough.  When prejudice and ignorance are backed by history, religion, and law, - what can stop them?  We've come so very far, yet we truly have so far to go.
   The facts remain that heterosexists don't watch "Wil and Grace. " And heterosexists miss that flash of a gay family in a sauna during the store scene of Disney's Frozen.   Heterosexists, in fact, rarely even realize they're heterosexist!  Why would they?  Their kids don't assume Mom and Dad are siblings!
   But one other thing happened this week.  Back in the days when I was first struggling with the realization that I was in fact attracted to woman like I'd always assumed I should be attracted to men, I came across a cable TV show called Queer as Folk. Amy and I both did, and we watched week by week, learning, judging, sometimes laughing with the characters.  Some of it was cheesy.  Some of it raunchy.  The day we were hooked was the day the last episode of season one aired.
   There we watched jaw dropped as the main couple, Brian and Justin, danced to the tune of "Save the Last Dance" in front of all Justin's Catholic High School peers at his Prom!
   Maybe this sounds humdrum to you.  But there are so many romantic situations that scare the homophobic (even the out queer ones) to their cores, and imagining the fear of dancing - and dancing in front of straight people - and dancing in front of straight people at something as traditional as a prom - and a CATHOLIC school prom - it stops you in your tracks!  Even them - two beautiful, fit, rhythmic gay men (who could possibly be better dancers?) - to watch them together was a moment in my life I will never forget.  You're dumbfounded.  It wasn't a fancy dance.  There was no theatrics.  They were just two guys, both in suits, who happened to love each other, dancing.
   It's the kind of scene that forces you to examine your expectations - your prejudices - your insecurities.  And they do it so well, so eloquently, that by the end you want to leap out of your seat and cheer them on (at least I did) because the process of watching that dance is healing.
   This gave me an idea.
   Queer as Folk just finally came on Netflix.  I put it on.  It was just playing on my phone, but Kody loves music.  I think he's attracted to all things classic.  "What's that music coming from Mom?" he asked like clockwork.
   "A show" I said.
   "Oh, a show.  Can I see?"
   Perfect.
   His eyes adjusted to the image.  Yup.  That was indeed two men - dancing - the Fox Trot.  I let the image settle into his mind.
   "They love each other."  I said.  "Isn't that sweet?"
   "Yes" he said.  He watched a little longer, and then eventually moved on to other things.
   But, that was a moment.  And there will be others.  I just have to cease every opportunity.
     We need more than the right questions though.  We need the right images.
     And we need them everywhere!

Tuesday, April 22, 2014

What's it all about?

   The last time I was at work, just before my last class of the last day before Spring Break, I got the call that set up today's court appointment for my adoption of Kody.  I was so tearful over the news that I blabbed to my one student present in that last very self-contained class during that beautiful weather of that glorious culmination of two straight months with zero breaks even for 2 "Nor'easterns", parent-teacher conferences, and another working Saint Patty's Day - (when will we stop persecuting the Irish???) - but after coming home and telling Kody about it, I just stopped caring.  I didn't really give it much more thought all vacation.  My kid made me realize this is like the paperwork part of a marriage ceremony.  The real important part is in saying "I do".  And, well, I already did.  For better or worse, I'd signed to at least be second in his life for a little while.
   So, this morning, in trying to get two kids dressed and ready in time after a week and a half of learning to sleep late (7a), a still-sick wife hacking up a lung every time I talk to her showered, medicated, and ready, and a grandma's notorious logic which mandates her to emerge late after being called early to walk in the opposite direction of the car for a half block just to discard the three tissues she used this morning in a plastic "Have a nice day" bag due to a commitment of immediate use of a dumpster, even though she knows you're in a rush and asked her to meet you at the street specifically in the interest of time saving.  The first time I even got a hand free to completely button my own shirt was after I'd stopped at the mailbox!
   All that was subconscious over zealousness though which I only realized after going out to put more money in the one-hour-limited-meter and finding "Meter expired" parking ticket next to my clearly displayed 15-more-minutes-time-allotted-parking-tag, after waiting 45 minutes in a room with a window, a few chairs and cold radiator/awesome balance beam that my kids weren't allowed near according to the child expert/security guard busily reading his newspaper.  (Apparently there may be something "pointy" my kid could get hurt on).
   Finally, we were allowed in to sign some papers that took 4 1/2 years to gather, 2 1/2 minutes to complete, and Kody is now "mine" - in all states.
   Walking briskly back to the car in fear of a random tow, I carried Kody in silence.  He'd chosen me to carry him today and I was the hug recipient of his affections all morning.  Lips pressed against his ear I had little to actually say.  I thought of how heavy he'd gotten since those first glorious moments I'd held him in life.  I thought of the night we made him.  I thought of the prayer circles we'd held to call him to us.  I thought of how incredible it felt to have his arms grasping me in this street and I thought of how happy and fulfilled he's made my life already.
   As soon as Amy and I were alone again in the car she said "So?  Feel any different?"
   "Nope."  Truth is, I don't.  I'm always this happy.
   Makes ya wonder, no?

Tuesday, April 15, 2014

So Many Questions

   I got caught up in the moment.
   It was the spontaneity of the whole thing.  Here we were, shuffling through Toys R Us - me with a Fozzy Bear muppet on my hand, when my son spots a Kermit-the-Frog doll from another isle.  He launches himself toward Kermit, Fozzy and I in tow, while I'm still trying to conjure up my best "Fozzy/Bert" laugh 'cause I'm out of rated G jokes to tell and I've already done the "Wonka Wonka..." thing way too many times.
   They saw each other... Their eyes met... Two different worlds... One from the aisle themed the "Street" and the other from a "Muppet Show" extravaganza, ...yet we knew these two belonged together.  Unable to think of any one thing to say to sum up the gravity of such a reunion, I guided Fozzy toward Kermit to do the most natural thing I could think of: I had Fozzy kiss Kermit hello.
   "Mom, Fozzy's not a girl!"
   Dumbstruck in a toy store by societal norms infiltrating my private oasis, a million thoughts reeled behind my eyes like a Vegas slot machine, but looking down at my innocent 4 year old, they somehow all stopped on 'What?  They're puppets!  It wasn't a French kiss!' - but I didn't even say that to him.
   Amazing though!  What are the odds?  - justifying my worldview to a kid who's grown up in a home headed by two mommies.  He learned to wave when he was 7 months old at Pride parade!  How is his conception of the Heterosexist Machine being constructed under my regime?  Where is the break in the ranks?  Heads must roll for this - but who's?  Surely there will be some moment of pause between now and his first gay bash!
   But it alerted me.  Something has changed in the past six months.  My boys pour through the giant electric "car" asles.  The 2 year old is slower, gingerly interacting with each vehicle from  red Mini Cooper to Barbie's Dream car.  The 4 year old muscles out the ones he's interested in.  The aisle  fills with Jeeps, police cars and fire trucks, dune buggies, and dark Corvettes.  He's racing them, crashing them, and checking under their hoods with some kind of blank authority.  We've had relatively new cars since he was born.  I don't think he's ever seen me check the fluids.
   When did he become so genderized?  Why isn't that a word on my iPhone's spell check?  Will life ever be free of such unpenetrable questions?  Your advice and comments would be most appreciated. I'm just too busy right now dumbfoundly shaking my head.
 

Sunday, April 13, 2014

'Doption Smoption

How do I explain the significance of an adoption day date to my 4 year old?  He's like "Yay!"  - picking up on my enthusiasm (which quite honesty comes from the additional news that this whole thing somehow turned out to be free!)  "What's 'doption'?"
   "Uh...m" I stumble.  "It means I'm definitely always gonna be your mom."
   I don't even know why I'm saying what I'm saying while I'm saying it.  He reacts as I should have expected: with a confused brow, a pause, a shrug and eventually a patronizing "Oh... Yay..."
   It's not his shirk.  It's just absurd.  It's amazing just how absurd it really is!  You can't fool a kid.  They haven't been corrupted yet.  He knows who his mom is.  He knows who his Ema is.  He knows his parents.  He knows he doesn't have a "father."  He does have a very nice uncle upstate who was kind and generous enough to help his lesbian niece and her wife have a baby biologically connected to both of them, but my son doesn't care nearly as much about exactly how that help occurred.  He doesn't ask questions or make strange assumptions.  He knows the truth.  His parents made him.  Where do babies come from?  Babies come from mommies.
   And I tell people and get these half/half kind of reactions.  My friends and fellow lesbian moms are all happy because they understand the length of time we have had to wait for this (4.3 years) and the amount of energy it took to get.  My straight "ostrich" family are flabbergasted that A - I haven't gotten it yet, or B - I even need it.  And some of those "B" people are actually angry.
   Our marriage wasn't legal when we started all this, and yet it's legal enough now to undo the necessity of this adoption - some places.  There are judges turning down these adoptions because the parents were married at the time of birth.  But there are 17 states where our marriage is legal, and 33 with specific laws meant to ban our specific marriages from being legal.  We have to file together now federally, but lose the tax break an adoption affords.
   I inseminated my wife, - I did.  Nobody else was in that room with us, yet I'm a part of a huge culture of "other" mothers - mothers who straddle both roles (mom aka "dad") but always do so deliberately, despite all obstacles both natural and human-made.
   There are no "accidents" here.
   These children were fought for, dreamed up; these children were researched, justified, expensive; these children were family goals lines before they were ever conceived.  These "moms" are amazing.  My son is right.  Shrug!  Shirk!!  Eye roll!!!   Give me my paperwork and my picture of my family "legitimized" and keep your scare quotes forever.  And know that I got it free despite all your efforts to break us!  Why?  It's so crazy it can only be 'cause of God.  You can't mess with God.  God is love not hate!  Love is family not legality.  Moms are moms!  Duh.  'Doption Smoption!  What eves.  Lol

Sunday, April 6, 2014

These Colors Don't Run

My favorite colors are: red, orange, yellow, green, blue, and purple, because these colors don't run. 

   Recently I was warmed off and berated for my "obnoxious" bumper magnets (the ones that out me, my wife, and my poor innocent children.)  This is my piece of that conversation that I delivered, but find my thoughts lingering on.  It was a "kind" berating, palatable mainly by means of deliverer: a 70+ year old lesbian neighbor.  Her and her partner have been together longer than my wife and I have been out of diapers.  And she gave my children a light-up Santa Claus last Christmas.

   I wouldn't have any of the joy in my life without that neighbor's experience and courage.  It's only due to the generations before that we are able to enjoy all the freedoms and pride that now fill our hearts and days.  Because of her we can announce our sexuality without having to shoulder the burden of it actually equaling a psychological diagnosis.  Because of her I can choose not to marry some poor unassuming man and squelch my life living and loving solely in secret.  Because of her, I can join in the fad of family represented stick figure stickers on the back of my minivan. 

   This woman is college-educated.  She's not harping on her constitution's "right" to bear assault weapons or advocating for some "God" to change my "evil" ways.  This woman knows love, is kind to strangers, and been out her whole life.  She tells me this in an effort to save me or my kids.  Maybe I don't know of all the hatred and violence and homophobia in this world?

   I try to explain that in 15 years, my wife and I have driven much more "obnoxious" cars, toured much farther than Bayside, Queens, and received countless glove compartments and armrests full of grateful letters and testaments to our "courage" and "tenacity." I find myself trying to share the elation over a Honey Maid Graham Cracker Commercial circulating Facebook demonstrating ten times as many fan letters than hate mail at their brave wholesome same-sex interracial family representations.  I try to remind her that violence gets sensationalized and Hate Crimes are severe for that reason.  I try to share my generation's metaphorical cross to understand these complexities and sport our family stick figure stickers deliberately, defiantly, and with pride, for we live in the world that we make.

   But even as I watch her justify her fears with obscure news stories coming from [cough] queer places where men are chopped up for smiling in some "wrong" way; I think of how I participate on advisory "boards" for LGBT sensitivities, and buy every perfect rainbow (and boycott every phobic almost rainbow... you know the ones who throw in an extra blue or green, pink or even omit purple just to make it not "gay"?)  ...and even with all the good intentions eliciting my "expertise," I'm told with a smile that a rainbow flag might "offend" some and "invite" backlash, and I tread lightly, hyper-aware of the fact that the idea of unsexing daily announcements may very well earn me the label of too "difficult," "hostile," and "antagonistic" to "please."  I walk a fine line every day of not revealing too much to the wrong person, or hiding too much and inadvertently teaching my children to participate in the creation of a world where their happiness must be diluted to make room for another's fears, insecurities, and, - more often that not - very similar but unknown inclinations.

   I think about these things and then I remember, this makes me proud.  This challenges my intellect.  This colors my life.  These colors don't run

  We don't run.  We're here.  We're queer, and we're sporting our stick family stickers!  And, we love you.  And we love us.  And that's my peace.

Monday, March 31, 2014

Absurd Conversations

Teaching teenagers as an out professional is a precarious path to tread.  For instance:

   "Who's the man in the relationship?"

   "Nobody Justin.  It's kind of our defining characteristic in your eyes."

   "Who's taller?"

   "She's a little taller."

   "Who cooks?"

   "We both do."

   "No, who really cooks?"

   "I do."  He looked quizzically.  "I'm Italian!"  I add.  (This he accepts.)

   "Who cleans?"

   "I straighten; she scrubs."

   "Who does the dishes?"

   "Me."

   "Who does the laundry?"

   "Her."

   "What does she do?"

   "Teach."

   He sighed.  "You drive a truck, or a car?"

   "Both."

   It's amazing how long, and far this kind of conversation can go on.  And for some reason, I find it pleases me.  I think it's because I know how absurd it is to want to categorize people in relationships.  But I've always felt that if dominance remains one sided, it's doomed.  My wife and I call dominance the "Butch Ball" and it's become something we've learned to pass to each other from time to time.  We're just like any good team, - a back and forth depending on a plethora of circumstances.  How do straight people not realize how perilous the dominant/submissive role play really is?

   But even this inquisition is better than my other cumbersome and yet more typical conversation I had with an angry teenager earlier in the week.  Being teachers, we often find we have to thwart the emotional daggers of early adolescents.  However, being an out teacher, those thwarts can sometimes make that get pretty personal.

   "No, I'm sorry Miss but I'm just being honest with you..." Kids are so inherently selfless, aren’t they?  When do I ever get to just “be honest” with them?  Lol

   That’s when I’m slammed with it.  "...Your kids are gonna turn out gay.  [Bad thing]  Kids do what their parents do.  Case in point: My parents smoke.  So what do I do?  Smoke.  It's not my fault."

   Quizzically, I retort without missing a beat: "Funny.  My parents were straight."  Bam!  Four words was all it took to render an actual teenager speechless.  I walk away head high leaving a gaggle of laughter and giggles in my wake.




Tuesday, March 18, 2014

Why Everyone Needs a Mother's Love

So I was recently told that someone in my family doesn't like me.  It really took me by surprise, not that it should have I guess.  Truth is, I can't think of anyone in my family whom I "like" 100%.  But there's nobody I don't like at all.  There are even people I love to fight with.  I try hard to be respectful.  I've been called out on that and learned from the experience.  Even if they're wrong, nobody deserves an unfair fight.

But every time someone in my family slams me I always find myself in the same exact terrified desolate place I was the moment my dad told me my mother was killed.  I know it's dramatic.  I know it's pathetic.  I also know it will never ever cease.  It's my wound.  It's the one I get so used to that I hate to even mention, but the one that screams with a life of it's own from any real nudge.  The pain of losing your mother after just basically getting to know and appreciate her - yet looong before having any opportunity to disagree or resent her in a stretch for independence.  I see her face vaguely.  I think back to how life felt before.  I feel her so much these days in me.  I am a mother.  The other day my son drew his moms for the first time.  Ema had her arms outstretched spanning the whole page.  My body was bigger :( but inside me, he drew a heart.

I am the world to my youngest.  I won't always be, I know.  What's new to me is how much they are mine.  That's the part I missed.  I don't remember her ever telling me that she loved me or was proud of me or anything like that.  I mean I know she did or was.  I remember crazy things, like a day her and my father fought and I was wondering if the man who owned the corner store would hire me to work for him, just in case I needed to support my mother.  (I couldn't have been 3 years old yet). 

Or the time I stole something from school and lied to her about how I got it.  The guilt was tremendous, but I never fessed up. 

I remember her singing, and reading me The Hobbit.  I remember crawling into bed with her at night if I got scared.  I know she loved me.  I just miss that love.

It's terrible here.  It's so awful to feel alone.  I mean I'm not.  I'm so lucky. It's just when family judges and dismisses you.  When they - who just aren't supposed to - leave ...and not because they were hurt -
I judge.  I know I do.  I'm guilty of the same deed.  But I don't dismiss.  I keep walls up only where they protect my children and only as strong as they need to be to do that.  The rest of me is fair game.  But life is so short.  I hope I learn not to judge anybody anything short of how great they really are.  My kids can do no wrong.  I hope I learn to see more people like that.

But my God how I miss my mother.

Saturday, March 8, 2014

Best Reason to Stop

Ahhh... Peacefulness.  You know the moment.  You step outside, you look up, you breathe... It could be one, two or all or of these things but the effect is amazing.  You stop.  As a mother of two young boys, wife, teacher, daughter, etc., I've learn to savor those random couple minutes a day that I get to just stop - that moment when my hands aren't full, that moment I "begrudgingly" volunteer to leave all the fun and go to the grocery.  I love the sound of my children's voices, and it's ironic that only the moment I hear quiet, I really realize that.  How beautiful life is?  How simply perfect knowing  that for all the stress and fatigue I get perfect love and gratitude.  I love these breaks almost as much as I love how happily and quickly I depart them.

Wednesday, February 19, 2014

Spanking

We just got interviewed by a couple of ladies from Columbia University doing a study on same sex couples using artificial insemination to get pregnant.  I can't say for sure but I think the questions were geared around how happy or prepared our kids will be for life, (especially one growing up in a same sex family).  Funny part was how the subject of spanking came up.

If you ask my son if he gets spanked, he'll tell you yes.  Then he'll giggle, turn his tush around toward you and probably embark on some sort of taunting butt wiggle. 

He doesn't know the word to mean what it really means.  We use it like a joke in this home.

My mother never spanked me.  She never needed to.  Not that I didn't screw up.  She just had a way of getting enough out of my way for me to see how I'd gone wrong.

But every other authority figure in my life did.  It was humiliating, infuriating, distancing.  It left me feeling lonely, abandoned, helpless, - Did I mention alone?  I never learned anything but who I couldn't trust.  Maybe what I couldn't do, but never why I couldn't do it.  To this day I blame them for every single spank. 

How's that for my being taught a lesson?  I never even really thought about it until now, but I feel zero responsibility for any infraction that ever lead to my getting hit.  Looking back, I can recant dozens of stories in vivid detail and the "adult" is always in a bad mood, embarrassed over their own insecurities, stupid, lying, selfish, or just plain positively pathetic.  

I'll never hit my kids.  I've yelled, and I've regretted it, but that's as far as I'll go.  And I'll probably lose it on anyone else who even yells at them.  And they screw up.  And they're not perfect.  And that's ok.  The boundless energy that goes into trying to control their environment, catch them being good, and exposing them as much as necessary to what they need to learn about the world, or about themselves, is worth it.  It's worth knowing they'll trust me.  Through me they'll trust the world first.  We all love to preach that we create our own reality.  And no matter what you believe, there's a ton of truth in that.  This is the best I can do to help them create a world they can trust.  I know people screw up, but to justify it?  How?  What reasoning leads anyone down a path that says hurt those you love the most?  

Tuesday, January 14, 2014

Too Much Knowledge

Is it possible to know too much?

   So I recently lived a chain of events that lead me to a place where I'm wondering if this is true.
 
   When we first succumbed to the reality that if I was to carry a child for this family, the other half would have to be "store-bought" so to speak, I was pretty devastated.  I mean it sounds good: you can pick and choose eye colors, hair and body types, skin tones...  For any who don't know, sperm - that illustrious ingredient us lesbians mostly spent high school hiding from - can now cost us a small bundle.  Mine ran me about $500 a ..."Pop" (pardon) but I was even considering one guy who wanted $2000!

   He had the "bells and whistles": green eyes (nice, unusual) CMV negative (a virus they test for so we don't first get it pregnant), open ID and a long resume leading up to a phD in Cancer research.  It's interesting to see the stuff that matters when things that usually do, just don't anymore. 

   I wound up deciding on a guy who checked off all our "boxes" but who's adult pic was not available.  (It was significantly cheaper, as it was a local NYC bank.  I could pick it up myself if I returned the tank after). I literally saw his profile just the night before I was picking up (I'd been searching profiles for years).  This guy was a perfect match for my wife in ethnicity.  He didn't have the green eye color I thought was cool, but he seemed good in math (which I am not).  I ordered his baby pic which was to be delivered the next morning, and told myself if it was half way decent, this was it. 

   The next morning I looked into this guy's eyes.  They actually reminded me of my wife's!  He had her skin tone too.  I just said "Ok".  It felt like the day I'd gone Skydiving.  Sometimes, you just gotta do it!

   Three years later now, and due to circumstances I'm shocked by, I know who he is.  I'm not going to say I didn't play a small part in the investigation, but of all the lesbian mommies I know who used donor sperm to conceive, of all the giant picnics and annual "family" get- togethers, and the picture montages designed to reveal the features of the unknown, nobody I knew had found the actual guy.

   But I have.  I'm not gonna publish all the details, but suffice to say my real motivation was just to see an adult picture.  The first bank we'd really considered offered them and it annoyed me since one guy I'd been set on turned out very different from his beautiful baby pic.  My donor is very good looking.  He seems sweet and he's very smart.  If I knew him personally I'd be proud as I've glimpsed some of his projects and accomplishments and I can relate to his motivations.  And, well he helped me make an awesome kid!

   Niky still looks mostly like me but it's funny that the ears are what I matched instantly (after some other factors seriously narrowed down the possible suspects), but it's nice the way things work out.
   Except now, I have another problem.  I'm a very open person and anyone who really knows me knows how close that is to a religion for me.  I now know this guy's name, phone number, work address, etc.  (It's absolutely shocking what you can find on the Internet even if you're just browsing for it!)  The question is: What do I tell Niky?  And when?

   I seem to have plummeted myself into a real ethical dilemma.  I mean Niky's probably gonna ask.  Do I admit to the knowledge?  Is that fair to the kid?  - To our relationship?  What if I wait until Niky's 18 (as per the open ID bank agreement) and this guy dies or something first?  Will Niky forgive me?

   And what about the guy?  He didn't sign up for a real kid or, more specifically, that kid's childhood.  I know he knows kids might be "out there" of his (he may even know how many) but is it fair to expose him to this knowledge?  Would he feel scared or angry or even maybe too happy by this news?  I mean we never signed up for a "Daddy."

   It's interesting, and I have time.  It's just funny how a little knowledge, could maybe be a little too much.