I didn’t get to say all the quirky things for which I am thankful because by the time it was my turn at the table, well, I was last and everybody was looking at me with a get-it-over-with-quickly kind of glare.  So now I’ll get to take my sweet time.

In addition to my family and my health for which I am always thankful, I am thankful for:

• The fact that not only do I have a great partner, but that she can cook.  I mean, she can COOK.  And she has more common sense than I lack.  And she is a perfect match for me in playing games.  We never know who is going to win.
• My garage spot
• Good n’ Plenty  (and the fact that few other people seem to like them, so I usually get them all to myself)
• Trucker has my eyes
• I get to see my children in pajamas every day
• The folks who go overseas to defend our country or to clean up the messes we make and also their parents.  I don’t know how they do it.
• The people who invented padded bras without underwires
• My walk to work
• My crafty and artsy friends, as well as my lawyer-y friends who help keep a healthy balance (and are also a bit crafty and artsy in their free minutes)
• My principals, my colleagues, and my fits-like-the-perfect-pair-of-shoes third grade class
• My beat-up old car
• My daycare.  Yes, I complain about them a lot.  But they love my kids.  And they are wonderful people.  We are lucky to have them so close.
• Bananas–the perfect child food
• Amy’s organic frozen foods
• That my mom and my honey’s mom are so present in my sons’ lives
• Mary Janes
• Facebook.  There.  I said it.
• My midwives.  I wish they moonlighted as family doctors.
• Yous guys.  For giving me a little extra attention, even when I have nothing real to say.
• Last, I’m thankful that Thanksgiving is over.  If you plan to host Thanksgiving, try to work it out to happen NOT when your toddler is teething.  Just take my word on that.  Enough said.

I hope you all had a happy day with you and yours.

Love,

ohm

PS Edited to add — I forgot cakewrecks.  For giving me at least a little laugh every single day.

My maternal grandmother was Irish.  Her husband was a Lithuanian Jew.  My mom has a funny story about slamming the door in the rabbi’s face so he wouldn’t see their Christmas tree.

So it goes in Judiasm, due to the unfortunate violent nature of the history of the diaspora of my chosen peeps, the religion is passed down via the mother.  Because one knows for sure who one’s mother is.   So my mother was not technically Jewish, because of her Irish mother.

When I was in high school, my family went through a pretty rough divorce from my step-father.  My mom lost over 80 pounds, I feel, just from being sad.  She looked fabulous, but I really wished to have the happy, chubby mother back.  She started going to conversion classes at a temple that didn’t actually have a temple.  It met in a hotel conference room.  The rabbi was a young, funny man named Rabbi Breskin.  He was so funny.  Wait, I’m jumping ahead.  So my mom kept asking me if I would go to a class with her.  I didn’t really want anything to do with all that religion phooey.  But she was sad.  She was asking.  So I went.  Really, I would have done anything to make her happier.  I do love that mom of mine.

Rabbi Breskin was hilarious.  Once, a woman who had been taping the class asked him to wait a second, while she flipped over the tape.  After she pushed record, he said, “… and that (dramatic pause) was the meaning of life.”  Anyway, Rabbi Breskin said that for Jews, religion was like a conversation with god.  A conversation?  With god?  I do that all the time.  He said that Jews are encouraged to question things.  Questioning religion was what Judiasm was all about.  Questioning things?  My teen-aged self was all over that.  So I kept going.  And, though I’d grown up attending seders here and there and calling myself “half Jewish,” I converted.  I will say, that I did not swear in front of god on the windy summer night when we had our little ceremony on a stage in a park, that I would raise my children to be Jewish.  I lip-synched that part.  Perhaps some small part of me knew I’d hook up with an African American ex-pentacostal woman one day.  Maybe I sensed that the bi-racial part and the gay part of our relationship would eclipse altogether any attempt at figuring out how we’d deal with religion with our kids.  Which it has.  Which leads me to raising my kids as I was raised.  No formal religious schooling.  Lots of Christmas and the occasional seder and visit to a temple.

Seedlings turn overnight to suuuun floooowers….. die die die dee dee daah daah daaaaaah.  Tradition!

I am so sorry to bore you like this.  I guess if one is going to blog every day, one ought to think about it for a while before that month happens, so one might have an arsenal of interesting tidbits on which one’s readers can thoughtfully chew.

Me?  I have a clogged pipe.  That’s the big news of the day.  The sink is clogged and it is backing in to the dishwasher.  All of this the week before Thanksgiving, which we will host.

So.  Any advice?  I’m going to call the super and ask if he’ll snake the sink, but I’m a little worried about why the dishwasher isn’t draining.

Also, do any of you have a fabulous and novel recipe for a side dish for turkey day?  My honey asked her facebook friends and they came up with nothing.  I’m sure you guys have something delicious and inspiring in your recipe boxes. Share, please. 

Having two kids makes a person a different kind of parent.

Namely, I can no longer hover over my one child and marvel in his every move.  I can’t stand under him to catch him if he falls head-first from the bar from which he’s hanging upside-down.  If I do, I won’t be able to catch the baby, who has managed, at 15 months, to climb half-way up the playground structure ladder.

I decided recently to take the boys straight to the playground, weather permitting, as soon as I pick them up from daycare.  Bringing them home was bumming me out, because too much tv was involved.  Cake had so much energy after being cooped up in his daycare “class” all day, that he was running back and forth in our living room as though it were a racetrack.  So I thought I’d let off some energy, avoid the boob tube, and possibly give my honey some alone time when she got home from work by taking them to a place where they are supposed to run around in circles and climb things.

It has been fun.  I’m glad I made the decision.  It has also made me look long and hard at myself as a parent.  I really need to be with Trucker in the playground.  I’m used to being with Cakie, though.  Lord knows, they don’t stay together.  So I’ve had to let go of Cake a little.  I’ve become that mother of a “big kid” about whom the mothers of little singletons are thinking and possibly saying under their breaths, “Where is his mother?”  I’m right here, on the other side of the playground trying to stop the one-year-old from jumping off of the concrete water fountain, thank you very much.

Mind you, Cake is a good kid.  He loves babies and is generally careful around them and loving to them.  He’s also a little dare-devil.  And he’s pretty athletic.  So I’ve had to look seriously at the risks in my playground (there are very few).  I have to just let him play and stop hovering.  Trucker needs me to hover, not Cake.

Then the other part of me hears that evil kidnapper guy who imprisoned that girl in California in his back yard for all those years.  Apparently he said to a woman who was trying to print out a child-safety flier at his copy shop, “All you have to do is grab just one [child.]“  That just makes me into a crazy person.  Our playground has only one exit, so it would be hard for someone to take him without me seeing.  Regardless, in the playground I do a little dance between fierce protective mama and “Where is his mother?” mama.

The truth is, I think I am a little over-protective.  And I think Cake is partly glad that I have to watch Trucker instead of him.  He likes to be free of me for a while.  Having Mommy stand right there while you try to be Wolverine and a pirate simultaneously can seriously cramp a four-year-old’s style.

What kind of mothablogger am I?

I never blog about the kids.

Trucker is 15 months old.  I thought that for a whole month, then I realized that he had only been 14 months old.  Now he really is 15 months.  I’m tired.

He has done some cute stuff lately.

I’ve mentioned before that he hasn’t picked up any baby signs yet, because he’s always looking at Cakie and never at me.  But he recently made up his own version of “eat.”  And today I came home from an emergency run to the store for milk (we really ought to invest in a cow) and my honey had taught him the sign for “more.”  Mind you, I’ve been trying to teach him this for, oh, nine months or so.  Now if he wants to, he can sign “more eat!”  Which will be so much better than his current “word” for that sentence –  AAAAAAAAAAEEEEEEEuuuuhhh. I hope he’ll pick up some other signs.  It was so helpful with Cakie when he was a wee one.

I also mentioned in a previous post how he has taken to slapping me in the chest when he wants to nurse.  He has modified it to simply tapping me lightly on the chest.  Thanks, sweet boy.  It is pretty cute.

On Saturday mornings, we walk to the park for Cakie’s soccer practice.  It is at a time when many people are walking their dogs.  Trucker loves dogs.  He has a word for dog that he says every time he sees one.  The word sounds nothing like “dog” or “woof” or anything, really related to dogs.  I realized yesterday, though, that his word for dog does sound like the French word for dog.  So maybe he now knows a little ASL and a little French.

Have I mentioned my purchase of the matching toggle coats?  My honey was annoyed.  She thinks it is silly.  She thinks they look like they are ready to go to Hogwarts.  I don’t care!  Cuteness rules!

I feel like this post is boring.  Maybe that’s why I don’t blog so much about momming so many of the stories about my boys just feel like maybe they are only interesting to me.  But maybe you’ll find it more pleasurable than reading about my girly bits.

No, I’m not pregnant (though I am experiencing several annoying pregnancy symptoms.)

I’m just sick of the morning.  5:23 am, to be exact.

Sometimes it is 4ish.  Once it was 3.

Trucker is a big fan of the sunrise.  He hasn’t missed one in what feels like a year.  And he’s just creeping up on 15 months old.

Sooooo.  Wait.  Have I neglected to blog about my new downstairs neighbors, Startle and Smokey? OMG.  I have not.  Well, our much beloved and quite deaf previous downstairs neighbor unfortunately passed away many months ago.  We loved her.  LOVED her.  May she rest in peace.  I contacted several friends with small kids and had them calling the management company asking about the apartment.  Who did they rent it to?  Who?  Smokey and Startle: a 30-something childless couple who somehow manage to smoke heavily enough that our entire apartment smells — especially our bedroom, not to mention the entire hallway of the fifth floor.  A couple who decided to not use the master bedroom with an attached bath as their bedroom, but have rather chosen the room under the bedroom of my two loud sons.  And they like to sleep in on the weekends.  This couple is in constant fear for their health, despite the offensive smoking habit.  Their health, it seems hinges on not being startled.  By noise.  Like, oh, the sound of a hulking one-year-old throwing his sippy cup to the floor.  Or moving furniture.  Or pulling the shopping cart down upon himself.  We are loud.  I would not like to live downstairs from myself, it is true. But I’m ready to take up tap dancing, I’m so over these people.  We’ve been breaking our backs trying to keep the noise down to a dull roar.  If Startle comes up here again (she has come up three times,) I’ve decided to tell her that her coming up does not make it quieter, it only makes me feel bad.  And to tell her that if she comes up again for noise, I won’t try to keep them quiet any more.    Then maybe she’ll appreciate the fact that my kids pretty much never play in their own room any more, and most of my energy is spent trying to get Trucker to at least throw things onto the carpet, not the slim strip of bare floor (coop rule of 80% floor coverage, check) where he prefers to throw things.

[breathe, ohm, breathe]

So, anyway, out of sheer good-neighborliness and coop rules, I can’t even put Trucker down on the floor until 6.  He’s loud.  And if he gets near something to throw or climb or topple, he will do it.  He’s a Truck. So if he gets up at five, it is a lot of heavy lifting. Or, I’ve found that the only way to not carry him that early is to lay on the couch, lay him on my belly, and turn on NY1.  I’m not proud.  But if I don’t he’ll sliver off of me and start eating the plants or climbing onto the dining room table or some such Trucker stunt.

My point, and I do have one, is HEEEELLLP!  Do any of you wise women have any advice for getting the Truck to sleep longer?  We’ve pushed his bed time back about 30 minutes.  What else?  Anything?  Anything?

Thanks in advance,

oneofhismoms

Too many birthdays.

Not enough sleep.

Sad/happy/tired/sad/happy.

My kitty passed away on Friday.  He had acute Leukemia.  Bugger all.  Then I hosted the best Superman party in the history of the land (or at least in the history of my apartment.)  And today, Trucker figured out how to climb stuff.  And not the stuff he was already climbing (shopping carts, step stools)  now he knows how to climb furniture.  So, we basically can’t even turn our backs for three seconds.  And he’s strong.  He can lift his entire body off the floor by holding the table top.  He’s like some jock.

I’m sad about Domingo.  Mostly, I’m just realizing how many times I think of him in a day.  Little things like, unconciously bracing myself to feel litter (that is no longer there) on the bathroom floor, to bigger things like telling my honey’s mom’s husband that the cat is no longer here when they arrived from South Carolina.  I realize how many people loved him.  A whole lot of people loved this cat who never left our house.  I’m coping ok. It is just weird to not have him here.

And I’m tired.  I slept three hours the night before Cake’s birthday party.  Mostly because we put the cat down in the afternoon, then we were too sad to function until it was too late.  We had to do all the party prep after bedtime.  Then that night we went out to celebrate my own birthday (which happened last month, but it was the only time I could get my close friends all in the same room.)  It was so yummy and wonderful to be with my friends and eat good food and drink good drinks.  I think I may have actually swooned.  And I was tired.

So that was rambling.

Just wanted to let you know what’s up over here.  And I wasn’t even organized enough to give you a bulleted list.

XXOo

Oneofhismoms is on vacation.

A short one, yes.  But it is the first time my little family has gone somewhere alone and stayed in a hotel instead of with family or friends.

So here we are in Rehoboth Beach, Delaware.  How very lovely.  I had heard it was gay friendly.  This morning, when Trucker got up at six am, I hauled it down to the Starbucks we’d seen when we arrived late last night for some caffeine.  Every single person who walked in was lesbian.  Except the one dude.  Of course now that I’ve been here for the day, I know there are plenty of straight families about.  It is a really interesting place.  I spent a summer living in Provincetown after college and I have to say, I kind of like it here a little more.  In P-town it was so very gay that the straight tourists tended to get a little uptight.  Which I don’t care about either way, but it was sort of a look-at-my-rainbow-flag-and-nipple-piercings-I’m-gay-gay-gay-damnit kind of scene.  Perhaps it has changed since then.  Also, when I lived there all of the lesbians pretty much had the same very short haircut.  I did not.  So if I dared to wear a skirt, I’d get hit on by every straight guy within a mile radius.  That said, I did love my time there.  But this place is different.  Mind you, I haven’t even been here for 24 hours yet, but it seems almost seamless.  Everybody just seems to be co-existing.  And having a good time.

It is nice for families, too.  The sidewalks, at least where we are, are very stroller-friendly.  The boardwalk is not up any steps.  It is even with the sidewalk and the beach.  So it just seems very easy.  The beach is not too deep (as in, not to long of a walk from the boardwalk to the sea.)  So it is fairly easy to haul all of our gear to the water’s edge for sandcastle fun.

I’ve been hoping to find a gay-friendly and family-friendly vacation place for a while.  And though this place does not have as much character as I used to crave before I had kids, it makes up for it in ease of … just ease I suppose.

Now one thing I forgot about when I planned this whole hotel bonanza is the fact that the kids go to sleep at seven and eight pm.  Wooo!  Partaaaay.  So I’m glad we have a room with a balcony.  At least I can watch the party from here.  And when I say watch the party I mean watch the party.  The biggest, loudest boy party night spot is less than 200 feet from this balcony and my sleeping boys.  Next time I’ll look for the word “quiet” in the hotel description.  For now, I’ve invested six bucks in some heavy-duty earplugs.

A kind reader wrote me a note asking why I didn’t write about Brooklyn Pride.  I was there with my family and my extended gay parent family, it is true.

I guess I didn’t write about it for a good reason: Pride is fun, but no longer the highlight of my year.  What I mean is, I am lucky enough to live in a place where hanging out with the gaybies and their folks is not an unusual event.

Recently, as we were planning our summer vacation trip, we had the idea of going to Family Week in Provincetown.  It seemed fun, though a little hectic.  Upon thinking of it more, I realized that we don’t really need to go to it.  Our motive would be to have a nice vacation around a bunch of other gay families.  We are always around a bunch of other gay families.  So why drive eight hours and pay a grand?  Well, maybe when the boys are old enough to understand it, it might be worth the effort.

I remember when Chicory of the late great blog An Accident of Hope posted pictures from the Utah Pride family tent, which she helped organize.  It looked like a theme park.  There were so many people and so much to do.  Our tent was on such a smaller scale.  We had some yummy food and an arts and crafts table.  Cake made a monster puppet and taped a third eyeball on himself and called himself an “Eyeclops.” We had frisbees.  It was great.  It was enough.  We played on the grass while gay friends from different arenas showed up.  The familyo was there.  My lovely readers/friends from way uptown surprised me by stopping by with Trucker’s sassy little girlfriend in tow.  A bunch of families from that crazy lesbian mom gathering I’d hosted in February showed up.  There were also some gay dads there, one of whom claimed that his partner was Angelina Jolie’s stylist — upon googling when I got home, I found that her stylist is a woman, so maybe he was her stylist’s assistant or something. We had a great time.

I guess my point is, I’m happy I live here.  I’m happy that blowing bubbles in the park with other gay parents is not just a once-a-year event.  I’m really grateful for the folks who set up our little family tent and taped an extra eyeball on my kid;  for the drag queens who were performing for about five people on the stage a few hundred feet away; and for the kid-less dykes who played air guitar with Cakie.  I’m grateful and proud.

I just spent a good ten minutes looking at someone-I-don’t-know’s wedding pictures on Facebook.  My brother was in some of them, so that’s how I could see them.  I was fascinated because the photography was so good.  He made each shot look like a movie set by that director who did that Steve Zizou movie.  And everyone looked hip.  And he made the cheesy place where they had the wedding look very chic.  Which made me think how sad I am that I couldn’t fly this guy out from California to shoot my wedding.  And how even sadder I am that my friend, Joannie, who I had always assumed would take the pictures at my wedding, has passed away.

All of that mindless wondering lead me to this thought: why am I planning my wedding?  I probably won’t get to have one.

My honey only wants to get married if we can do it legally in New York.  Because why get married in every state, and possibly have our rights taken away anyway like our friends in California?  My state has gone loco en la cabeza, with a coup and whatnot.  The Empire State Pride Agenda — or at least Tom Duane –  appears to be sleeping with the enemy.  And what is my real goal here?  I want rights like any married straight couple.  But those rights wouldn’t be equal even if I could get legally married in New York because it wouldn’t count everywhere.  Because of DOMA,  it wouldn’t count on our federal taxes.   Because of DOMA, we still couldn’t receive each others’ social security benefits.  If we visit A’s mother in South Carolina, we’d be suddenly unmarried.  It almost seems like getting married would make me more, rather than less frustrated.  Speaking of taxes, there is actually a hefty benefit to being an unwed mother.  There are two of us here in this house.

So why do I want to get married?  I really want nice towels and a big party in which I get to feed my closest friends good food.  I want to buy a really nice dress and tell everyone how much I love my honey.  I want a honeymoon.  Yes, I want rights.  But not a bone tossed from the table of civil marriage.  I want the whole beast.  If I can’t have it, I can have all that comes after (with additional lawyer fees, which by-the-way, because of DOMA I’d still have to pay)  kids, a house, a happy life together, babies on beaches with fists full of sand, dinners at the table together, bills, cupcakes, covering our ears for the fireworks.  That I can have.  I do have.

Until DOMA is overturned, I don’t know why I’m bothering to fight or fret.  Until DOMA is overturned, it is all pretend… pretend-ish.  I don’t want to void or belittle anyone’s vows.  I’m just saying.  I don’t buy the bull.  But I do want the towels.