Two More Mamas

Baby hiatus

2006-11-18T10:03:00.000-05:00

It's been a while since we posted here. Mostly, the issue has been that we're currently on baby hiatus. It's funny--here we are, with virtually everything that is external set for being able to start the next step of this baby journey, and we've stopped.

People who love us, and even who know at least some of what's going on in our lives right now, keep letting us know that they are eager and excited for us to have a baby. It's not so much pressure as gentle encouragement. Even though they know the issues, they think we're ready to get going. We're not so sure.

The main issue is our health. Whimsy has been coping with what is probably a hereditary case of degenerative disc disease. The quick way of describing this is her back causes debilitating pain to her entire body. I have fibromyalgia, and have recently realized that not only do both of my older sisters also have it, and my niece, but also probably my mother has it. So I admit to many moments of wondering: Is it really responsible to bring a child into this world when the odds are that one or the other of us will be passing on some kind of painful disorder? (We don't even need to go into the things like depression, weight issues, bad teeth, asthma, alcoholism, and so forth that our families deal with, and which might well be genetic also.)

On top of that, I've been dealing with a whole mess of mental health issues of my own. On the positive side, since my issues are pretty definitely derived from having survived childhood abuse, I know we're not going to be passing them along to any kids we have. But on the negative side...

I've really had to face the fact that children, just being children, can be quite triggering for me. And also the fact that I'm not entirely in control of my responses. More than that, I've been confronting the fact that I have dissociative identity disorder (aka multiple personalities).

I think neither Whimsy nor I is sure about how this impacts our decisions about parenting. And it's scary, because there just don't seem to be any role models out there to show us that you can be a good parent and also multiple.

A lot of the hiatus is that we want to be the best parents we possibly can. Part of me says that there is no way to prepare for every contingency, and eventually, you just have to make that leap of faith. But other parts are concerned that we're jumping off without thinking about the consequences.

And we see so many people who seem to have become parents without thinking about doing the best job they can. Our neighbors shriek at their children almost constantly. They don't seem to pay attention to them. They do seem to hit them. There are so many bad parents out there, and we don't want to go into parenting unless we can do at least a pretty good job.

In a lot of ways, I'm wistful, and tempted to just say, "Heck with it, who cares, damn the torpedoes, full speed ahead, how much can go wrong?" But other parts of me are terrified of the changes. In the end, we're waiting for now. And I keep hoping that the wait isn't going to go on too long.

New York Supreme Court Says Gay Parents Have More Stable Relationships

2006-07-07T11:03:00.000-04:00

Also Supports Incest, Polygamy, Arranged Marriages, and Forced Procreation

The New York Supreme Court argued yesterday that, as marriage is solely to provide stability to couples raising children, neither marriage nor the 316 benefits associated with marriage need to be extended to homosexual couples. Why? Because, as homosexuals cannot get pregnant by "accident or impulse," but only via adoption, artificial insemination, or "other technological marvels," they are more likely to be stable than those heterosexuals, who can get pregnant on a whim. So, essentially, they're saying that only people who get pregnant without thinking about it or planning for it should be allowed to get married. No one who is infertile, who is choosing not to have children, or who is responsible about their method of birth control should be allowed to be married either, because they don't need any incentives to stay together or to think about what they're doing.

The NY Supreme Court added that marriage law should allow only aspects of marriage that "was an accepted truth for almost everyone who ever lived, in any society in which marriage existed...." Advocates of polygamy, forced marriages, arranged marriage, and incest rejoiced at this decision, because it supports their contention that, due to the longstanding historical preference for these forms of marriage, and because it has only been in recent decades that marriage has been a matter of free choice between two equals, they should be able to practice their preferred forms of matrimony.

Feh. I would have written something intelligent or pointed or thought out, but why bother? As W. says, they're all a bunch of, um, edited version is "lackwits." But I'm glad to see that the main reason I'm not allowed to legally marry her is that our relationship in general, and our future as parents in specific, has been deemed by our state's Supreme Court to be more inherently stable than heterosexual partnerships. I should also note that the Supreme Court has apparently also determined that, if you have children, you should no longer be allowed to get a divorce, for whatever reasons. And that people have the right to divorce their partners on grounds of infertility. But I wonder: are they going to be okay with men getting their wives' maidservants pregnant if they would rather not divorce their wife, but still need an heir? And how about if the wife persists in having girls, when the men want someone to carry on their name?

Hello out there in mommy blog land!

2006-07-05T23:22:00.000-04:00

Anybody interested in another chat time?

OR NYC wannabemoms and moms get together for coffee?

School's out and I'm socially deprived. I just wanna talk babies!

-Whimsy

J and W

2006-06-24T15:04:00.000-04:00

J and W
Originally uploaded by quiteabroad.

My rainbow contribution is our wedding. I'd like to keep most of the pictures private so please go to flickr to see the rest!

Biological Clocks

2006-05-29T06:46:00.000-04:00

Or, "Why Having Two Women in the Relationship Complicates Matters"

We spent this past weekend at my 10 year college reunion, and I swear, it felt like at least half of the members of my class had either had a baby in the past year, or were currently pregnant. Naturally, this intensified my baby lust. I looked at all of those tiny babies, and pregnant classmates and tried to remind myself that my time is coming soon. (PKD seems to be giving out very good signs. Cross fingers!)

So, on the way home, W. brought up the topic of spacing between children. Originally, she'd been advocating for a five-year gap, because she and her sister are five years apart, and that worked well for her. I had suggested a closer gap because my family was spaced a little closer together, except for between my older sister and me (6 1/2 years) and the closer-aged siblings seemed to bond more. Plus, if each of us goes, we've got these (fertility-wise) rapidly aging bodies to consider.

W. spent much of the ride home trying to convince me that it would be a good idea for us to get pregnant really close together. No more of this five-year gap for her. I think, if she had her way and we both got pregnant on the first try, she'd be happy to have, oh, a 6-month gap between kids.

I finally realized something (we were driving home from outside of Philadelphia, and I realized this going over the Goethals Bridge into Staten Island--this is a measure of how slow I am on the uptake!). W. was looking at all of those pregnant women and babies, too. She is also the same age as these women. She was feeling the exact same tug inside her, that urgent, supremely physical desire to have a baby INSIDE OF HER, nursing at her breasts, being directly and immediately from her body.

Much of the time, I forget that physical side of things, and the desire for a baby is about the baby, and about beginning the next phase of our family life. But then, at moments like this weekend, I realize how intensely physical my desire for a baby is. I don't just want to have a baby, I want to have a baby, go through the physical changes, carry that little being inside of me. And W. gets the same impulse because, oh yeah, she's also a woman.

So we've been wondering. There are lots of good reasons for all kinds of spacing between babies. From what I've seen, most people seem to think that what they chose or experienced is the best. (Well, except that my mother doesn't advocate having quite so many children as she did, nor as quickly as she had the last five.) Given ideal fertility situations, and no other complications, what would you say is the best spacing between children?

War of the Sexes

2006-05-24T21:39:00.000-04:00

Tonight, the kids next door devised a new game. I'm not quite sure what it is, but it seemed to involve dividing by gender and trying to out-shout each other.

So I cleared the table to the sounds of kids shouting "Who needs girls?!" and "Who needs stinky boys?!"

I think the girls were winning, or at least were managing to be louder.

Decidedly NOT kosher

2006-05-23T19:50:00.000-04:00

I'm sitting here, waiting for the potatoes to cook so that I can transform them into smashed potatoes. We're having 3/4 of a dinner from my childhood: pork chops, smashed potatoes, and broccoli (when I was a kid, the meal also included fried apples, but W. is not fond of cooked fruit, and I'm mildly allergic to apples lately, so I decided to skip that part).

Sometimes, I do things that are just plain wrong, if one considers combinations of things that really should *not* go together to be wrong. This was one of those evenings.

Anyhow, I was glancing at our "pantry" (aka, open wire shelving along the kitchen wall), looking for something to coat the pork chops with. What should catch my eye but the cannister of matzo meal left over from Passover. Now, this is not what we used to bread pork chops when I was growing up, but it seemed handy--a bit like bread crumbs, and not likely to be used for many other purposes. And so I dumped some into the plastic bag, and the pork chops are cooking as I speak.

I think I notice these things more because the rules of Judaism are completely out of my formative experience. I mean, Southern Baptists have a lot of rules, sure, but they're vague and unstated. Plus, you can eat pretty much anything you like (especially if you like "salads" that consist of things like lime jello, pineapple, cottage cheese, and mayonnaise. Don't knock it until you've tried it, I say.) And as an adult, my religion has been paganism, which explicitly limits its rules to "do as you will, harming none." So a religion that prefers you not to eat pork or shellfish still seems a bit awkward. And when you get into the permutations that come up as people practice more relaxed versions... well, for a backslid Baptist girl like me, things get a little strange.

I Think They're Saying Lesbians Smell Funny

2006-05-16T08:41:00.000-04:00

I'm reading the New York Times science section, and came across this article, titled Link Is Cited Between Smell and Sexuality. It basically says that straight men and lesbians process pheromone-related smells in similar ways, as do gay men and straight women.

The thing is, though, that while gay men process smells in pretty much the same way as straight women, lesbians don't respond to the smells exactly the way that straight men do. They conclude that "This observation could favor the view that male and female homosexuality are different."

Yeah, I could have told you that without doing the fancy study or anything.

But hey, they did mention lesbians, right there in the article, just as if we existed!

Birds Do It

2006-05-15T07:46:00.000-04:00

Yesterday, while W. and I were having lunch on our porch, I noticed two pigeons engaging in that thing birds and bees are supposed to be so good at doing. I pointed them out to W., and told her the story of how I discovered that pigeons engage in foreplay. I had been in a park, and noticed two pigeons who appeared to be french kissing. When they moved on to having sex, I knew I had made a delightful natural history-type discovery.

Several hours later, when we were having dinner, I noticed our copy of Don't Let the Pigeon Stay Up Late, by Mo Willems, on our dining table, and burst out laughing. W. asked what I was laughing about, and I explained the juxtaposition in my brain.

We decided it's time for a grown-up parody of these delightful books (or else, for a parody that would be very useful in sex ed classes!)--

Don't Let the Pigeon Get It On.

If you're unfamiliar with the "Don't Let the Pigeon..." books, the concept is simple. At the beginning of the book, you're asked to keep the pigeon from doing something (we've also got Don't Let the Pigeon Drive the Bus). The rest of the book consists of the pigeon trying to convince you to let it do whatever it's not supposed to do, and the unwritten text requires the listener to tell the pigeon "No!" Simple, and with the drawings, remarkably funny.

We figured there are plenty of stock lines that people use to try to get into one's pants, and we could combine those with copies of pages from the original books (because, in the context of "gettin' it on," phrases like "What's five minutes in the grand scheme of things?" "Your mom would let me!" and "I'll give you five bucks!" become really funny).

Handily enough, Hyperion has a link to instructions for drawing the pigeon on the webpage for Don't Let the Pigeon Drive the Bus, so even with my limited drawing skills, I might be able to pull off making my very own illustrations.

Stay tuned for further updates.

J. needs...

2006-05-12T18:41:00.000-04:00

Stolen from Dykes on the Ark... Basically, you put your name into Google, followed by the word "needs," and then you see what it comes up with.

Here are my favorites (I used my real name on google, which makes it all the more amusing to me):

"J. needs our positive thoughts and prayers." Boy, do I!

"Now J. needs to learn to let go." Many people have told me this.

"J. needs an adoptive family who will love her unconditionally." J. adds that it wouldn't hurt if they were wealthy. (This one actually showed up several times on the first search page. Hmmm. I must especially need this!)

But... "First there's a call from the adoption agency where J. needs to prove that she is not gay in order to adopt her baby." Well, hmmm. Something about my name and adoption today....

And here's someone who must have done the same game:

"J. needs to learn to let go. J. needs an ass whoopin'. J. needs a bad boy not a saint. J. needs another mocha."

Google seems to know me very well. I do need another mocha. So I guess I need to go buy some milk, and if I'm going to buy milk, I could go buy some ice cream. J. needs a cure for PMS...

Photo Friday: Travel Photos!

2006-05-12T17:36:00.000-04:00

We have tons of travel photos, because (for me) half the fun of travelling is taking pictures. But rest assured--if you come visit us, I won't make you look at every single one of the hundreds of pictures we take each vacation. Just a few of them!

So here are some pictures from our trip to Florida and back two years ago.

Here's W. looking at a rocket at Kennedy Space Center. Boy, are those things huge. Unless, of course, you're contemplating leaving the earth's atmosphere while encased in one. Then they're awfully tiny.

Me, looking just like a real grown-up, driving a car and everything (I learned to drive when I was 24, and nearly eight years later, it still hasn't quite sunk in that I am a driver.

I believe those are rockets in the background.

"Get yer booty in the kitchen,
and fry me up some pooork chops and eggs,
like they dooo at Waffle House."
(That's for W. She knows why.)

We took a picture of these neat-o planters while we were in St. Augustine. We figured it was cheaper and more convenient than buying one, and much easier to store a photo than the actual object.

I think this picture would turn into a really cool jigsaw puzzle.

W. might have more travel photos to post, but these are my choice of the moment.

Dinner Collective

2006-05-11T21:37:00.000-04:00

Two posts in one day? Yup, dividing by topic.

Back in the day--for those who know me, when I lived in Portland--I was in a vegan dinner collective.

The dinner collective part was at my suggestion, and the vegan part was because one of the members was vegan, and most of the rest were vegetarian, so it wasn't too hard to work it out.

Anyhow, I got the idea from Everyday Acts and Small Subversions, by Anndee Hochman. This book referred to a couple of dinner collectives where the people ate together every (week)night. This seemed difficult to arrange, so I did a variation.

We started off with elaborate organization. We had detailed lists of people's food allergies, their food dislikes, and their foods they really loved to eat every single day. There was a spreadsheet. We decorated the original leftover containers with Sharpies and glitter paint. We wrote down the recipe for every meal we made. This eventually deteriorated, as we discovered that just knowing each other was sufficient guide in cooking. Plus, we had a rule that you couldn't be offended if people traded meals.*

Over the weekend, each of us would cook a meal with sufficient food to feed everyone in the group. Then we'd meet, share a meal, and exchange the leftover containers. For the work of making one meal, we'd get five meals for the week. It was wonderful!

As time went by, we had about seven members in the group, which allowed us to mix things up a little. One person cooked just the meal we were sharing, one person made a dessert for that meal, and the rest made meals for later in the week.

We ranged from people who had never cooked much more than Top Ramen to people who had been paid cooks. We were gourmet, homestyle, whatever struck our fancy. Sometimes, the meals were sublime. Sometimes, they were edible. But we all really enjoyed the variety, and since we mostly lived alone, we also liked the reduced temptation to skip meals, or to eat at restaurants.

I've wanted to start a dinner collective again, but somehow, I haven't managed to get one off the ground. I'm hoping that I can convince some of my local friends to give it a shot. If nothing else, it could provide all of us with good lunches!

*Oh, and about those leftover containers. We were subversive. We were communalistic. We figured that buying a couple of sets of cheap containers meant that it didn't really matter which ones you went home with, so we just packed meals in the containers in our own kitchens.

Getting ready

2006-05-11T21:30:00.000-04:00

I tell myself that the main thing we're focusing on right now is getting ourselves ready for when we have that baby. So I've been trying to train myself to keep the house cleaner (no, really, there's a purpose to this: I think the only way to convince a kid to do housework is if they've experienced a routinely clean house in their formative years. I'm talking washed dishes, not dusted cabinets here.). And we've been working on getting into generally better physical shape (um, for me, by eating twice a day, and for both of us, by taking walks).

And I've been doing a lot of imagining of what our lives will be like with a baby. It's been surprisingly happy rumination, considering my occasional fears about what having a baby will mean. It's been pleasant.

And then, cross your fingers, there's a very positive potential for getting to move ahead with a known donor. Just early discussions and ponderings, but it would be sooooo cooooool if it were to work out. {{Jest knocks wood here, because it's too darned hard to type with crossed fingers!}}

Why Gay Marriage is Threatening

2006-04-24T19:33:00.000-04:00

I've been doing a lot of housework lately, which gives me time to mull over the articles I read in the New York Times or Family Circle or whatever magazine I happen to have read recently. And so I've been noticing a lot of talk about how wives and husbands are still struggling over housework.

I've also read all of those articles talking about how incredibly threatening gay marriage is. So I look around our apartment, and I think about our life together, and I wonder what, exactly, is so scary about W.'s and my "lifestyle". I mean, we get up stupid early so she can go to work in the morning. We have lots of books and tchotchkes, we spend our free time doing crafts or jigsaw puzzles or reading books or watching TV. The main thing I've noticed that is different about the partnered lesbian lifestyle is that we don't seem to own a house (many of our straight-couple-friends do) and we don't go out very often (many of our single friends go out at least once a week, sometimes even on weeknights). Nothing at all frightening in our lifestyle (unless you count the abundance of dust bunnies, but those aren't too threatening until you realize how quickly they multiply and their potential for taking over the planet).

But somehow, when I'm juggling soapy wine glasses, things get juxtaposed in my head. And it came to me. The thing that is so threatening about homosexual marriage is that it demonstrates in no uncertain terms that the difference people assume is between the sexes is simply the difference in personality between any two people.

And so homosexual couples have to actually examine their roles, discuss them, process about them (or is this only the lesbians?).... We can't assume that there's a set role, we can't feel "liberated" if the other partner takes over one of our gendered tasks. We have to cope with the simple reality that, as an article my professor gave to my senior thesis class in college (admittedly, a women's college, and an all-female class, but still...) said: "It's a dirty job, but everybody's got to do it."

So it's not our dust bunnies, or our early to bed and early to rise. It's not even the likelihood that we're going to spend a wild evening playing Jargon or Sniglets. It's that we actually have to think about housework in a non-gendered way. Or so these soapy wine glasses are telling me.

What we had for dinner

2006-04-22T22:17:00.000-04:00

Tonight's dinner was a team effort. Jest made the challah, Whimsy made the trout, and our friend N. Snarky O'Brown (not her real name) grew many of the ingredients for the salad she made.

Three trout, pan-fried, stuffed with garlic, ginger, and fennel; and garnished with lemon slices. They were cooked to perfection. We made it through the whole meal without any serious choking on bones, too!

A salad with generic dark leafy lettuce and red pepper from the produce store, along with goat cheese and toasted pine nuts from our fridge. N. Snarky contributed home-grown lemon balm, a bit of sorrel, and the lovely pansies that made it so delightful a spring salad.

And here we are, candles lit, wine poured and sipped, challah broken and tasted, blessings said, ready to begin our meal! Shabbat Shalom!

shadow

2006-04-16T14:17:00.000-04:00

shadow
Originally uploaded by quiteabroad.

This is for Photo Phriday!

The fact is that I take pictures of my shadow all the time. I have pictures of my shadow all over the world.

2006-04-16T12:51:00.000-04:00

OK. I am going to try something new.

Tonight and tomorrow at 7 pm (Easter Daylight time, get it? get it? It started as a typo but I liked it)

I am going to get online. I am going to turn on AIM and go to Babycenter.com's "lobby" area (unless I can build a room). Anyone who would like to chat real time please contact me. If AIM is easier, I will just make a chat room there, if everyone has AIM or can go to AIM EXPRESS (a feature where you don't have to download the software to use AIM).

I'd love to hear how your holidays or nonholiday weekends are going! I do so much better in real time. Jest is good with the posting- not me. I sit here and go, uhhhh what do I write?

Looking forward to chatting with anyone who's around,

-Whimsy

EDIT- Hooray! There's two of us there! At least until my battery dies.

Not that anyone will read this, but...

2006-04-14T14:03:00.000-04:00

What is the photo friday topic this week? And how does one find out in time to blog?

Friday photo

2006-03-31T22:56:00.000-05:00

challah-n-cupcakes
Originally uploaded by J-e-s-t.

Okay, no real post to go with this. But I thought I'd post a shot of today's baking madness: I made challah (for shabbos--here you see the post-dinner remainders, aka weekend snacks) and cupcakes in honor of W's and my wedding anniversary this weekend. There were far too many for what I intended, so the extras are, you guessed it, also snacks!

Oh...

2006-03-18T12:48:00.000-05:00

I haven't read the New York Times magazine yet but it promises to be all about Sperm Banks.

It mentions a manhattan sperm bank- anybody know anything about it?

I don't think this counts as an update... A downdate?

2006-03-16T22:05:00.000-05:00

Just wanted to let you folks know that we're still around- things have been a little complicated around here and baby planning is taking a back seat for a while. Don't give up on us, we're reading and crossing our fingers and getting excited and sad and amused and involved with all of you.

Many hugs and much lurking,

Whimsy and Jest

OK, I have a better idea.

2006-03-04T11:38:00.000-05:00

Please email me your email addresses and I will be able to set up a time more effectively, since some people can post and some can't, etc etc...

Also if any New York area people are interested in getting together for coffee (or grapefruit/green tea cocktails) we should do that!

quiteabroad at verizon dot net or IM me (Astoriaunt)

Social Time Is Good!

2006-02-23T14:38:00.000-05:00

How's tonight at 7? I can name any number of good websites with chat features, doesn't really matter where to me.

I'm feeling lonely and think this could be a good thing.

IM me at Astoriaunt or email me at quiteabroad at verizon dot net.

-Whimsy

twohands

2006-02-17T18:55:00.000-05:00

twohands
Originally uploaded by J-e-s-t.

Here are my two hands, in honor of Friday photos, or whatever it's called. I am demonstrating ambidexterity, because I took a picture of each hand, then spliced the pictures. Not quite sure why the lighting is so different, probably to do with the camera angles.

Donors

2006-02-16T20:06:00.000-05:00

Okay, so PKD didn't work out. It's kind of like a break-up, except the one time I actually broke up with someone, she was much more willing to communicate in a reasonable way about things (rather than acting defensive and pushy and like I'm a total ass for anything I say).

In some ways, this is really sad. PKD is friendly. More importantly, he has EXCELLENT teeth and he's pretty tall. However, these by themselves are not reasons to get into a long-term relationship with someone, and having an involved donor is having a long-term relationship. And since PKD couldn't see why we were reluctant to have him thinking of the hypothetical future children as "his," and couldn't understand that, to us, yes, words are important... well, it wasn't meant to be.

So here's the thing: the only reason we were looking at PKD, rather than one of our friends, is that I had wanted a black donor. I am biracial. Growing up with my siblings (technically all half siblings), I was the only person of color. In some ways, whether because of other family dynamics, or race, or whatever, it was kind of lonely. I wanted to spare our future children that loneliness.

But our future children, I think, will have issues of their very own. All the work we do to make them comfortable racially, or make them look as much like the two of us mixed together as we can... well, they'll find their own reasons to be alienated or lonely or however they want to feel. Heavens, they might even choose to "rebel" by being healthy and well-adjusted. It might happen.

And so I was thinking about what it means to seek out a donor based on race. Especially if we don't want the donor to be an active parent. Then this means that I will be bringing children of color into the world, knowing that I've had a lot of trouble finding my place as a person of color in the world. My connection to my "blackness," whatever that means, is largely intellectual. My family is white. I was raised in a very white community. By the time I got to college, I identified as biracial as much as I identified as black. And the particular community I encountered wasn't thrilled with someone who identified as biracial, so I tended not to be involved in black student activities.

What that ends up meaning is this: my ability to "bond" with other people of color has come from elements of my white family. My family was poor, and was pretty well into Christian fundamentalism. Not to essentialize race and class, but the combination of those two things gave me some common ground with students of color. There was something I could talk about, something similar in our experiences.

So when it comes down to it, I really know nothing about being black in this culture, aside from the ways that being poor and white are similar. Well, that, and racism.

Neither of these are a good legacy for teaching my children what it means to be people of color. And while I've grown to love the skin I'm in, and the body I inhabit, does that mean we should choose a donor based solely, or primarily, on race?

It's a weird thing, this choosing someone not because of a relationship we've already got, but simply because of what they look like, or what their genes are likely to create. And I'm starting to think that choosing someone we already know and love would be a much better way to go about this.

The Sad News

2006-02-16T12:28:00.000-05:00

We have officially broken up with our PKD.

It wasn't working out. We just found ourselves communicating so vastly differently. In the end he got defensive and jerky, which only confirmed the choice we had made.

J will post more later.

-Whimsy

Chat room

2006-02-02T20:01:00.000-05:00

So when is good for everybody else? I'd like 7 or 8ish on a weeknight, but I'm flexible.

I bet we can start our own room. Let's use Babycenter.om.

I suggest Thursdays at 8 and whoever's around that thursday can go there.

If I had a Million dollars...

2006-02-02T19:55:00.000-05:00

Oh my goodness.

www.wrybaby.com had me in stitches. I want every last item. Well, maybe not the I heart my two dads shirt.

The picture of the DO /DON'T nursing picture involving a turkey leg might just be my favorite, but so many are almosts. Check it out!

EGO BOOST!!!!!

2006-01-28T21:33:00.000-05:00

A good friend of mine, mind you, with a MASTER'S DEGREE in Public Health, just CALLED ME ME ME ME ME and did I mention ME

to ask me a question about her baby bc she was worried and not sure she was able to make good judgement. (It was a baby with fever thing... I looked up info on Web MD and gave her opinions as well)

I just feel so big headed that she called ME of all people to ask. Go, Me.

2006-01-28T20:48:00.000-05:00

OK, met PKD this weekend. Will process and get back to you all.

Charlotte- can you send us that 20 page questionaire? J doesn't want it but I do.

PS Anybody getting crazy with all the blog hopping? I am amazed and impressed at the numbers of dyke mamas out there! I say it's time to take this community to the next level. Does anybody else want to set up a chat room on one of the parenting websites? Maybe once a month? (I'd be willing to do it more often but I'm lame.)

There's something about chatting real time that makes this so much more real for me. We live in vastly different places so future play groups and such aren't exactly an option... *sigh*

We're all reading the same blogs- it's really such a small world experience.

Silliness to Distract Myself

2006-01-27T11:23:00.000-05:00

Not sure if this will work, since it's not showing up in the preview, but here goes.

I followed the link to this from Two Moms Are Better Than One, and it looked like fun. So I plugged in Whimsy's name, to see what I could see. Here are some very important facts about my esteemed partner:

Ten Top Trivia Tips about Whimsy!

In Japan it is considered rude to talk with Whimsy in your mouth!
It's bad luck for a flag to touch Whimsy.
Whimsy was first discovered by Alexander the Great in India, and introduced to Europe on his return.
Whimsy can eat up to four kilograms of insects in a single night!
Whimsy can sleep with one eye open.
Ostriches stick their heads in Whimsy not to hide but to look for water!
Long ago, the people of Nicaragua believed that if they threw Whimsy into a volcano it would stop erupting.
68 percent of all UFO sightings are by Whimsy.
If a snake is born with two heads, the heads will fight over who gets Whimsy.
Whimsy never said 'Play it again, Sam'.

I'm not sure which one I like the best, but I have to say: If Whimsy can eat up to four kilograms of insects in one night, then she'd better get on the stick and clear out some of the mosquitoes that keep biting me at night!

OK, Folks! Time For Audience Participation!!!

2006-01-24T21:58:00.000-05:00

Searching the internet for samples of donor questionaires, we found a grand total of ONE. Jest seems to think many of the questions are gratuitous (i.e. which hand do you write with), I have the idea of making a picture scrapbook all about Mr. Dude ( I don't have a cute name for him yet like DtD or The Sperminator) for my kids. I want to be able to answer when we get random questions like, "mommy, is Mr. Dude left handed or right?

They're going to know about him from the start, so they might as well be able to ask questions.

Anyway, my point is that if for no other reason than conversation starters, we ask EVERYTHING. So here's where the home viewers come in.

Please cut and paste if you have a particular questionnaire you like. We have the one from www.gayfamilyoptions.org so you don't have to show us that one.

I know I am using one and two 'n's interchangeably. So what.

If you don't have a particular questionaire you like, think of a question that sparked good discussion with your donor, or something you never thought of asking and you wished later that you had.

Like... "Did you ever have to wear orthotic shoes?"

I just made that up on the spot. Whimsy indeed.

Further Proof That I Am Not Fit To Parent

2006-01-24T17:41:00.000-05:00

I was surfing blogs, and someone pointed me to Falafel Sex. I read this post and laughed until there were tears in my eyes. W. was across the table from me, and I read it to her aloud. She also laughed quite a bit. I commented, "What makes it really funny is that it's the sort of thing we might do."

Her response? She pointed out that it's exactly the kind of thing we do do. Except, as I pointed out, I generally at least get the food into the refrigerator, where it can languish in despair somewhere behind the cream and the eggs.

The Problem With a Baby Is That...

2006-01-23T19:40:00.000-05:00

So, just to get it out of the way, I'm writing my first post.

You know, it's kinda inconvenient that I didn't just get pregnant in my early 20s, when I was jonesing for a baby, and I didn't know any better. Of course, there was that small problem of my failure to be attracted to men, so I'm not sure how I would have pulled it off.

But back then, I thought, "Oh, parenting, nothing to it."

Then I graduated from college, spent some time working at a domestic violence shelter, and began to think, "Well, there are some challenges, but I can probably handle them."

Then I went to grad school and discovered the joys of the single lifestyle (these consist in large part of reading the paper uninterrupted in the mornings, buying playmobils, and getting to watch only the television shows I'm interested in seeing. Oh, wait, there was also the chance to play the Sims.)

And then, oh heavens, I got a partner and took on my developmentally delayed teenaged brother. There is nothing, I tell you, NOTHING that is a better pregnancy prevention tactic than having to deal with a moody teenager when you are not, yourself, a moody teenager.

And I realized that "parenting" consists not only of those cute baby years, and the charming toddler years, and the Candy Land years and the learning to put on makeup years. It consists of the years when the kid is the size of an adult, with the libido of an adult, and the reasoning skills of a toddler.

And I realized that "parenting" is committing the rest of my whole darned life, because those kids aren't going to stop making me worry once they're eighteen. They're also unlikely to stop wanting me to bail them out of tough situations, or explain the world to them. But they ARE going to stop believing that I know everything (this belief seems to disintegrate somewhere around 3rd grade). And they ARE going to stop doing only what I say. And then they will get Metro Cards and credit cards and who knows what other kinds of cards...

Yeah, so it all would have been easier if I had just had that baby back when I was 22 and foolish.