Moving from TTC – Expecting:

• …two wives and a boarder marker…
• Amy and Melissa
• baby toes
• baby.fatty
• Hatchling
• L’Dor Va Dor- From Generation to Generation
• My Pen Ran Out
• puffer and the baby fish
• Reproducing Genius

Moving from TTC – Babies (sorry about that, ladies & congrats! ETA: Sorry that we, um completely missed your entire pregnancy, not sorry that you have a baby now)

• A New Family
• Aspiring Baker
• Baby Beans (two moms! two babies!)
• Baby Colored Glasses
• Cutest Little Baby in Town
• Desperately Seeking Baby Now TTC #2!
• Family Values
• Follow My Baby Journey
• IndyNess
• Journey Towards Our Baby
• love+love=marriage
• Notes from 2 Moms
• Our Incredible True Adventures
• PBX Makes Four
• soulbliss
• two older hippos wanting a baby hippo

Moved from Expecting to Babies (Hooray!)

• 1 In Vermillion
• BabyBoom 2 Futuras Mamis Lesbianas.
• Dos Mamas
• Enough Grows
• First Time Second Time
• For the Long Haul
• It’s Taking a Village
• Luca Has 2 Mommies
• The Chronicles of Conception
• Wannabe Earth Mamas
• We Are Fambly

This was the first time I have been at Pride with my kid, and it was so different. Different from going as a non-parent, different from my expectations…

When we were TTC and then waiting for P’ito to come home, I watched the families with kids with pride and a hefty side dish of envy. I wanted what they had and I wanted it NOW. I had this vision of us all walking along, holding hands as a family, with the local lgbt families group… and instead it felt a little bit like herding cats.   At the same time, I was free to browse in the information tents, snag all the swag I wanted, chat with friends, yell raunchy comments at the ladies, watch all the groups go by and cheer…

My parents were there with us – which was awesome – I have the most supportive family ever – but I was hot and cranky because P’ito was sleepy and cranky and because I kept feeling like I was losing people along the way. Tons of half-finished conversations because where did they go? Are we losing the group and falling in with the loud bar group behind us?

But when I finally pulled him out of the stroller and sat him on my shoulders, it was perfect. He waved and smiled and held his sign, and I managed to relax a bit and enjoy myself.  I like our small(er) city pride – a managable parade without hours of smiling politicians and liquor floats – but lots of people both gay and straight out on the streets cheering us on.  Add in a beautiful sunny day, and you’re there.

So:

What does Pride mean to you?  What are your personal Pride traditions and memories?  Do you dream of marching with your kid someday?

And how do you explain all the fabulousness of drag queens and leathermen and PTA presidents to your kids, if you’ve got kids old enough to say “’cause why, mama?” I didn’t have to do much explaining this year, but I’m puzzling over how to explain to P’ito what exactly it is that we’re celebrating.  How do you explain Pride to a preschooler without getting too deep into the ugliness of homophobia?

And don’t forget to add your family pride photos to the LesbianFamily.org flickr group…

On a totally different note – please welcome to the ranks of LF.org:

TTC:

Figboiler

Non-Bio:

Butchmama

Young Kids:

Lavender Tales

Speaking of sperm (what a segue!), Sfrajett has a great post about buying sperm, contemplating parenthood, and figuring out definitions of family. It’s been up for a while, but I just read it and found it very thought-provoking. Good luck to you & GF as you venture down this wild and wacky path to parenthood, Sfrajett!

On to my rant of the day.

Smashing, bashing, and crashing… “the 3 important stages of boyhood?”

That’s what Tonka says in a multi-page ad in Parents. “From the way they talk to the way they play, boys are just built different! And Tonka (of course) has the blueprint for the fun they love. The TONKA [no product placement here, thank you] grows with your child so he can sort, walk, and ride to his heart’s content.”

Because girls don’t sort, walk, or ride? Let alone smash, bash or crash?

“Boys don’t just like to be active, they need to be.”

I am the mom to one very very active little boy. One little boy who seems to be determined to conform to every stereotype – whose head whips around when he sees a truck go by, who has never met a ball or a wheeled object he doesn’t like – but that doesn’t mean that the little girls I know don’t need to be active too.

“Enjoy all the wild, wonderful moments and remember, you’re part of a very special group of women – you’re the mom of a BOY!” Gag.

Playing to these stereotypes may sell toys – though not to me – but it also hurts kids. It hurts little girls who want to run and make noise. And it hurts little boys who don’t.

Shame on you, Tonka.

Note that I’m not even mentioning that aside from one possibly-Asian looking kid, there are absolutely NO children boys of color in the whole 8.5 page spread? Oh wait, I guess I did just mention that.

If you’re not on here and you should be, please comment, and I’ll update: 

Arrivals:

The Muriels welcomed Charlotte Kathleen on September 26. Congratulations!

On the Way:

Thwarted Repeatedly got her wife pregnant!

Infertile Pediatrician is pregnant… and so is her partner… with twins!

There are more twins on the way at RaJen Creation.

Mommies in the making are in the making for real now!

Mommy Too is to be a mommy.

And the dos in dos mamas is expecting!

I updated the TTC category, so if you asked to have your blog on there, you should be. Sometime maybe I’ll get to the other categories…

Most people correctly read Pepito as adopted – he looks nothing like me – nothing even like what might come of me and a latino sperm donor.   And while lots of straight folks have adopted kids, the obvious lack of resemblance does tend to reduce people’s attempts to assign responsibility for noses and eyebrows: I don’t hear a lot of “oh, so does his dad have jet black hair and chubby cheeks?”  And I have the dubious luxury of passing – that is to say - my personal appearence doesn’t trip off most straight people’s gaydar.

Lots of things run through my mind, this man is missing most of his teeth, as is his wife.  There is a big flag in their front window.  I am not sure that same-sex adoptive families are a part of their regular scheduled programming.  [Until we moved to our previous city, my experience of other gay and lesbian folk was pretty limited to people from the same middle-class, education is everything, socioeconomic bracket as my family.  I still tend to (incorrectly?) correlate higher socioeconomic status with higher likeliness to accept queers.] He is my neighbor, give or take a dozen houses.  I am carrying a very heavy child who may start screaming again, complete with huge fat heart breaking tears, at any moment.

I give a non-committal grunt, say nothing, and move on.

Disturbing Encounter #2: I have the boy nestled in the ergo, trying to convince him that naps are not for other babies.  I am trying to put up a clothesline in our back yard.  An older Caribbean man is working in our next door neighbors’ (very welcoming) yard.  He asks if I need help with the clothesline.  I politely decline.  He asks about the baby.  Ten months, blah blah blah.  He says: daddy oughta be puttin’ that line up for you.  Why can’t his daddy do that?  He doesn’t have a daddy.  He has two mommies.  Boy needs a daddy.  He’s got lots of uncles, and two moms who love him.  Hmmmp.  A boy needs a daddy.  He continues talking to me, explaining that my son needs a daddy until I excuse myself to put the boy down for a nap.  I leave feeling angry that I have, essentially, been driven out of my yard because I don’t want to continue this conversation and because I don’t want to fumble my way through putting up the clothesline in front of him.

I don’t know exactly why I share these encounters.  I wonder about my own assumptions about class and race and religion.  Why do I casually mention my partner and P’ito’s two mommy status freely to the white tatooed cashier at the supermarket checkout but not to the African-American woman on the bus who admires his yummy cheeks and brown eyes and asks me if he’s spanish? 

I think of the security guard at my old job, who proudly told me about her niece’s wedding, and how she flummoxed my expectations.  Incidents like these make me wonder – how do I protect my son and yet not give in to my own prejudices?  And yet, how can I be a good parent to a child of color if I don’t confront my own assumptions?

Except that one of the things on that list is ArtSweet’s first rule of baby: the minute you have time to even start to line up two words to make a sentence, someone – baby, cat, or partner – will need your attention immediately. I will put that post up eventually, hopefully within the scope of the first month and not the first year. But what’s on my mind tonight is a little more serious.

I’m sitting at the keyboard, nursing a pint of ice cream and a glass of white wine because the thought of hot food is revolting after an hour and a half of going up and down and over this shoulder and over that shoulder with a very hot and sticky baby who Did Not Want to Sleep even though he was very very tired.

I stuck it out, even when my arms ached, and I wanted to just put the baby down and let him cry until he cried himself hoarse or preferably to sleep. I was tempted to just call out on the baby monitor: “mama to mommy, come in mommy, please send back-up,” but I didn’t. I wanted to prove that I could do it, that I really was real mom material, since when I came home from work today, Pepito just glanced at me, turned back to Pili and launched his 100 megawatt five and a half tooth smile straight at her. Jealousy with a chaser of self-doubt. What am I doing wrong? Does he know I’m not legally his mom yet? Why doesn’t he love me the way he did yesterday? Mind you, the sharing of the baby has gotten easier since the high-pressure days of our trips to visit him: as Pili says, I think we’re both realizing there’s more than enough baby to go around.

But sometimes I still feel like we get stuck in power struggles over what we think the baby wants. He’s hot. He wants the fan. He’s constipated, that’s why he can’t sleep. Have you given him a bottle yet? Of course, I’ve given him a bottle. He threw it on the couch, spilling nasty smelling formula everywhere*, arched his back and started howling. Would you like to try?

And that’s when I wish we had roles to play. That we were a mom and dad, old-school-like. Where mother knows what’s right for baby and dad bumblingly follows along. I’d even take the dad role, if I could be happy or comfortable in it. But we’re a team with two leaders and no followers. And a very hot sticky baby who is finally, finally asleep. For now.

And let me forestall any “adam and eve, not adam and steve” bullshit. Having two moms who adore him? Who crash into each other like a pair of outfielders with their eyes on the ball to get to him when he cries? That’s just all good for this most of the time very happy baby.

*There’s no need for mechanical bulls or “breast is best” lectures – I’m convinced that making pregnant women smell a bottle of formula would triple breast feeding rates in this country. Especially a half-drunk, didn’t have time to dump it down the drain before I left for work, so it’s been fermenting in the hot kitchen all day bottle of formula.

I have been trawling the lesbian internets for you all and am discovering all sorts of new blogs and blogs with exciting news to share. So check these folks out, and tell them that LF sent you!

And if you don’t want your blog listed or feel that you’re in the wrong category, please let us know!

New in TTC

Andre Xavier Mommies and Sister

Baby Blueprint

Back in the Game

Heretical Hedonism

Highway TTC

Indyness

It’s Taking a Village

Just Keep Swimming

Makin’ Babies

RaJen Creation

Rhonda n’ Dre’s Journey

Journey to Baby Franklin

Starting This Life

We Wanna Baby

Weeble Wobble

We are Fambly

Moving From TTC to Expecting (yippee!)
A New Family

Family O

And New to LF and the Expecting category are…

As the Pig Flies

Chipping Away

Diary of a Baby Wantin’ Woman

3 Dogs, 2 Moms, 1 Baby

Homestead Mom (Also has a little one!)

Immaculate Conception

Infertile Pediatrican

Uterus X2 (One is pregnant and one is TTC. I am in awe of you ladies.)

From Expecting to Babies!

Babycakes is in labor! Almost there Welcome Finn!
Two Girls in Love

Maverick Mama

Panning for Gold

Queer in the Head

New to the Babies and Kids categories (yes, getting lazy here)

Barb’s Blog

3 Kids, 4 Dogs, and 1 Cat Later

Mama and Mommy

Mom and Nana

Mommy, Mama and Cubs

Dodging Boogers

Twins and a Toddler

Two Busy Lesbian Moms

And Finally…
As we all know, there’s nothing easy about the process of becoming the mom. Unfortunately soulbliss learned that firsthand – she had a miscarriage and is back on the TTC train. Please go and give her some internet love.

• Are you in a committed relationship?
• Are you planning to adopt for the first time?
• If so, we need your and your partner’s help!

The Transition to Adoptive Parenthood Project (TAPP) is aimed at exploring the transition to adoptive parenthood in same-sex parents. We are asking you to help us understand your experiences as you prepare to become, and then become, parents.

Your participation is very much needed and appreciated. Couples who participate in this project will be interviewed individually either in person or by phone during the pre-adoption period, and then again three months after adoption. As a token of appreciation, you will be paid for your participation in this project.

Please contact Dr. Abbie Goldberg for more information about the project, via phone at 508-793-7289, or by email, agoldberg@clarku.edu

Please read about this study & Dr. Goldberg’s other research on her website: http://www.clarku.edu/faculty/goldberg/index.html Call us today – your participation makes a difference!

In an ultimately futile attempt to distract myself from my most recent bout of adoption anxiety, I decided to go out and purchase the last few items we needed to bring with us on our upcoming visit trip.  My baby clothes rules are relatively simple – or so I thought.

1. Cannot cost more than the average weekly income in my son’s country of origin what I would spend on a t-shirt here. Sadly those amounts are equivalent. 
2. Cannot be emblazoned with advertising slogans – my kid is not a billboard for 0ld Navy or Baby G*p.
3. No branded characters (I’m sure I’ll flex on this one once he’s old enough to start asking for them, but for now, them’s the rules)
4. No extreme gender stereotypical imagery or language: “Future chick magnet?” “Football Star”? Monster trucks?

Ideals, which tend to be thrown out of the water by rule #1:

5. I’d like to know that a child or a grossly exploited worker didn’t make the clothes for my child.
6. It would be nice if said clothes were made from organic materials & natural fibers (ha!) & in an environmentally sensitive way.

I went to Marsha11s, 0ld Navy, T*rget, K-M*rt and the Sa1vation Army.  And it was surprisingly hard to find clothes that even satisfied the first four rules. Bright colors are nice. Why is everything blue, pink, pastel yellow, or mint green? Why must all the nice red shirts have monster trucks on them? Why is our animal vocabulary limited to puppies (marketed at boy children), dinosaurs (ditto), ducks (girl children), kittens (ditto), and giraffes (the most neutral I’ve seen)?

Higher-end baby stores seem to have less grossly gendered clothing, which makes me wonder whether there’s a relationship between social class and the desire for gender-neutral clothing.  Even so, my cousin, who works for a kid’s clothing line I can’t afford to buy from even at her wholesale discount, tells me that retailers tell her that they regularly get returns – “I’m sorry, but my husband didn’t want his son in this!”  Is there truly less demand among discount/big-box store shoppers for non-gendered clothing, or does the selection and set-up in these stores condition consumers to expect to buy gendered clothing? Is the physical layout of the store into the girl-infant section and boy-infant section consumer-driven or retailer-assumption driven?

Why is it so frightening for parents when the cashier in the supermarket can’t tell if your two month old is a boy or a girl? Is it the end of the world if someone says your son is beautiful, rather than handsome?  And yet, here’s what I wound up buying.

  Look at the cute little tiger feet!

  Make yourself at home, why doncha, kitty?

 Inoffensive stripes.

These two came as a set. I didn’t notice the writing on the second one until I got home.  It doesn’t make sense to me: leave the word “king” off and you’ve got a cute sleeper that could be worn by anyone.  Put “king” on there, and you reduce your potential market by 50%.  Or at least 25%, assuming that there are people who won’t buy blue for their girls even if it’s otherwise neutral. 

Nonetheless, my purchases are certainly dominated by the color blue, aren’t they? (Gives weak, sheepish grin.)  Believe me, though, when I say this is the best of a very sorry lot.

As part of a two-mom family, I think I’m a little less comfortable bending gender rules and dressing my son in pink than I might be if people weren’t likely to read that as using my child to push the infamous “homosexual agenda.”  I’m also more cautious for this upcoming visit trip – from what I’ve seen in pictures so far, gender-normative clothes are the rule here, and I’m less likely to push limits abroad than I am at home.   

How do you all handle the clothing conundrum?

This has been the subject of some recent heated discussion in the art-sweet/pili household and after trying to organize my thoughts on the issue into a coherent post far too many times, I’ve decided to wimp out throw the question out to our vast and extensive LesbianFamily audience and seek your wisdom.

I’ve also added some new links… go check out this week’s new (to me) blogs:

Amy and Melissa’s Baby Blog (TTC)

Bebe’s Cache (Expecting)

Other Motherhood (babies/nonbio)

Roll Playing with Kids (little kids)