Alrighty then! The update that most of you have been waiting for, so long you stopped waiting! So huge, it had to be divided into two parts! Part the 2nd to follow in a few more days, after I plow through the second half of backlogged listings requests.

Since June of last year, comment moderation here at LesbianFamily.org has more or less gone into the deep freeze. For partial explanation, you may refer to the most recent post I did, Boo! At least that goes a ways toward trying to explain my own LesFam lethargy. That plus ye olde Parenting, which is a fairly time-consuming activity. The other LesFam administrators have been juggling new kids in their families, and/or work, and/or any of the other life issues that so often rear their heads.

This batch of folks have been waiting since October last year and before (!). Some are cross-listed, as you’ll notice. The next post will include folks who’ve waited to be listed since around mid-October (!).

Among the TTC folk, we have:

• Married and Ready to Make Babies
• Two Moms To Be…
• 2 Girls 2 Dogs 2 Cats…
• eeney meeney miney mommy
• ISO: Baby

We also have a crop of Expecting blogs:

• Luca Has 2 Mommies
• in the wilderness
• existere (latin): to stand out, to emerge.
• BabyBoom 2 Futuras Mamis Lesbianas.

Several new Babies! blogs:

• Luca Has 2 Mommies
• Mommy J’s Wild Ride

And Kids, both Little and Big:

• Emerging Butterfly
• A mom’s struggle with identity
• Luca Has 2 Mommies
• Come What May
• A mom’s struggle with identity

Among the various pages listing families by type, we have new listings in:

Familia Lesbiana

• BabyBoom 2 Futuras Mamis Lesbianas.

Families of Color

• Seriously Involved

Foster

• Sweetest of Things
• Wishinghopingpraying’s weblog

Interracial Families

• Come What May

Multiples

• Come What May

And Single Parenting

• Sweetest of Things

You’ll notice that we’ve added a few categories under which you can list or cross-list your blogs. In the “Parenting by type” section, we’ve added “Single parenting” and “Families of color.” The site sprang up in August 2006, thanks to Liza taking the initiative and creating the resource she knew lesbian parents needed to find one anothers’ blogs online. But the parsing and sorting of the blogs has always (a) been voluntary, on the part of folks’ requesting listings, and (b) intended to evolve as you readers suggest more useful ways to look for and find one another.

The “Single parenting” comes from several new blogs by women single parenting, either by choice or by — whatever it is when it’s not choice. I added the “Families of color” category since, after multiple sessions wading deep into the site’s categories and cross-listings, it dawned on me that, duh: we have “Global” and “Interracial” families, but no place for women of color either single parenting or parenting with another woman of color to cross list. (!!) So (a) you may kick my ignorant, slow-on-the-uptake white arse, riiiiiight here. And (b) you may help spread the word among friends who might make good use of the listing.

Now! If enough of you (how many? who knows: ‘spose we’ll know when we hear back) have objections to “of color,” and propose an alternative that works better, great! I’m a white gal whose coming of age as a thinking anti-racist person happened in California in the 1980s, essentially. For us out here, “people of color” was and still is a self-empowering term for people of African, Asian, Latin, and Native American heritage who wish, for purposes of political solidarity in any given instance, to refer to themselves as a group.

I just make this note because once, in a comment on some online article somewhere, someone objected to the term, finding it aligned with the archaic “colored,” from my father’s generation. Though for that matter, that term has different connotations for people in the UK and abroad than it does here in the US.

And finally! In an attempt to stem the relentless tide of spammy comments, I purged our “users” list of hundreds upon hundreds of what I thought to be bogus addresses. For my own blog, I always double check each one that seems to potentially be valid. But we had so very many, I just went with my gut. So! If your email address or user name had anything remotely to do with Viagra, or pharmacies, or businesses of many kinds, or emanated from Russia (sorry, but <.ru> is the locus of like 50% of all spammerosity, it seems), or had funny gobbilty-gookish words for your username, or had a funky email address that didn’t make sense relative to the gobbilty-gookish name, or, finally, just looked funny to my bleary eyes as my toddler sucked on my pinkie and we listened to Toddler Songs, for the gazillionth time: sorry, but you’ve been given the heave-ho! Please just sign up again.

Ahoy, and apologies!  An egregious gap has yawned between the last update and this one, explained only by the same old same old: too many kidcare duties, not enough time to spread around.  Which lament many of you either know first-hand, or are working hard so’s to know before too long.

A bunch of new listings have been queueing up since mid-June. In a LesFam first, three TTC blogs dropped off the radar in the month it took me to get around to posting them here.  Two others, alas, asked to be listed and didn’t include their URLs; I hope to be able to list them soon, once I track them down.

Per recent trends here at LesFam, nealy half the new listings this month are TTC (or Trying To Conceive) blogs.  They’re joined by a good smattering of blogs from parents of older kids. 

Among the TTC folk, we have:

• Patiently Awaiting Hope: Gia is “Taking this journey on faith and where every step brings ‘Hope’”
• Twin Cycles: the account of Kia’s TTC journey alongside her sweetie Gia — yes, that Gia, of Patiently Awaiting Hope
• two older hippos wanting a baby hippo: a 38 year old trying to conceive her first child with the love of her life
• Wishinghopingpraying: “just your average nice, Jewish lesbians TTC baby #1.  ‘Now faith is being sure of what we hope for and certain of what we do not see’ Hebrews 1:1″

At 2 moms and a pregnancy, MT is chronicling her pregnancy with her partner of six years.  

The author of Luca Has 2 Mommies is both pregnant with twins and raising a toddler.  (Yow!)  

Emerging Butterfly is chronicling “One Woman’s Journey From Insecure Heterosexual Houswife to Confident Lesbian Mother.”

In Sweetest of Things, mtnhighmama, a single quee mama, foster mom, and surrogate mom, writes as about the good life in the Pacific Northwest.

At Come What May, Tyffany writes of her life in Colorado, her 13 year-old interracial relationship, and her 10 year-old twins.

And finally, Kat, at a mom’s struggle with identity, writes of her coming out process, after five kids: “this blog is about me, my identity, my visibility, my concerns and questions and random thoughts that make no sense. I hope it grows into a blog that explores a new love, a new relationship and the ups and downs that brings along with it.”
Welcome, all you gals!  LesFam readers, go visit them and tell ‘em we (finally!) sent you!  The blogs will show up in their various lists over the next couple of days.

Ha! Thought we’d all wandered off for good, huh? Well pert’ near. Pride month is one thing; I can imagine taking that one off, like the French take August. In a belated nod to that celebration, we have the image at right: “Party A” and “Party B” at San Francisco’s Pride celebration practically a month ago. (“Party A” and “Party B” have replaced “bride” and “groom” on marriage licenses as of June 17.)

But July turned out to be busier than expected around our household. On the short end of the stick: an accumulation of folks wanting to be added to the ever-growing LesFam rolls. Because the neglect is weighing heavily upon me, I’ve had to at least post this wee note pledging that before we see get a full week into August, a fresh update will be appear here. We have over nearly a dozen new folks, whom I can’t wait to introduce you to. So long as they’re still lesbians, and still in or trying to get in the family way. A lot can happen in a month or two.

Dana over at Mombian is running her fabulous queer family fun-fest for the third year in a row today. Go check out the list of contributed posts, which will be added to on a rolling basis throughout the day. A great many of the Lesbian Family-listed blogs have posted something on the occasion. Here’s mine, for fun. And Liza, LesbianFamily.org founder, posted this.

If you’ve listed your blog here, and would like readers to see your Blogging for LGBT Families Day post, do let us know in the comments below!

Ahoy, sisters!

Pour yourselves a cup of your favorite hot (or cold) beverage, pull up a laptop (or a monitor), make sure someone’s got your back (or butt) covered for the next couple of minutes, and get ready to meet a bunch of new friends.

It’s been an entire month since I’ve been able to post an update here, for which I apologize. Not like I was just watching old Julie Andrews movie clips on YouTube. It has been a busy month, during which time I’ve managed to change well over a hundred diapers, clean up quarts and quarts of schmutz and detritus from the floor around where my kids eat, all the while still clocking a sufficient number of billable hours at my other day job that we can keep feeding our kids tuna instead of cat food. Ah, but enough about me! What do you think of my kids?

Alright, plenty of other momentious things have happened in the intervening month. In my home state, all the lesbian people (and their friends) can think to talk about is the state Supreme Court decision upholding the constitutionality of same-sex marriage. Hot on the heels of the elation around that ruling came sober preparations for what’s going to shape up to be a protracted, pitched battle to preserve that ruling from the very well-funded professional homophobes. The word is: support Equality for All in their feverish work to preserve the court’s decision and defeat the anti-gay marriage ballot initiative that voters will be considering in this November’s election (click on the “Donate” link at the upper right).

Now then. Let’s get down to the business of meeting Erin, Julie, Megin, Kelly, Meghan, Erica, Claire, Rachel, Debra, and Sally, and their various significant others, small and large. You’ll also want to know why you should drop by and visit Rachel’s place with a virtual casserole and an offer to do the dishes and a load of laundry.

Yes! You guessed it! Someone popped! RaJen Creation created! And now they have RaJenBabies! Two of ‘em! Many congratulations to you gals, and may you sleep at some point between now and 2009. They can now be found in Babies! and Multiples.

New TTC blogs joining the LF listings this past month are:

• Ocean Dreamer, a single Seattle dyke exploring parenting, dog training, being gluten free, and more.
• Ladies in Waiting, Mo and Meg. Meg will be sharing thoughts on pregnancy, kids, and becoming grown-ups.
• My Pen Ran Out is inked (virtually) by a 33 year old lesbian living in London with her wife and three cats; they’re trying for a baby and she’s sharing the journey.
• Finally, The Portable Pod, a TTC listing, has portable’d itself to Hatchling, where their TTC journey continues.

Several new Little Kids and Babies! blogs have been listed, too:

• Labels are for Jars is writing about her journey raising a boy who is, as she writes in today’s post, Both/And. Please read it to find out what she means, and also to help lend your voices of wisdom and support.
• Erica, in Parenting Beyond the Pale, is writing her reflections on lesbian parenting, Jewish preschool, public breastfeeding, and more.
• Mama’s so mindful… or tryin’ to be! is an “attachment-oriented green crunchy granola stay at home lesbian mother of two amazing kiddos.”
• The Mama Too and Team Serrins/Springfield blog about their lives with their kids, and can be found in in both the Little Kids and the Babies! listings, since they have one of each. And since one of ‘em also writes from and of her perspective as the social (as vs. biological) parent, you can also find her (The Mama Too) in the Non-bio section as well.

Finally, Lesbian Mommy is now among the Resources, and The Lesbian Lifestyle is now a Friend of the Family.

A big, ole LesbianFamily welcome to you, all!

Since you all keep growing here, as a community, and/or your evolving family-making and -raising stories migrate your blogs from one “category” to another, I’m thinking this simple update will be a regular feature. So long as the wee chunk of time it takes continues to make itself accessible.

Also, since no one called out “No, no, a thousand times no! Don’t alphabetize the listings!” I’m going to just slowly alphabetize them. And I’ll notate the freshest batch of listings on any given page with a Recently added! jobbie. Since that was the benefit of the non-alphabetized list: E-Z access to recent additions.

Speaking of which! New to LesbianFamily listings this past week are:

• Specific Destiny just started their conception journey, and has joined the prodigious LesFam TTC ranks.
• And Ramblings of the Other Mother writes about raising her and her partner’s Big Kid, as they all anticipate the any-day-now celebrate the birth of their new baby. You can also find Ramblings in Expecting (but not for long!), and Non-Bio.

Welcome to you both! And readers, do drop in, and tell ‘em LesFam sent you. Changes in status this past week:

• The Chronicles of Conception is now chronicling gestation! So they can be found in Expecting, rather than TTC.
• And moving right along, Possible Maybe is now talkin’ Babies!, and so will no longer be found amongst those Expecting.

Congrats all around!

…consequently, your Monday changelog is on hold coming up soon. Several blogs joined the fold before the comments feature on LesbianFamily went dark (or A.W.O.L., or on an unscheduled break, or on a walkabout, wherever they are). Unfortunately, it was their chronological order in the “Moderated comments” queue that helped us identify them. And now they’re all off wherever the comments feature is. Hopefully behaving themselves. recovered.

Sorry for the extended inconvenience! We hope to begin to be able to hear from you again look forward to hearing from you soon now.

As you can see (if you click on any of the comments links), our comments feature is currently out making itself a sandwich. Or something to this effect. It borrowed the family car and is now A.W.O.L. We’re hoping it doesn’t get itself into too much trouble and that it comes home soon. We won’t be angry when it comes home, we promise.

But meanwhile: your comments aren’t being received, and haven’t been since sometime earlier this week. We definitely hope that your old comments didn’t get lost behind the bleachers at the football game or wherever our comments feature got itself to.

If you’d like to have your blog listed, we’re hoping you can just hang on a bit and try again soon, when this episode will all be in our pasts.

Thankyouverymuch.

Welcome to another in the occasional series of Monday LesbianFamily changelogs. If indeed I’m using the term correctly (changelog, that is; occasional is all in the eye of the beholder).

We have some more blogs to draw your attention to from the Egregious Oversight File, followed by a nice smattering of recent requests for listings.

From the Egregious Oversight File, allow me to introduce you to:

• Barb’s ROYAL website. Barb asked to be listed under Little Kids back in, oh, NOVEMBER of last year. Oops.
• Then we have PBX makes four, who are TTC, and made the request back in NOVEMBER too. By the looks of things we’ve still caught them whilst they’re TTC. Though our dearest wishes for them are that they find themselves Expecting soon enough. It’s a journey.
• Another NOVEMBER orphan (see the trend? we all went to heck in a handbasket right around the winter holidays! surprised? didn’t think so!) is Scribble and Scribe, who had asked to be listed under the Big Kids section of LesbianFamily, in addition to the Grown Kids section, where she’d been listed that month.
• Finally, this week’s Longest Wait on the Bench award goes to Suburban Dyke, who asked in JANUARY of last year to be cross-listed in both Little Kids and Non-Bio pages. We initially got her listed on Little Kids, but just now added her to the Non-Bio crowd. Welcome!

That does it for the Egregious Oversight File, or the EOF for the AO (Acronym Oriented). One day we will empty that dadgum EOF for good! Hope springs inernal!

And now, here are updates and requests for listings from this past week:

• 1 in Vermillion has joined the TTC list, as has Two Hot Mamas and Eat, Poop, Love. Welcome to LesbianFamily.org, and abundant fertility to you all!
• The Commune Child has transitioned from TTC to Expecting. Mazel tov!
• Probably Boring Ramblings moved from TTC to Expecting to Babies! Not all in the space of one week. You know, over time. But this last week she updated us as to her new status. Congrats!
• Finally, wake up naked has joined both the Babies! and Non-Bio pages.

A rousing LesFam welcome to all the new folks. Happy trails — and minimal trials! — to everyone.

Anyone wishing to add their blog to the listings should just leave a comment on the page they’d like to be listed on. Enough folks ask that, as they leave a comment, that I’ve not only mentioned that here, but added a note to that effect at the top of each blog listing page. Hope that helps clarify. (Also, I’ve added a modest little “list last updated” notation at the bottom of each list, so that folks know how fresh it is.)

I’m tempted to add another LesbianFamily.org Spring Cleaning To Do list item (under “clear out sad sacks from the EFO”): alphabetize the various page listings. That is, unless a mountain of folks write in to say “No! No! A thousand times no!”

Some lists, most notably the Trying To Conceive list, are just so huge that it’s hard to find a given blog. It’s convenient to see who’s been added recently, and at the moment one can just peep the bottom of the list to find out. But the same thing might be accomplished if we add a bold, red “Recently added!” notation to the blogs posted in any given month. Goddess knows I don’t want to add to the administrative overhead (eek!). But I think the pages should be easy to browse, too, for new folks.

What do you think? Any other relatively modest improvements you’d like to see?

Today we have five new additions to the LesbianFamily family, three of which have been languishing, un-posted, for months on end following their initial requests. I’ve checked, though, and fortunately they’re all still (a) lesbians, and (b) forming and raising families.

First, from the blogs who collected mounds of dust in the Egregious Oversight File, allow me introduce you to:

• Grunt ‘n’ Squeak, which wins the top Egregious Oversight prize for languishing in obscurity since NOVEMBER. Of LAST YEAR. They’re listed in Babies! and Multiples.
• 2moms2babies only languished since DECEMBER. They’re listed in Babies! and Multiples as well.
• Finally we have chasing the tree, which has only languished since JANUARY. That was just yesterday, it seems! O how time flies. They’re listed in Babies!

I’m not quite sure I can guarantee that we’ve managed to list their blogs while their babies are still babies, but there they are.

Early April requests for listings are:

• chasing the tree, listed in both Big Kids and Multiples.
• The Reluctant Blogger listed in both Big Kids and Non-bio.

Lucky for us, these are Big Kids blogs, so I feel confident that their big kids are still big. Probably — this is just a guess here — they’re even bigger now than they were last week, when the requests rolled in.

Please extend all these gals and their young a spirited LesFam welcome, and pay a visit to them and their online lives. Meanwhile, I will extend a sheepish LesFam apology to the Egregious Oversight File residents for their long wait on the bench.

If any of you made a long ago request that is still unfulfilled, please leave a note on this post and I’ll see to it that your blog is rescued from the LesFam Egregious Oversight File. Likewise, if any of you would like to see your blog shifted — i.e., from TTC to Expecting, Expecting to Babies!, Babies! to Little Kids, or Little Kids to Big Kids — do tell. Until we get a raft of intern elves (who aren’t distracted by their own kids!), we’ll continue to rely on you, Gentle Reader, to help us keep the LesbianFamily.org site kempt.

Many thanks.