Bagiuo Pride March, 2009, from boggs_kulet’s Flickr photostream.

2009′s Pride in Baguio City saw the 15th anniversary of the first LGBT Pride March in the Phillippines and Asia, notes this piece in Tinig.com.

We pluck gems like these from images marked “public” over at the LesbianFamily photo album over at Flickr. Add yours there and be famous for fifteen minutes! Or, in the case of our November family, months, if we’re slow to update!

Above, please give a warm LesFam hello to DJ Rebel and her family, from brrtha’s Flickr photostream. This is from Santa Cruz, CA’s LGBT Pride back in 2007.

As we mentioned on our October 21 post below, we cull these “Picture of the Week” images from the various photos (marked as “public”) in the LesbianFamily.org Flickr group .  If anyone’s face is in the image, we ask in advance to cross-post here, and will attribute as you specify. If you want us to link to your blog, we’ll gladly do so!  Consider hooking up with Flickr if you haven’t already. It’s free if you don’t upload a ton every month. And no, this is not a paid product endorsement. Oh, for the ethical quandary of an offer for a paid product endorsement.

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News! We’ve got our first post-hiatus updater! PurpleLaurie55 wrote to say that she’d like her blog, Creating A Miracle, to be moved from “Expecting” to “Babies!” Which is now where you’ll find it. Congratulations, PurpleLaurie!! She also asked to have her wife’s blog, Mommies Making Miracles, to the “TTC” page. Done! Now go visit ‘em, folks!

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Help! This brave updater gives us the opportunity to query those of you who list your blogs here and are reading this: can you let us know if we should nudge your blog from one page to another? What with the onward march of time marching your kids or your family-making process along? Ideally we’d have a fleet of paid editorial staffers combing the blogosphere for new blogs to recruit, checking on the status (still publishing? needing a shift in listing?) of the blogs currently listed here. Clearly we are lacking a fleet of paid editorial staffers, and so rely on you, the dedicated Lesbian Family readership community, to help focus our To Do list.

Updating and status-checking would be most obviously needed for the TTC page (55 of ‘em!), the Adoption page (17 of em! though most post-adoption, some are about the journey), the Expecting page (25 of ‘em, pretty durn time-dated!), and the Babies page (118 blogs, people! mother of god that’s a lot of babies!). I’m no mathematician, but that makes around 215 blogs in need of a status report.

These are only four out of the 20 pages we keep here at Lesbian Family, but they’re four of the most action-packed and fun/drama-filled. As any of you know who’ve trod this path before, it takes us SO G_D D_MNED much effort to make our families in the first place, and the first several years are a mix of shock, amazement, sleep-deprived hallucinatory delerium, and sincere hunger for a CLUE from a trusted source. The stories we tell about our lives are not simply entertainment, but MAP-MAKING for one another on (for most of us) the very most important journey of our lives. Please pardon the all caps but I feel just a tad strongly about this.

If any of youse wanted to adopt a page, even for this one-time clean-up sweep, we’d be hugely grateful. Just send us a note on this post, so nobody duplicates anyone’s efforts. The main things we’d want to know:

1. Blog no longer publishing? Let us know & we’ll nix it. Still publishing? Then:
2. Obvious change in status of family? What page should the blog be listed on now? After this, then also:
3. Is the blog redirecting to a new URL? Or is there a final post directing to a new URL? We’d love to update links.

All of this is about directing traffic and connecting good people to good people, all in the service of love-love-love! for lesbian families and the stories they’re telling about their lives. A sincere thank you in advance for any help you can give us.

Happy Halloween! From Tracy & Mia’s Flickr photostream.  This image was taken in October 2007, so the cutie pie in the middle is just a weeeee bit bigger now. Like, four big years old.

And this one’s this week’s. “Me & My Moms,” from Phlora’s Flickr photostream. Anyone who keeps pictures on Flickr and includes a public photo in the LesbianFamily.org Flickr group (see that “Family Album” bit in the right-hand column down there?) is fair game, we say. (We ask in advance to cross-post here, if anyone’s face is in the image.)

Pictured above: (L-R) Deb Rox, who blogs at Deb On The Rocks and pretty much obscured by L-Word creator Ilene Chaiken (foreground, in white jacket), LesbianFamily.org founder Liza Barry-Kessler, who blogs at Liza Was Here, Paula Gregorowicz,who blogs at The Paula G Company and at BlogHer as a Contributing Editor, and Zoe Gaymo,who blogs at gaymo and at BlogHer as a Contributing Editor.

Chaiken spoke at one of the keynotes at this year’s BlogHer conference in Chicago (here are some Twittered notes on it).  Liza is giving Chaiken a piece of her mind, but the question is: what piece is it? You tell us.

P’ito tells the New York State Senate what he thinks

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

Our gals from Hydrangeas Are Pretty, Shelli and Narda, got official in Connecticut, with mega-adorable Noah Matan getting a ringside seat. Malka is reclining on the step behind them. You know, with slight changes in the scenery, this is pretty much exactly like what unfolded for my beloved and me on the other side of the country (geographically and politically speaking) last July. Little boy child in arms, girl child blazé on the steps behind.  

Much love and hearty congratulations to an old couple knee-deep in kids. 

New additions and updates await posting here at LesbianFamily, and they’ll be forthcoming soon.  Thanks for stopping by.

Samantha O’Connell, Angie Matt, and their son Henry O’Connell, at the rally in San Francisco following the California Supreme Court’s upholding of Prop 8.  Clearly, no one can vote or rule our love away.  State by state, coast to coast, that’s what’s going to keep us going.

Lesbian mothers, lesbians with mothers, mothers with lesbians, family with lesbians or mothers in ‘em, past, current, future, and hoped-for: love to you all.

No new postings requests this week! First such quiet week in a while.

Meanwhile, we’re still stumping for co-conspiritors here at LesbianFamily.org (see Liza’s post in late March), and we’re still planning on having a Lesbian Family Blogger Meet Up in Chicago in late-July, the Sunday morning following the BlogHer conference (see my post as of late March, here).

Warmest wishes that spring is springing where you are. If you are a practicing Judeo-Christian (either or both!), may the upcoming holidays of Easter and of Passover renew your faith.