Two in one

Two moments from this morning:

First, here are the kids in a rare position - playing on their own and together! Mateo was reading while Talia was drawing. I hope for many, many more moments like these this summer. Or, anytime, really.

Secondly, here's what Mateo was reading. It's one of the Magic Treehouse books. He was reading it by himself, out loud. I didn't prompt him. He just picked it up and started reading. He was completely engrossed, to the point that I had to promise he could take the book with him to the car to get him to preschool. He has hit some kind of tipping point and now it's like he can actually, well, read! He reads street signs, posters, books, etc. It's like he's discovered a whole world of words around him and now wants to know what they all mean.

Yes, he's been reading the same group of Magic Treehouse books with Sacha at bedtime for awhile now, so he's familiar with the words, but when they started with those books, Sacha would come out of Mateo's room amazed because he had read the majority of whatever chapter all by himself on his very first try at it. We're amazed, proud of him, and not sure where this will lead us, but excited to find out. Most of all, we're so glad he loves to read. Sacha and I always had our noses in books as kids and I think that has benefited us as we've grown into adults.

Just call me "Dad"

I am annoyed. I feel guilty about feeling this way, given my recent gratitude-filled post about our family and the overall acceptance that we feel from our community. But, I had to fill in my name as my child's father on two different forms today and it just really pissed me off.

We're planning a trip out of the country during the summer and suddenly realized last week that we need to get a passport for Talia. Mateo already has one, having been schlepped to Mexico when he was three months old.

However, in this case, in classic second kid fashion, we have already managed to lose Natalia's birth certificate. The one with both our names on it. The one we paid nearly a thousand dollars to get. (Well, technically, thanks to good new state laws, my name automatically went on it, although this absolutely confounded the hospital person in charge of birth certificate forms, but we did the second-parent adoption process anyway because we want to be able to leave the state and be legally secure.)

So, I gathered up the relevant documents - her social security card, our adoption decree, etc - and we went down to Vital Records to get another copy of the certificate (after dropping Mateo off at preschool). I was apprehensive, probably for no reason, but because being the non-bio mom makes me feel vulnerable at times such as these, when Sacha isn't there with us. I'm always afraid of some kind of "you're not her REAL mom" confrontation. We got there and had to fill out a form had sections only for "mother" and "father," despite the new law that says domestic partners automatically go on the birth certificate, and despite the gayby boom currently happening here and everywhere else. The forms (or the government) apparently haven't caught up yet. I filled in my name as the father, because what else was I going to do?, and then entered into some confusion with the woman behind the counter.

I explained that we were domestic partners and both Natalia's legal parents and I had the adoption decree there to prove it. Bizarrely, she was fixated on our mutual lack of maiden names. She wanted me to change Sacha's last name to her maiden name. No, that IS her maiden name, I said. Well, then I should change mine to my maiden name. We couldn't just have the same last name without one of us having a maiden name! But that's not on the birth certificate, I said. She changed it anyway.

Then, bizarrely and sweetly, when they called me up to get the official papers, both counter ladies congratulated me and told me how beautiful Natalia was....like I had just adopted her right there in front of them! It was really sweet, although I just kept thinking, but I've always been her mom and, for that matter, I officially adopted her when she was just two months old!

Anyway, the passport paperwork turned out to have a similar issue. I really didn't want to mess up anything for her passport, so I called the passport helpline and they hemmed and hawed and finally told me to mark myself as her father and then write a letter explaining the situation, and then attach it to the rest of the documents. Which I did. It just left a bad taste in my mouth. In this day and age, would it be so hard to just have sections for "parent 1" and "parent 2"?

Plus, I might add, Natalia and Mateo both already have a father, and a great one, at that.

It just left me feeling weird and hypocritical, because normally I am gushingly grateful that I could adopt her (and vice versa for Sacha and Mateo) and that we can have the legal protections that we do. But, somehow, the fact that there was no place for me on that form made me feel bad. And yet, I guess, still grateful that the people in charge were willing to work with me to make it work out anyway. I'm not sure where I'm going with this, but I think I'll leave it there. I'm sure it will be long forgotten this summer when we're basking in the sun and enjoying the best perk of being married to a teacher - summer vacation!

The bat cave

Mateo says:
"I like to hang like a bat on my bed. This is a cool thing about having a bunk bed. I like it when mommy and mama come in and watch me hang like a bat. I like to pretend to be a bat like the bats at the zoo. I studied bats in preschool. When I'm a bat, I sleep in my nest. I sleep upside down. Sometimes I fall onto my bed. That is fun!"

The day, post-showering-of-the-three-year-old

So, our day proceeded very well following Mateo's successful de-markering in the shower. I really think this could be a good game for the summer. Let the kids draw all over themselves, and then just wash it all off. Maybe I'm crazy, but it seems harmless!

Anyway, we had a wonderful playdate, complete with waffles and playground time and nice parent chatting time. Then, Sacha and I both went for runs while the kids were sleeping. It was a beautiful, warm, and sunny day and I even went out in a tank top and shorts, which was probably the first time for that since last summer.

Post-nap, Sacha set up our little tent in the backyard and played with the kids in it, and then some good friends came over to cook us dinner! In return, we made our first homemade ice cream of the year - strawberry with lots of cream and chocolate sauce on top. All around, YUM. We also found out that they're going to be doing the same urban race thing as my brother and his girlfriend next weekend. You guys, you all have to meet up and take a photo or something!

Here are some photos of the day.

The tent:

Some of the many beautiful flowers blooming in our garden right now:

These roses are our faves and were part of what sold us on this house in the beginning.

Here's Mateo next to our growing potato plants!

Swinging kids, pretending to be Jack and Annie from the Magic Treehouse series:

And, finally, I just couldn't resist putting in this photo from two summer ago. Mateo was such a little guy and Tali was just a newborn baby! I can't believe how little they were! And, of course, since they're my kids, I can't believe how unbelievably cute they were even then :) We've come a long way since then (and, thank goodness, we actually sleep now)...

Project for the morning

We may be crazy to let him do this, but I swear, it washes right off!  And, he is having such a great time.  This is the problem with one parent getting up on a weekend morning while the other sleeps in.  The one who is up is so tired that she will let nearly anything happen as long as she can eat her breakfast in peace! 

Now, the big question is whether he'll let us wrestle him into the shower before our playdate later this morning...

Buttering up the chickie

Talia's going to be two years old in just a few weeks. This is mind-blowing! Her body may realize that a milestone is coming up, because she's suddenly started eating more. By eating more, I mean eating mostly cream cheese and butter. And strawberries, because we just got them from the farmer's market. The kid will happily have five or six huge spoonfuls of cream cheese for breakfast and call it good. The other day, I admit that I let her have a couple of spoonfuls of butter during dinner. I mean, the butter was there, and she was begging for "butter spoon! butter spoon!" so why not go with it?

I had been mentally preparing myself for her to have fallen off the bottom of the weight chart at her two-year check-up, because she's weighed 20 or 21 pounds for months. This wouldn't have been the end of the world; she's obviously thriving, so no one's worried about anything. She's just quite tiny. However, now that she has this new interest in extremely caloric food, I see new possibilities! Maybe, just maybe, she will be on the chart when she gets weighed! Maybe she'll climb above the 2nd percentile, which is where she was last time (or maybe it was the 4th? Can't remember)! I swear, I am not making her eat the cream cheese, but it sure it satisfying to see her enjoying it. Her little body needs all the energy can get!

Family

Today turns out to be Blogging for LGBT Families Day. I just asked Sacha if she had anything to say on the subject, and we both sat in silence for a minute. Not really, she replied, and asked if I did. Just that I have everything I've ever wanted, I said. In our daily lives, being gay doesn't come up that much. That's one big reason we moved to Portland - so we could have and raise kids in an environment where we and they wouldn't be in danger or be a spectacle.

It's an interesting day to blog about queer families, because that hateful group is in town this week, picketing schools and other places full of sinners. Meanwhile, as I've written about before, we spent our day just like a zillion other gay and straight families all over the place. Dropped the older kid off at preschool, took the younger kid on a playdate, had lunch, did naptime, had a doctor's appointment, had dinner, did bedtime, etc. Most of our days are like the movie Groundhog Day, which is just fine for this season of our lives. We are such a typical family, except for that one part of us that's not.

Of course, I certainly do feel frustrated at the general state of things - the fact that we can't be legally married, that we had to pay thousands of dollars to adopt our own children, that we still have to worry about running into a homophobic medical provider, even with the new laws in place, and that I'm scared to go anywhere rural for any length of time because of what we might encounter.

I was listening to World, Have Your Say, on NPR the other day and it was all about the gay couple in Malawi that was sentenced to 14 years of hard labor because of their relationship. They had all these people from the area calling in to say how digusting homosexuality is, and how they were glad the court had given a strong sentence. And the people who called to represent the other viewpoint basically said the same thing, except that they didn't believe gay people should be jailed, just kept around as an example of what you should never become.

Living in a liberal bubble, it was shocking to hear and to realize that they were talking about me and Sacha. And I can't begin to imagine what those people would think about our kids. I also can't even begin to describe how lucky we are to live where and when we do, and to have the friends and family we do. We've faced some judgment from a few people, but it has paled in the face of the overwhelming support we've gotten from the vast majority of everyone else we know. That we can live together openly, that we could have a wonderful and public wedding, that we can have children together, that we can build a life together without fear - for all these things, I am indescribably grateful. Grateful that, in a world where being gay is still often a fatal crime, we can live a typical life in which we have every blessing we could ever want. Our little gay family is so, so lucky, and we try to remember it on every single one of our groundhog days.