Guest Bloggers Wanted

So really, I mean it this time.  We sent a call out for guest bloggers a few months ago and were disappointed that no one responded.  Turns out, people did respond!  The problem was that I didn’t set up the forward on our email account correctly, so we only saw the messages from people who were interested a couple of weeks ago…MONTHS after they were sent.  OOPS!

Now, problem solved and we are ready for you.  We are looking for queer-identified, non-gestational (meaning the child didn’t come from your belly) parents who might have a unique perspective on this crazy journey.  Is your child a different race from you?  Did you adopt?  Did your child sleep through the night from day one?  We want to hear from you.

If you are interested, please send an email (turkeybasterandwine@gmail.com) outlining what you would like to write about, a little about you, and a sample of your writing.  The sample can be brief.  You don’t have to be a novelist.  We just want to get a sense of how your writing might fit with TBBW.

Hope to hear from you soon!

-Betsy

Talking to Toddlers about Death

Me and Nance in 2008 when I ran the Rock N Roll Marathon in San Diego.

My mom’s best friend of fifty years died Saturday morning. She was an amazing woman; generous beyond generous, kind, hilarious, completely loving, fiercely loyal, tough, and so much more. She died after a long fight with an auto-immune disorder that left her lungs battered and bruised and so, so tired.

I have felt so sad since I got the news of her death. Lots of tears. S and I made the decision to be upfront with M, so often, tears are in front of him. He is a sweet and sensitive boy. Usually when we cry (especially S), he wants to hug us and be close and tell us that everything is going to be ok. When he saw how upset I was and asked me why, I told him.

We have been trying to explain what ‘dead’ means without overloading him. I tell him that it means that someone’s or something’s body quit working. I can see his brain trying to process what that actually means.

At the local nature center today, M noticed the taxidermy owl and squirrels on the huge fake tree in the lobby. He asked if they were real. I explained that they are real, but their bodies don’t work anymore. I could tell he was processing, but not quite there, which is ok because he is still a baby.

In the next few days, we will head to San Diego to remember Nancy. M will come with me and will see his grandparents and everyone who loved her grieving. But he will also see us all laughing because that is what Nancy would have wanted. I hope that M will internalize that just because someone’s body quits working, it doesn’t mean they leave us. I hope he feels that Nancy is still all around.

-Betsy

On Turning 36

One week ago today, I turned 36.  I used to LOVE my birthday.  It was the one day I didn’t have to do the dishes or take out the trash and I got to eat all my favorite foods.  As of last week, however, birthdays are losing their luster.

Now, birthdays are about the quick passage of time.  This is something I have always struggled with, especially since becoming a parent.  There is magic in the day-to-day.  Amazing growth and learning happens constantly.  Yet, when I look back over the last 2.75 years, I can only remember snippets.  I have to look back at this blog or look in the journal I keep for my boy to remember more.

I want to remember it all, to soak in the sweetness of this little person (especially before adolescence makes an appearance).  Tonight, we were in a car with three college students.  M had picked out some silly bands to give to them and spent the better part of our twenty-minute car ride doling them out.  He made sure everyone had several in different colors and shapes.  When we dropped them off at their dorms and the car was empty except for us, he said with big eyes, “Where did they go?  I have more presents for they.”

Besides being so cute I could eat him, I learn from these moments and from my son.  I learn about selfless giving.  I learn about finding joy around every corner.  I learn about connection and communion.  I learn about myself and who I want to be through him.

Now that my birthday has passed and I have spent a few days settling into this downhill slide to 40, I am trying to be wide open to all of the possibilities.  I have a tattoo on my left forearm that is a reminder of this.  It is called the spiral of potential energy.  To me, it is a reminder that within each moment lies an opportunity for transformation if I am just open to it.  Tonight, I am open.

-Betsy

Post on It’s Conceiveable

Thanks for reading:

http://itsconceivablenow.com/2013/08/20/ups-downs-conceive/http://itsconceivablenow.com/2013/08/20/ups-downs-conceive/

 

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“Mama. Take This. It’s a boogie.”

The road to parenthood is often long.  No matter who you are or who you are married to (or whether or not you are married/partnered with anyone), getting pregnant is not a guarantee.

We live on a college campus.  The other day, a student who is probably 21 or 22, walked by with her big pregnant belly.  I took a deep breath as she passed, trying to stuff the envy deeper down.  But I am envious.  I hate it, but I am.

I have always had visions of Thanksgivings when I am 60.  Our myriad of children and their significant others around the table.  When I was 25, it seemed like a fact; there was no question.  But life just isn’t that easy sometimes. Miscarriage happens. Negative pregnancy tests happen…and happen and happen.  Adoptions fall through.  Shit happens.

I try really hard not to get stuck in that place of being too aware of these challenges.  I try to focus on our one amazing boy and remind myself that he is enough, regardless.  It isn’t always easy, but inevitably, my boy does something that brings me back around.  When he says to me, “Mama.  Take this.  It’s a boogie,”  I do so without hesitation, because he really is the love of my life (other than S, of course) and he makes everything better.  So, with or without another positive pregnancy test, I will take his boogie willingly because sometimes, that is enough.

-Betsy

Grand Theft Avocado

It was bound to happen.  Anyone who takes a small child into a store knows the risk involved. We talk about paying for things and what honesty means, but deep down, I kind of knew my 2.5 year old just wasn’t there yet.

I remember the first time I stole something.  I must have been about four.  My mother and I were in some sort of fabric store and there was this really awesome patch that I had to have for my tiny jeans.  I don’t remember asking for it and I don’t remember taking it.  I do remember my mother marching me back in the store to return the contraband and to make sure the ladies behind the counter knew she was taking care of the situation.

When I saw the avocado my son had stealthily removed from the checker’s shelf, I had immediate flashbacks to my own brush with the law.  I pictured blue lights surrounding our Honda Fit in the parking lot, “Put down the avocado and no one gets hurt!”  I imagined my son’s face as they cuffed him and put him in the back of the paddy wagon with the other wayward toddlers.

To save him from what would obviously be a very slippery slope towards a life of crime, I simply went back in and paid for the avocado.  We talked about what it means to steal and I told him I was sad he had done that.  He seemed to be processing as he looked up at the ever-cloudy sky, the pensive look of a man who knows what he has done.  He turned to me as I awaited the lightbulb moment, “Mama?  Can I have gum now?”

And that, my friends, is what I continue to learn every day about having a toddler.

-Betsy

Titles Speaking Volumes

Hello dear readers, it has been so long.  Betsy, my tireless, phenomenal literary co-pilot has been holding the blog torch for all these weeks.  I have been dealing with some personal things and I am going to try to slowly start re-posting about my journey as a queer, non-gestational parent.

So much and also so little has gone on in these past six weeks.  During that time, I found myself thinking up blog post topics in title form, almost the way my brain sometimes (frighteningly; embarassingly) thinks in Facebook status update mode, summing up my daily or moment-by-moment  experience as a human to a series of one-liners:  “Why is it so hard to hang a picture by yourself?” or “The house is in shambles and all I want to do is go to bed. Anyone?”

Some of the past six weeks’ potential blog post titles? Here’s a few that I remember chewing on:

“Forgive me for I knew not the trials and tribulations of raising a 3-year old.  An apology to all those I judged before becoming a parent (and other confessions).”

Or, “Small, but profound, moments of love returned: My 3-year old tells me she ‘loves me too’ while wrapped around my legs, pretending to be my ‘baby bat’ under a blanket wrapped around my body (I’m Mummy Bat of course).”

Or, “Like a fool I learn yet again: one-on-one connection helps my daughter trust me and lessens me being rejected by her.”

You see, there are countless things I could have written about and maybe in just sharing glimpses of them you get a sense of my experience as a parent and even nod in recognition.  Each day is somehow more of the same and also brand new. Each rounding of the corner of parenthood following this pattern.  Parenting is one of the most humbling things I have ever done.  Often I feel like I’m no good at it, that I’m impatient, maybe even slightly bored.  But there are also these moments of the purest joy, love and beauty that are unlike anything I have experienced since, well, childhood. But isn’t life like that?  A mixture of the mundane and the awesome?

– Charlotte

Babies, Beer and Breastfeeding

Picture it: Northampton, MA, June 13, 2011, Paradise City Tavern patio.  One disarmingly tempting, racially ambiguous new mother dares to breastfeed her 6 month old while she and similarly tempting (though a little too pasty for ambiguity) wife wait for the $6.95 beer/burger/fries special.  Handsome, young white man with tattoos, black t-shirt, linen pants walking by. Under his breath, as he stares at breastfeeding mother: “Classy.”  Whitey wife says, “Excuse me?” as the heat crawls up her neck and face, giving away the fact that he got to her in that instant.  Man keeps walking.

“What just happened?” racially ambiguous wife asked.

“That really just pissed me off,” says wife #2 while trying to quell the redness with the waving of a flimsy napkin and a pint of Old Rasputin.

A few minutes later, said man passes by in the other direction, this time staring down both women without saying a word.

“Do you have something to say?” wife #2 semi-shouts, heart racing and ready for a fight.

Said staring man, so intent on his gaze, fails to notice the trash can in his path and runs squarely into it.  As both women giggled, hearts still racing a bit, man turns around and comes to the table.  He sits down and the unfathomable happened:  A dialogue took place.

Being beet-red and pissed off, it took all I had not to jump down this guy’s throat for telling us that it is inappropriate to feed our child in public.

My voice was shaking a bit as he reached for the dog, “ He will bite you.”

“That’s ok.  I bite back,” he says with very little irony.

My natural inclination (of course) was to go on the defensive and rip this guy a new one, to protect my family, the honor of breastfeeding, the right of women to not have to feed while sitting on the toilet in some bar just to make sure everyone else is comfortable.  But, I held myself back and was able to actually engage this man in a conversation about what had transpired, about his feelings about breastfeeding, about our feelings about breastfeeding (individually and as a family).  And a funny thing happened, we listened to each other and connected around the common place: breastfeeding is best for babies (his 2 young children were/ are breastfeed…though not in public).  He listened as I talked about American society’s problem with seeing breasts in public when they are not sexualized.  He talked about his upcoming move and we, ours.  We agreed to disagree.  I told him that it took a lot more courage for him to sit down and have a discussion about his thoughts rather than shuffling by with empty barbs to throw.  Wife #1 talked about her own struggles with modesty and how that has impacted her breastfeeding in general and, especially, in public.  She talked about how threatening it is when a man stares down two women.  He listened.  Did he get it all?  No, Mark didn’t get it all.  But he listened.  So, I, Betsy, learned how to channel the fire and Mark just listened.

Do I think he was out of line? Absolutely.  Did I really want to say, “You fucking asshole.  You have no right to tell me or my family how or where to eat, shit or do anything else.  So back the fuck up before I call the fierce mamas of the valley rally round and shove their dripping nipples in your face as all their children grow plump and tall off the love of that milk.”  But I didn’t.  I just said that I hope he will continue to have discussions like this one, rather than punching and running.  I stayed pretty hot-cheeked through dinner, winding down slowly from the events.  Maybe it was the conversation, but in the end, I think it was the beer.

-Betsy

(This post takes part in the Mothering.com Blog about Breastfeeding event: http://www.mothering.com/community/a/blog-about-breastfeeding-and-win)

Legacy

I have been thinking a lot about what I want to teach my son.  I want to teach him to be a compassionate man who stands up for what he believes in, even if it is uncomfortable.  Part of his education comes from exposure to different people and situations, so tonight, despite S and me being fairly exhausted, we packed up the kid and the crazy dog and headed downtown.  We joined an estimated 10,000 other people to raise our voices in unison in opposition to the archaic laws being passed by North Carolina legislators in Raleigh. (http://www.newsobserver.com/2013/08/05/3083774/moral-monday-protests-heading.html ,  https://twitter.com/asheville/status/364517682424471552)

I used to be a lot more political.  When I had a shaved head and wore really baggy jeans (so baggy, my college soccer coach and one of my teammates each got in a leg…at the same time), I would scream loud and pump my fist for whatever cause I was supporting.  As my hair grew out and my pants shrank, I still showed-up, but was maybe not as loud as I once was.  Now, half the time I don’t know what I am wearing or the state of my hair, I show-up and observe.  I am not often holding a sign, or speaking out.  I am just there.

Brining M to these events is sometimes
nerve-wracking.  There were a LOT of people today.  Dogs and strollers and big signs to dodge.  Counter protestors to make the blood boil.  It was hot and loud and…really important.  M might not know exactly what is going on, but he sees all kind of people coming together to support and uplift and to inspire change.  That is why we take him.

Part of the legacy I will leave for my son is the belief that people, together, can change the world.  It has happened again and again.  So, even when we are tired and grumpy and whatever else, we still show up for our neighbors and ourselves.

-Betsy

A Moment of Awe

Some nights, having one child is a lot.  He is amazing and stubborn and each moment before bed sometimes seems like an hour.  Most nights, by the time he is asleep, we can only do the bare minimum before getting ourselves to bed.

We went to visit S’s family this past weekend.  They happen to live in the same city as a friend of mine from a million years ago and her family.  I got to spend some quality with my friend, which brings me (after a little explanation) to a moment of awe.  My friend, S, has two-month old twins and a 2.5-year old.  Her partner had to go back to work on Friday for the first time since the twins were born.  I was able to go visit with S and the twins and get some serious baby love.

My family came over to visit after S’s 2.5-year old came home from school. As we were leaving and I was wondering how the hell anyone could raise twins, an amazing thing happened.  Both S and her partner, R, were holding a baby. Their toddler ran across the driveway and fell on both knees (we all know how much that hurts).  She started screaming.  R, with a baby on one arm, scooped up 30lbs of hot mess like it was nothing.  S held her arm out to take the other twin, and they shuffled children with perfect precision, all needs met at once.

Some nights, I can’t even get my kid’s teeth brushed.  Tonight, I am amazed at these two people.  Maybe when I grow up, I can be like them.

-Betsy