whoa mother goose

last night Jack started singing a song in the bathtub about a baby bumblebee. it sort of rang a bell but i didn't really remember it so i looked it up and found a youtube video. okay. that's weird enough. but then i read the entire lyrics somewhere -

I'm bringing home my baby bumble bee
Won't my Mommy be so proud of me
I'm bringing home my baby bumble bee -
OUCH!! It stung me!!

I'm squishin' up my baby bumble bee
Won't my Mommy be so proud of me
I'm squishin' up my baby bumble bee -
EW!! What a mess!!

I'm lickin' up my baby bumble bee
Won't my Mommy be so proud of me
I'm lickin' up my baby bumble bee -
ICK!! I feel sick!!

I'm throwin' up my baby bumble bee
Won't my Mommy be so proud of me
I'm throwin' up my baby bumble bee -
OH!! What a mess!!

I'm wipin' up my baby bumble bee
Won't my Mommy be so proud of me
I'm wipin' up my baby bumble bee -
OOPS!! Mommy's new towel!!

I'm wringin' out my baby bumble bee
Won't my Mommy be so proud of me
I'm wringing out my baby bumble bee -
Bye-Bye baby bumble bee!!

ummm, WTF?! at first i was like, okay, WHAT are they teaching my kid at this crazy school? they're not allowed to have cupcakes but they can mangle and masticate baby bumblebees? then i stopped because i realized i sounded kind of ridiculous. "bumble bees have rights, too, man!" "and what if he was allergic to bees, huh?!? HE COULD HAVE DIED!!!!!" okay. seriously though. did it have to be a baby bumblebee? and did the kid have to smash it, eat it, then regurgitate it? i'm pretty sure this might be one of the major indicators of sociopathic behavior down the road. oh well. at least he tried to clean it up. and i really like the part about using Mommy's brand new hand-embroidered tea towel that she way-overpaid for on Etsy, because that is exactly what would happen in real life. sorry about the baby bee guts on your new towel, Mommy! hopefully you can find some helpful laundering tricks on Pinterest!!! :)

i actually found it interesting that my son liked this song so much, seeing as, in real life, when a bee comes within 37 feet of him he runs and screams bloody murder like he's being chased by a psycho chupacabra sent from hell to exact personal revenge.

I guess the baby bumblebee bloodbath shouldn't come as a total surprise... Most of my old nursery rhyme faves are pretty creepy when you think about it. I remember a couple of books we had too, Aesop's Fables and Grimm's Fairytales, that scared the living daylights out of me. I still loved them though. I googled "creepy nursery rhymes" and found a wealth of information on this subject. Apparently I am not very original. I liked this bit - 11 Beloved Nursery Rhymes That Kids Should Never Hear by Erica Souter on The Stir/Cafe Mom (Sorry, I know, at least for me, slide shows are super freaking annoying on your phone. In case you can't read it yourself,  I'll give you the highlights - "Now I lay me down to sleep ... If I die before I wake...Wait, what?" Yeahhhh, THAT oughtta help me send my little angel peacefully off to dreamland! Me: "It's okay honey, close your eyes." Kid: "Helllll no!" "Allouette" is apparently about plucking the feathers from a poor lark's head. Peter Peter Pumpkin Eater is guilty of false imprisonment, holding his wife in an old pumpkin under duress. The Three Blind Mice didn't get the best lot in life. Jack of Jack-and-Jill fame cracked open his dome, so that sucks. "Sing a Song of Sixpence" is straight out of "The Birds." I'm rather fond of my nose, and I'm freaking terrified of fowl, so this one's definitely not my fave. "Rock-a-bye Baby" sounds more like a threat than a lullaby. You will sleep, or else. Ring Around the Rosie - a charming take on mass death by plague. Also, someone might want to alert CPS re: the Old Woman Who Lived in a Shoe. Maybe now that she'll have free access to birth control.... ;)) And what about the Old Lady who Swallowed a Fly? Perhaps she'll die?! Surely medical advancements are such that she could survive this fate?! Finally, in "It's Raining, It's Pouring," the poor old man seems to have knocked himself into a coma. Wait a minute. I'm starting to see a pattern here... Maybe I should call the ACLU regarding a potential age discrimination suit? ;)

So... Anyway... Sweet dreams!

Oh wait, since we're talking about bees and weirdness, my favorite quote about bees (courtesy of my sister-in-law)-

"Or what? You’ll release the dogs, or the bees, or the dogs with bees in their mouths and when they bark they shoot bees at you? Well, go ahead—do your worst!"

- Homer Simpson

seems like yesterday, but not

Okay. One more maudlin post. I know that makes two this week. One for mom's birthday, and one for the day she, her love, and one of their best friends left us behind. I promise l'll get back to being hilarious soon ;)

Fifteen years ago, on this day, three vibrant lives were cut short, snuffed out, suspended in mid-air. This world lost three rays of sunshine... three bright flames... three... [insert pithy phrase that is inadequate to describe these very special souls]...

When it happened, people said things like, "Everything happens for a reason," and "God came to take his angels home," etc etc etc. No offense, but, have you ever noticed that the people who say sh*t like this aren't the ones who are actually in pain? Not that I blame them. I know it's hard, not to know what to say. Really, there's nothing you can say, nothing that will take the pain away, no matter how much you want to, but I do appreciate that people try. That's all you can do, honestly. Spout some meaningless platitudes, if for no other reason than to let them know that if/when they need you, you're there.

Now, so many years later, if someone finds out for the first time they say, "Oh I'm so sorry! That's terrible!" And I never know what to say either... "It's okay"? [It isn't.] "I know"? "You're tellin' me"? Or maybe just "Thank you."

My favorite awkward encounters are when people [often intoxicated] make some rude comment about my "tramp stamp." I usually take that opportunity to inform them that I got said "stamp" - a Cessna flying into the sunset - to honor my mom, stepdad, and their good friend (we'll call him JB) who died in a plane crash when I was 18. Buy hey! Thanks for noticing! And good luck wrastlin' that foot out of your mouth, Hoss ;) 

Another thing people say is, "Time heals all wounds." I think this, too, is mostly BS. Yes, life goes on. Yes, eventually, you can wake up in the morning without the subsequent soul-wrenching gut-punch of remembering that they're gone. Yes, time blurs the edges of your loss and your pain, but it also blurs the edges of your memories, casts shadows on their contours in your mind... Clouds the clarity of their laugh, their smell, their smile... The point is... Maybe the original wound heals, but you will always have the scar. 

"Has it really been 15 years?!" A friend asked me today. "That's crazy. We're old." Lol. True on all counts. They died 15 years ago. When I was 18. Math isn't my strong suit but I think that makes me 29 ;) I feel lucky, in a way, that I was, technically, an "adult" before I lost them. My sister was only 14 - they've been gone longer than she knew them. And my little brother, who lost his mom and his dad (he wasn't lucky enough to have a spare), was only 7... He has so few memories of them, and he's not sure if the ones he does have are his own, or if he's just appropriated them from all the stories he's heard over the years. And that just makes me so damn sad. They loved that boy SO freakin' much you could almost reach out and touch the love in the air. Ugh. It hurts my heart. But a while back a friend sent me this quote, and it made me feel a little better. I just really liked it, and wanted to share -

"I had somebody say to me once, years ago, 'What was your mother like?' And I said, 'I don't know. She died when I was 11.' And she said, 'Well, what did she feel like?'

"And that was an amazing window for me into the idea that ... you don't actually have to be able to articulate or intellectually know who somebody is to really know them, and that 11 years is actually a really long time — especially to have a really good mother — and it's more than most people get in a lifetime.

"And I had, until I was 11 years old, a mother who made me feel like life was really exciting, that the world was really exciting. That she loved us. That she could find joy even when life had been tragic — and that's so much more than most people get. I feel incredibly grateful for that."

(From A Polley Family Secret Pieced Deftly Together on NPR's Fresh Air)

The end. 

Oh, p.s., I also wanted to share this incredibly heartfelt, poignant card my dear husband gave me this morning. I thought it was only fitting ;)

mama mama misses HER mama

sorry if this makes you cringe. or cry. i'm usually not into mushy sentimental sh*t. but this is my free therapy :)

yesterday was my mom's birthday. she's been gone 15 years, which is hard to believe. the day before my sis and i drank margaritas and stuffed our faces with tacos and got hit on by drunk old men in her honor. but yesterday, her actual birthday, kind of sucked. rough day at work, even rougher night at home. i wanted my mama.

when you lose your parents before "their time" (whatever that means), you say (people say), oh, i can't believe my dad won't be there to walk me down the aisle, or, i can't believe my mom will never meet her grandbabies. and of course, those extra meaningful moments are bittersweet because there's a mom-, dad-, step-dad-, or grandma-shaped hole in your special day. but to be honest, those big days are so hectic and crazy and sleepless and stressful and a whirlwind of excitement and love that you don't have a lot of time to throw a pity-party for yourself over your lost loved ones. at least, i didn't.

the times i most miss my mom are just regular ole days. maybe especially when i'm sick, or tired, or up at 3 am cleaning barf or poop or pee out of the sheets/blankets/carpet/cleavage... when i can't sleep... when i feel like i cannot take one single second more of this insane juggling act... when i want to be the one who gets babied and taken care of and not the one doing the babying for once. maybe when i just want to say "thank you," "i understand now" (at least a little), and "how on earth did you do it all?" when i want to know about ME as a baby, because, my dad, bless his heart, doesn't seem to remember a thing. i asked him about potty training and he was like, "hmmm, i don't remember going through that with you guys." ha! maybe i just miraculously starting using the big kid toilet on my own- i was quite advanced ;) (and i'm not judging, because these years are a manic blur and i've already forgotten huge chunks, who knows what i'll remember in 30 years!) i miss the opportunity to know my mom as an adult, to go on family adventures, to drink a margarita on the beach together. i wonder what my kids would call her (i can't imagine she'd settle for grandma). i miss my mom when i'm having a "heated discussion" with my husband and i just want to call a time out and ring her up and ask her to play referee - to let me know if i should just drop it (she'd probably say yes). or when i feel like i am failing at communication, failing at being the person i want to be, just plain failing. just plain missing my mom. sometimes there's just no one else that fits the bill.

for those of you who didn't know her, my mom rocked. she was a perfect blend of laid-back and go-getter. she was really good at everything, and expected the best from those around her, but didn't take herself, or life, too seriously. she refused to be pigeon-holed, or defined by one characteristic or facet of her life. i trusted her judgment implicitly (even the blue eyeshadow and shoulder pads... okay, maybe not the mullet ;)) and i still find myself asking "what would mom have done or said in this situation?" mom looked homeless men in the eye, and didn't talk down to anyone (well, unless you gave her coke instead of pepsi). she made you earn her respect and her smile, but was loyal to a fault once you had done so. she had a firm handshake, traveled alone, took pleasure in company and in solitude, and believed in miracles. she could be no-nonsense, and she could be silly. she taught me to trust my instincts, but also not to make groundless assumptions. she was the least judgy person i knew, at least until i met my stepdad and the stepdadders, and finally my dear husband. she was really good at communicating, and "reaching across the aisle," so to speak. with an evangelical upbringing, and a decidedly un-evangelical adult life, she had a depth and breadth of life experience that allowed her to connect with and understand all types and stripes. mom had friends, lots of friends, from all walks of life. she believed in equality and freedom of choice before it was cool. and fanny packs (she was an OG hipster, but without the attitude :)) from the get, mom taught me that no one was better than me, and that i was better than no one. that i could do anything i wanted to do, be anything i wanted to be, and that everyone else was or should be entitled to the same. mom taught me that after a few margaritas, people's differences tend to fade away. and getting naked in a hot tub together is a great equalizer. when you know and love all kinds of people, you learn that regardless of their politics, their religion, their beliefs, their morals, and what goes on in the privacy of their bedroom, they're really not so very different from you. it wasn't a political thing. i hate to say, my mom didn't even vote. it was just a human thing. these are some of the truths my mother imparted to me.

all of this just feels very apropos as our country/planet is currently going to hell in a handbasket ... i guess i'm probably putting her on a pedestal... thinking she could solve the world's problems if only she were here. but i just feel like she, of all people, would know what to say... would be able to explain things in a way that people could understand... would be able to break down the BS and bring even the staunchest stalwarts to an understanding...

realistically, her sentiments would probably echo a wise friend of mine, who recently said -

"Blah... blah... blah... government shutdown... blah... blah... blah... healthcare... blah... blah... blah... politics... blah... blah... blah... I'm still at work, getting paid, raising boys, kissing my spouse and practicing loving kindness."

- AMC

i love this. and i try to remember it. i get myself so worked up sometimes... listening to NPR on the way to and from work i'm nearly apoplectic by the time i arrive at my destination. seriously. the other day i heard a reporter say (and i'm paraphrasing here), "well, congress hasn't done a single godd@mn useful thing in years and now they can't even manage to keep the government running, but, they did pass a bill on helium today." i was like, wait, i'm sorry, what did you just say?!?! i nearly drove my car into the ever lovin' center divider. they must have meant that the entirety of congress sucked a sack of helium balloons before coming to work that day?!?! the stupidity and intransigence and impotence in government and politics infuriates me. but... at the end of the day... why do i care so much? all i can do is breathe, love, and worry about me and mine.

my friend posted some more sage advice in the same vein, borrowed from "The Buddhist Boot Camp" -

"When you find yourself intolerant of intolerance, you're actually no different than the other side. Resolve the internal conflict and make peace within yourself instead of trying to fix someone else's perspective without ever attempting to calm your own. You can't fight fire with fire in order to prove that setting something on fire is wrong."

- Buddha's FB page

which kind of reminds me of my new favorite quote:

"Let go, or be dragged."

- An "American Proverb," allegedly.

anyway. that's all. happy birthday mom. miss your face.

let sleeping babies lie

my husband has thrown down the gauntlet. he claims i am INCAPABLE of writing a blog post that is less than five pages long. CHALLENGE ACCEPTED.

this might sound like sacrilege. i know, generally, you should never EVER wake a sleeping baby. but. do you ever encounter that situation where your little one has decided to take a nap to end all naps and you're worried she'll sleep through dinner and be up 'til midnight? so you want her to wake up, but you don't actually want to wake her up?

try my foolproof method. guaranteed to work, or else, i will buy you more minutes of quiet time while your baby sleeps instead.

1) turn on the shower. this will do the trick for 60% of children.

if that doesn't work, proceed to step two:

2) get in the shower.

now if the kid is still sleeping, it's time to get serious.

3) put a shit-ton of shampoo in your hair. make sure you lather it up real good. see that some if it runs down into your eyes so you are suffering from temporary blindness. and, VOILA! your baby will magically begin screaming bloody murder for mama at this exact moment.

you're welcome. and sorry about the (hopefully temporary) retina damage.

for want of a barf bag

sunday night, DM and i were discussing the fact that our littles were active snot-faucets again and how i wasn't ready for another cold and flu season because last year it lasted for five months. seriously. from november 2012 through march 2013, a minimum of two of us and an average of four of us were sick with some sort of nasty crud, including the week where i was possibly dying from the flu even though i got a flu shot (i'm not one of those crazy anti-vaccine people. just stating the facts. i actually got a flu shot again this year. an hour later i could barely move my left arm and i said as much to DM with a follow up message, "but don't worry, it's not my drinkin' hand." :))

anyway. during said conversation about sickness and snot (was that part of our wedding vows?) DM reminded me of this one time during that extended snot saga when Jack randomly projectile vomited twice. but we think that was just rapid over-consumption of mango juice because he was perfectly fine afterwards. then DM says, "we've actually been really lucky in the barf arena.... knock on wood."

now. let me take this opportunity to inform you that DM is the KING of jinx. like, if there is a Jedi-mind-trick-master, he is the opposite. he is the master of making sh*t that you do not want to happen, happen, by saying "oh that'll never happen" out loud. so, after he said the thing about our generally barf-free lives, i knew with complete certainty that at least one of my children would be puking within 24 hours.

i sealed our fate by making a joke to a girlfriend (who is due any moment with her first child, and who had likened pre-labor ministrations to primping for senior prom) about how birthing a child is sort of like senior prom in that you become completely disoriented and wake up in bed with a stranger, covered in bodily fluids (yours and others'). (so i've heard. i assure you nothing so exciting happened at my prom, being the staunch anti-drug-and-alcohol a$$hole ambassador that i was.)

cue monday morning. got "the call" from daycare. do you know what i'm talking about? i am talking about the "your child got sick at daycare and is now too sick to be at daycare oh and ps she can't come back tomorrow either so good luck with that" call. do you know there is a special ring tone for this call? it rings to the dulcet tones of my career taking a flying leap out of an 18th story window to it's death on the concrete sidewalk below. but oh well. what're you gonna do?! so i went to go pick up my snotty little snuggle muffin. she had a slight fever and a lot of yellow goo but was generally in good spirits. i planned to take her home and leave J at preschool until later in the afternoon, but apparently she was scarred by their short separation this weekend because when i told her we weren't going to go get brother until later, she looked at me like i had just personally massacred her favorite pet. she was utterly heartbroken, and started wailing "brudderrrrrrrrrr, brudderrrrrrrrrr, brudderrrrrrrrrrrr, brudderrrrrrrrrrr, go geen 'um [go get him]" all the way home. so i called an audible, swung by the preschool, and snatched up big bro. they were mostly fine and DM came home a tad early and we got them to bed by 7:30 which never happens, ever.

all was well until the little miss woke up in the middle of the night. DM went in to get her, but then he called to me over the monitor that she had a fever and chills. i went in and her whole body was violently shuddering. aside from the body quakes, though, she was a pretty happy camper. she was chattin' away but we couldn't understand her because she was shaking so hard. i'm not really a wimp about sick kids... we've had scrapes and cuts and bloody noses and enormous eggs on the dome etc. without too much fuss, but when she was about 3.5 months old, my one-kidneyed daughter had a kidney infection and it got gnarly and all the doctors kept referring to it as a "life threatening event" and it scared the bejesus outta me so now anytime she has a fever or other unexplained symptoms i freak the frack out.

so. DM called the always helpful nurse triage hotline while i tried to keep the girl warm. (they always ask a litany of completely irrelevant questions. they even start their spiel by basically warning you that they are about to ask you a bunch of random a$$ sh*t. "can she walk in a straight line while reciting the ABCs backwards? does she prefer chocolate or vanilla ice cream? who is her favorite sesame street character?") i will mention, in a stroke of seemingly unrelated foreshadowing, that lately Colby Jean has been obsessed with putting things down shirts. mostly my shirt. also her shirt. she loves to collect dead leaves and flowers from the patio, or hot wheels, or legos, or crayons, or used tissues, and stuff them down my shirt so that they're nested in my cleavage. she gets really upset if/when i try to "take out the garbage," so to speak. she also becomes perplexed/distressed when she puts things down her own shirt and they just fall right through, rather than getting lodged in the boobular region. anyway. maybe, if you were an english major or something, you can guess where this is headed...

Colby had been quietly snuggling and shuddering when suddenly she reared back with this confused look on her face. then i hear the pre-barf-warning-sounds. every parent and pet-owner knows what i'm talking about. still. neither she nor i had time to react. she had never thrown up (like, legitimately vomited) before, and it caught us both by surprise. the first one went all down her front, but then, before the second round began, her eyes locked onto her favorite receptacle as of late - a.k.a., my boobs. she grabbed the collar of my shirt (luckily, or, unluckily, a v-neck) and bent over like a verdrunken sorority girl prayin' to the porcelain gods. so deft were her movements then that i have to assume she was tapping some sort of innate knowledge. at that point i was paralyzed... i didn't want to move for fear of leaking or jostling the contents of my cleavage... so i called, as loudly as i could without waking the other child, for a bowl, and backup, both of which were delivered in short order. of course, by then, it was too late. my C-cups runneth over. with barf.

with some assistance, i was able to get myself, and the girl, cleaned up, and Super Dad took the next shift, which, unfortunately for him, ended up lasting until 3:30am. unfortunately for me, as soon as i was de-barfed and climbing back in between my clean warm sheets, J woke up for who knows what reason (an evil ax-weilding ghost? a gnat?) and i was too tired to battle so i just climbed in bed next to him and spent the next 3 hours attempting to sleep with heels and toes jammed up in my ribs and nose.

so yeah. that was my monday. how's your week going?!

i don't know why, but the "pre-barf-warning sounds" remind me of this:
Buttercup: We'll never succeed. We may as well die here.
Westley: No, no. We have already succeeded. I mean, what are the three terrors of the Fire Swamp? One, the flame spurt - no problem. There's a popping sound preceding each; we can avoid that. Two, the lightning sand, which you were clever enough to discover what that looks like, so in the future we can avoid that too.
Buttercup: Westley, what about the R.O.U.S.'s?
Westley: Rodents Of Unusual Size? I don't think they exist.

the bedazzled bulldozer

what better way to start your day than with some more critical analysis of heteronormativity and hegemonic masculinity.... AMIRITE?!? hahaha, i'm half kidding.

this is about my boy and his pink blankie - the kernel that sparked my recent gender studies rampage. warning: there may be an inverse relationship between word count and actual knowledge on the subject.

anyway. my son is very ... sensitive. the sensitive child thing, and more specifically, the sensitive boy thing, is enough for a whole book (seriously, there's a whole book), let alone a blog post, so i will address that another time. i know (or hope) that, at least in part, it's the age, hence the "top 50 insane reasons my son is crying" fad. but i also know that, at least in part, it's just who he is. he's the sweetest, funniest, most thoughtful, most empathetic, cleverest little person, but he's also very emotional, raw, dramatic, and intense. he cries a lot and has a quick and furious temper. he gets his feelings hurt SO easily - even a stray look can set him off like a spanish soap opera. we call him our "drama king." he also loves the outdoors and is obsessed with all things sports-related, especially baseball. he will reenact his world-series-winning pitch time and time again, but inevitably, his dad or his sister or i will say something wrong and there will be bats thrown in fury and a waterfall of tears.

jack loves bikes and skateboards and "surfing" and jets and rockets and construction vehicles and motorcycles and garbage trucks. he is also the only boy in his preschool class who listed pink as one of his favorite colors. he has a pink blankie (two of them, actually). he screams bloody f*cking murder if any winged insect flies within 37 feet of his head. (i'm talking like, a gnat, let alone one of those enormous shiny green pterodactyl bugs. last week we were eating lunch out and one of those skeevy things buzzed through the outdoor seating area and jack's reaction was exactly the same as the 14 year old girl one table over). meanwhile, my daughter will stomp on a big juicy spider with her bare foot, or pick up an enormous horned beetle bug between her little pincer fingers like it's no big thing.

jack has an internal safety-meter, closely monitoring himself and anyone in his general proximity, while colby likes to climb anything taller than she is, and will launch herself backwards off any surface with complete faith that someone will catch her. if her faith was misplaced and she comes crashing down on her head, she'll rub some dirt on it and move on. she's a little lover and gives the best "huggles" (snuggle-hugs), but if you wrong her, she will bite you or smack you in your stupid face. she loves "foop-ball" and "beep-ball" and is really into "air-peens" and trucks right now, or, as she calls them, "phucks." :) maybe this is just because her brother also loves all of those things and we basically haven't bought the poor girl a single toy of her own. the only "girly" toys she owns were gifts from aunties and uncles and grandparents. sorry kid ;)

jack likes to have his toenails painted, and when i'm getting ready in the morning he demands his own "makeup" so he can "get ready" for his "'pecial date." he loves to try on my heels (his favorite are a pink patent leather pair that he calls my "ballerina shoes") and his sister's glitter Target Toms. the other night he told me he wanted a pair of glitter shoes, too. DM was sitting there giving me a warning glare so i said, "would you rather have glitter shoes, or light-up Spider Man shoes?" he chose Spider Man, and DM said, "that's my boy!" [*insert eye roll*]

but i couldn't help but ask myself, why did i make him choose? (aside from trying not to make him spoiled as sh*t, and it is too late for that.) the same thing happens when he wants to wear one of his sister's flower headbands to school, or wonders why he doesn't have any tutus. i just duck and weave, claiming they're in the wash or we don't have any in his size. when he asks to have his toenails painted pink or purple, i try to steer him to green or blue. i know how ridiculous that sounds. i'm painting his freaking toenails, so at that point, does it really matter what color they are? (speaking of, did you guys read about the hullabaloo last year when the president of J Crew was featured in an ad with her son, painting his toenails, and the caption read “Lucky for me, I ended up with a boy whose favorite color is pink. Toenail painting is way more fun in neon.” the backlash was quick, fierce, and absolutely absurd. ugh.)

but, my point is, why do i care? why can't i be more brave like that mom who let her son dress up as "Daphne" from Scooby Do on Halloween?* why can't (or rather, won't) i let him choose his own identity without placing my parameters on it? these are obviously my hang-ups, not his. where is that internal cringe-factor coming from when he zeros in on the gold glitter shoes at Payless Shoe Source? my critical gender studies professors would be ashamed of me. he's freaking three. i've seen enough photos of my straight male friends dressed in high heels and dresses as children to know that he will probably not turn into a cross-dresser later in life, no matter what he wears today. i don't worry that i'm "turning him gay" or anything of the sort. either he is or he isn't and i'm fine either way. i guess mostly - at least, this is how i justify it to myself - i feel like i'm protecting him? isn't it better that i steer him toward "gender appropriate" choices now so that he doesn't get teased and made fun of down the road? but then, i am just perpetuating the problem, right?

i mean, we live in california. people name their kids cricket and apple and lazer and some family used their third-born child as a sociological experiment re: gender norms. i understand that we've got a lot more leeway here than we would, for example, in kalamazoo, michigan. i mean, some places, a kid could get beat up for having his toenails painted pink or wearing his tinkerbell backpack to school. but still. i can just see him proudly bringing his favorite pink whatever to show-and-tell and some big brash bully character calling him a pansy or a "girl"... just imagining his little crestfallen face, and him coming home and telling me he hates pink and his new favorite color is black (not technically a color but not the time to tell him that). UGH. just the thought of that imaginary scenario in my mind BREAKS MY HEART. seriously. my heart. it is hurting right now. ouch.

many people claim nature over nurture and i'm not disputing that we all have, at our core, some essence of being that we carried with us into this world. but i think this essence is such a unique, individual thing. i don't think it comes in only two colors, two shapes, two sizes. nothing has driven this point home for me like having children. my kids each burst forth from my womb (and boy did they burst) with their personalities more or less formed. they like what they like and they DO NOT LIKE what they don't. they don't fit any formula, prescription or mold. they couldn't be more different from each other, or different than what i expected.

and who knows. maybe, statistically speaking, more girls do like dolls and more boys do like trucks. but i also know, from my own experience, kids pick up on our every prejudice. yes they come complete with personalities, but the knowledge and information comes from us, and they soak up every last drop, even the things we don't mean to share. to the extent that we do inform and mold their beautiful little minds, our responsibility as parents and as a society is to fill their brains and hearts and souls with everything they need to grow into functioning adult humans, preferably of the non-A-hole variety. one of my best girlfriends was telling me a while back that she was trying to convince her daughter to leave dance class or the park or wherever and she said, "Let's go home so we can watch princesses with Daddy." Millie replied "Daddies don't watch princesses. They watch football." my friend was marveling that our kids are now at the age where we are no longer in total control of the ideas that fill their heads. it's so true, and a little terrifying, too. but in the end, it's a good thing, right? it means there's still hope for children born into that cult of dickish douche bonnets at westboro baptist church.

maybe the fact that i'm even thinking and stressing about it just reinforces the walls that have already been built. i don't know. all i know is, my boy AND my girl like trucks AND dolls, glitter AND baseball. and i want that to be okay. i want to be aware of, and resistant to, this pigeon-holing that we do. looking on Pinterest, i see "10 crafts for toddler boys," "outdoor games girls will love"... can't we just call those "crafts" and "games"? why do we always have to fit everything so neatly into boxes. do this OR that. be this OR that. must check one. it's dumb.

interestingly, i really don't stress about my daughter in this regard. (actually, that's not entirely true. sometimes the daycare girl dresses her in these horrible butchy/frumpy outfits and ties her beautiful curls back into this little knot and she kinda looks like a sumo wrestler and i have to resist the powerful physical urge to change her outfit and fix her hair immediately upon arriving home.) but generally, i don't worry that she's going to get made fun of because she likes football or dresses like a boy (thank you Shiloh Jolie-Pitt). if she wanted to wear light-up spider man shoes instead of pink glitter ones, i wouldn't even think twice (okay, i'd be a little sad. i do love me some glitter. but i am fully prepared for a tomboy/goth phase as retribution for dressing her solely in hot pink for the first 2 years of her life.) so. i guess that strips my biases bare. why is that?!

maybe because she's tougher and thicker skinned than him. maybe because we are (thankfully) getting to a place in history where it's okay and even lauded when females excel at sports, math, science, and life. or maybe it's because, as a woman, i've spent less time confronting and analysing the socialized concepts of masculinity than i have those of femininity. i don't know. i hope you weren't looking to me for any answers, because i don't have any. thanks for coming along for the ride, though. and if you have the answers, please, feel free to share :)

*um, okay, side note. i went to look online for the link to that Daphne from Scooby Do "My Son Is Gay (or not)" blog post, and it seems to have magically disappeared from the internet. then i see a post from its author basically talking about how she was excommunicated from her church and community for writing the post. WHAT THE CRAP?!?!? okay. THIS is what i'm talking about?!?! is this what happens when you set your kids free to be who they want to be?

dear god, please let the internet self-destruct
before he is old enough to find this
on the world wibe web

by the way, i'm not saying J is necessarily "gender creative" (if that's an official thing), or a "girly boy" (this term is problematic on its face), or is or should be defined by his appreciation for pink glitter, but i do find it really comforting and enlightening that there are so many people thinking and talking about issues like this. it makes me think the interwebs are not a complete and utter waste of our brain cells.

 

Selected Googliography:

 

Can I Make My Son Gay, by Karen Alpert of Baby Sideburns at Chicago Now.com

http://www.chicagonow.com/baby-sideburns/2013/09/can-i-make-my-son-gay/

Pink is for Boys http://pinkisforboys.wordpress.com/

Raising my Rainbow - Adventures in Raising a Fabulous, Gender Creative Son
http://raisingmyrainbow.com
[And I love what she says about photographer/artist Parisa Taghizadeh's project "BOY," "a series of portraits of my son who enjoys 'dress-up.'" Although the project seems to be about a boy’s love for princesses and fairies, it’s more "an inquiry into what little boys are allowed to be before the world changes them and molds them into some notion of what it means to be a man in our society.”]

Sarah Hoffman - On Parenting a Boy Who Is Different http://www.sarahhoffmanwriter.com/

I wear "The Pants," but everyone in my family wears pants (sometimes).

you know what really chaps my hide? stuff like this:

when i was pregnant with jack, at 12 weeks, we made the ultrasound tech take a guess as to the sex. she said girl. so we told everyone it was a girl. several people said, "oh, that's okay, i'm sure your next one will be a boy." i was like, um, i'm sorry, what? are you telling me "better luck next time"? is this china? do i have to throw the first one away since it doesn't have a penis? wtf?! turns out he did, in fact, have a penis. PHEW. i guess 9 10 months (< special pregnancy math) of morning ALL DAY sickness wasn't a complete waste of time and energy since i successfully produced a male heir to the throne in my royal kingdom???

it's 2013 (i think, but i could be wrong) and people say stuff like this, too:

"oh, you have two girls? is your husband sad? are you going to try for a third? who will he play catch with if you don't have a boy?" nothing incites my fury like the insinuation that a) you somehow failed at baby making if you didn't produce a boy, and b) that daddies can only play catch with their wiener-wielding man childs. GUESS WHAT?! MOTHERS can play catch with their SONS and FATHERS can play catch with their DAUGHTERS and... unfortunately, my math skills have languished since lawyerhood, so i don't know the exact permutations, but basically, IF YOU HAVE HANDS, YOU CAN PLAY CATCH.

"oh, you have two boys? are you so sad? are you going to try for a third? who will go shopping and get mani-pedis with mommy if you only have boys?" i hate shopping and my son loves having his toenails painted. so suck it.

"girls don't like football." this one does.

"boys don't like pink." not a true statement.

"you throw like a girl."

"stop crying like a girl."

oh, and when my daughter was born and they put her on my chest, i whispered to her, "hey buddy." the nurse, whose name was Chit, by the way, said, "Hey, you can't call her buddy. She's a girl." um, okay, a) i just pushed this baby out my lady bits so i can call her whatever i damn well please. i could call her Ernesto and you would need to shut your freakin' trap. and b) since when can't a girl be a buddy?!

what the eff, man? is this 1952? there are so many things wrong with the above statements, i don't even know where to start. first and perhaps foremost, using "like a girl" as a derogatory statement is just f*cked up. second, not all girls are crybabies dressed in pink, and some can throw a mean spiral. some boys DO like pink, get their hearts broken on a daily basis, and prefer drawing or collecting leaves or playing the ukulele to tackle football. third, having children is a total freaking crap shoot and you never know what you're going to get.

the other night, my daughter was body slamming my son and they were both laughing maniacally and making fart sounds each time they made impact with the floor. i looked over at my husband and i was like, "well, i guess i get to know what it's like to have two boys after all." (i had always thought, if i could choose, it would be fun to have two boys.) he replied, "not really. we still have one 'boy' (pointing to our rough-and-tumble girl) and one 'girl' (pointing to our delicate flower of a boy child)." i'm not gonna lie. i laughed quite heartily because per the prevailing cultural trappings, it's totally true. but then i felt bad because we are sexist jerks.

i understand that, generally speaking, there are a few essential differences between men and women, mostly physical. beyond that, i chalk most of it up to culture and socialization. the affectations of gender stereotypes are just that - acts - but they are so ingrained it's hard to even think about getting to a neutral place from which to analyze them. i mean, cavemen and cavewomen, or adam and eve, or whoever... they didn't care about pink vs. blue or shaving their legs or painting their nails or how best to showcase The Original Cleavage under leaves and mammoth pelts. (speaking of, eve must have been one of those lucky hairless women because, eef, me in just a fig leaf without access to a razor? avert your eyes.) anyway, the point is, they didn't have peewee football or barbies or superheros or princesses. these "preferences" and "tendencies" and hang-ups are things that we have created.

my personal experience has also belied the cultural norms, which i guess gives me a different perspective than many. my mom definitely "wore the pants" in two different marriages and was the master of the house, no two ways about it. she wasn't super girly. she didn't do much makeup and she sort of sucked at hair. she definitely rocked a mullet for a good little while there circa 1989-1992. she loved purses and heels but also went through a tennis shoe and fanny pack phase. she was a kick ass business woman, capitalizing on every opportunity and always working her way to the top. she was a whiz in the kitchen, a skill set she actually picked up primarily from her father. she also climbed mountains and drove fast cars. she never made me feel like there was anything i couldn't do because i was female. i remember for a while i dreamt of playing football at Notre Dame. like, i really thought this was my future, apparently still riding high on our resounding powder puff victory in 7th grade. she managed, for that year, or three, to encourage my dreams without rolling her eyes or laughing in my face. looking back, i realize how hard that must have been and it makes me love her even more.

in my own relationships, i have unintentionally sought, or been found by, thoughtful, sensitive, loving, romantic, moody, dramatic and/or intense men, so i know, even though many men try to hide it behind their tough/manly/sporty spice exterior, they can be just as emotional, irrational, and insane as we are, or are purported to be. it kind of reminds me of something my gay and lesbian couple friends complain about - the "So who's the 'man' and who's the 'woman' in the relationship?" question. why does someone have to be The Boss? why does there have to be a Stronger Sex? how are we defining/measuring strength and power here? and WHY are we measuring it? why can't we just BE. why does there have to be this dichotomy and why do we have to choose sides? what purpose does this serve?

look. i am FAR from innocent here. i gender the SH*T out of my kids, particularly their closets. my daughter's wardrobe consists of 93% pink glitter, and i put big flower headbands in her hair from the day she was born until the day she called the kibosh on that business. my son has a lot of blue and grey featuring emergency vehicles, sanitation vehicles, construction vehicles, and/or carnivorous prehistoric animals. i gender the sh*t out of myself too. half my wardrobe is pink or orange. i have had my toenails consistently painted for the past 20 years. i have spent thousands of dollars and hours on hair removal and other cosmetic ... ahem... augmentations. i am willing to spend obscene amounts of money on a good pair of jeans. i love dresses and high heels and things that are sparkly. my diamond IS my (second) best friend. seriously. i lurve her.

but that just underlines my point. i consider myself a fairly well-educated, progressive-minded person. i minored in Critical Gender Studies, for heaven's sake. and yet i still subconsciously - or even consciously - fall prey to this strict "pink OR blue" mentality and i just want to know why?!

maybe i'll never know the "why," but at least i can continue to be aware and to fight the inevitable gendered pigeon-holing that we as a society perpetuate (myself included, see reference to pink glitter, above).

here are some things i intend to teach my son AND my daughter:

how to throw a ball and a punch. (seriously. in case you can't tell. this is a pet peeve of mine. teach your daughter how to throw and hit. your son too. unless your children have no arms (in which case i am very sorry), teach them how to throw, and catch, a ball, and how to throw a right cross and a left hook punch someone in the neck. wait. f that. even if they don't have arms. teach 'em to use their feet. they'll be even more badass. also how to throw a well-placed knee to the groin.)
how to change a tire.
how to do their own laundry, including emptying the f*cking lint trap.
how to pee in the toilet, or at least clean up after yourself if you are physically unable to do so.
how to iron a shirt.
how to sit through a pedicure, even the terrible part where they're sawing the dead skin bark off your heels.
how to check a book out of the library.
how to pay your bills.
how to write a will. (PLEASE, i beg you. if you have children, write a will.)
how to bake a cake, some basic edible meals, and a couple of potluck pleasers.
how to keep house in a manner that will not instantly put off potential friends, suitors, or mothers-in-law.
how to alleviate discomfort from mosquito bites, bee stings, and the flu.
how to start a fire.
how to jump a car.
the etiquette of "the courtesy wave"!
how to write a thank you card.
how to say sorry.
how to shake hands (no limp fish, ew!)
how to look someone in the eye.
how to set 'smile' as your default setting.
how to be kind.
how to love.
how to say "Yes."
how to say "No."
how to tell the truth.
when to tell a white lie.
how to help others, and yourself.

i guess this list could go on forever, but mainly, i just want to teach my kids how to survive in this crazy world. i want them to be good, honest, loving, and kind. these traits are gender neutral. i think the most important lessons in life apply regardless of what shape your bits and pieces take.

** If you like this post, you'll love my essay in I Still Just Want To Pee Alone! **

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source:  mae martin - http://imgur.com/gallery/jkNljuC



love ellen.