rearview mirror

One morning a couple of weeks ago, I brought E into our bed after he woke up in the morning, and the three of us lounged around in PJs for a little while before starting our day. At some point, I had one of those "how did I get here?" moments. First of all, we have a baby. That in itself is still mind-blowing to me. Second, I have the good fortune of starting and ending my days with M, and that blows my mind some days, too.

M and I met in college. We were members of the same little queer community, just like the one your college had, where everyone had dated everyone else and the social event of the year was the night Me.lissa Fer.rick came through town. I had a crush on M from the moment I saw her, but it was the only kind of crush you can have on someone you don't even know, which is to say it was pretty superficial. She was about as high as you could get on our little social ladder and I... well, wasn't. We were both dating other people (read: madly in L-O-V-E with and living with them because, duh, the relationships were all of like four months old) so the idea of my innocent little crush ever evolving into anything on THIS planet seemed remote, if not downright comical. However, as we got to know one another, I realized that in addition to being a total hottie, she was also a really great person. And the plot began to thicken...

You know how the story ended, so I'll spare you the details of how we got from point A to point B. You can rest assured that it was excessively messy and complicated because isn't it always when you're in college?

I will tell you one story because it's funny, given where we ended up. There was a time when I was trying to decide whether to end my current relationship to pursue one with M and I confided in my mom about my dilemma. I told her that my current girlfriend was everything I wanted in a long-term partner and I could easily see us getting married, having kids together, and living out our days in perfect bliss... but I wasn't sure I was ready for all of that to start just yet. M, on the other hand, was "just fun" and I thought this was why I was so smitten with her. I had decided that the "settle-down" vibes I was feeling in my current relationship were freaking me out and I wanted to spend time with someone with whom I felt none of that pressure. M was the breath of fresh air I needed, and the fact that I thought we were totally incompatible for the long haul only made me more attracted to her at the time. (My insight and assessment skills were simply astounding, no? I was so dumb.)

So here we are, eight and a half years later. I have never been so happy to have been wrong about something, or someone. In the past eight and a half years, we have done a lot of growing up together. We moved across the country together. We planned a wedding. We bought a house. We survived infertility and brought a beautiful little boy into the world. We have supported each other through the highs, the lows, and everything in between. Sometimes when I look at her, I can't believe she's the same person I met almost a decade ago, or that we have built the life we share today. I would never have believed it if someone had given me a crystal ball eight years ago. She was only supposed to be a summer fling. :-)

And just for the record, I still think she's a total hottie.

What's in a name? (part two)

First off, I want to thank you again for your comments on my last post about names. I'll admit I was hesitant to blog on that topic. My position on the fence is a little precarious and I wasn't too keen on exposing myself to others' opinions just yet. I get very fragile when I'm on the verge of a decision. (Just ask poor M who got an evening of the silent treatment a few weeks ago when I was coming to terms with another major decision and she had the audacity to admit she'd already picked up on my change of heart!) I shouldn't have worried. I have the best blog readers ever. You all gave me some great perspective and helped things along a bit, I think.

So, here's where am I stuck:

No, before I get to that, here's how I got here:

Everything I said in my last post about realizing I'm the "odd name out" has been simmering for a month or two, and it's been fueled even more recently by my increased desire to define the edges of our little family of three. I've started several projects to this end, from reviving the second-parent adoption conversation in our house (Appointment with the attorney in 2 weeks! Thanks for calling, M!) to buying us all matching Christmas stockings (well, kits, that will probably take me until E is in kindergarten to complete) that are completely different than what either of us had growing up. I'm just all about OUR family right now and I want to do things that reinforce and support and honor OUR family.

The major tipping point came courtesy of fa.cebook. Ha ha! I was tagged in a picture from the wedding of a family friend. I attended with just my parents and my brother. The caption, added by the bride, read "The MyLastName Family".When I read that, I felt like it was just wrong. M and E are my family, and they weren't there. I think I'm extra-sensitive to this because we aren't legally married. This gets back to what I said in my last post about thinking I might keep my name if I were in a heterosexual marriage, even though I'm now considering a different path. Scrapping my current last name isn't something I want to do, and I know that part of my reason for considering it comes from some of my own internalized stigma of M and my relationship. In looking at that picture, I felt like M and E - my family - were literally and figuratively invisible. This was acceptable because we aren't legally married, and easily achieved because my name connects me to my family of origin instead of them. Maybe I'm being paranoid, but I feel like if we were legally married, people would have to acknowledge us, but since we're not, so I have to force the issue with the name. Furthermore, there aren't many legal options available to us in defining our family, which makes those available seem all the more desirable. It's simple supply and demand.

The other thing that happened was that I sent out some Halloween cards and each one was addressed to a couple with a shared last name. After writing A & B Smith and X & Y Jones half a dozen times, I started to resent the cumbersome cluster of names that denotes our family.

So these two minor incidents inspired enough of a freak out on my part that I found myself wanting to change my name - something I'd never even seriously considered before, let alone desired. This realization ushered in some interesting mental acrobatics:

1. My current last name connects me to my family of origin.

2. I want my allegiance to be to M and E rather than my family of origin.

3. I need to take M and E's last name.

4. M and E have the same last name as her family of origin.

5. I feel very uncomfortable ditching my family of origin name in favor of hers.

6. I need to mentally divorce M and E's last name from her family of origin before I can take it.

7. If I convince myself that last names do not necessarily connect one to their family of origin, point #1 above becomes moot and I can keep my own! Yay! No, wait. I'm just back where I started.

I can skip down to wanting M and E's last name simply because it's theirs, but I still get hung up on this idea of taking M's dad's name (well, his dad's dad's dad's...), because that's what it traces back to in the end. Basically, I need two different realities to co-exist in order to feel comfortable: In my case, I need my last name to be inherently connected to my family of origin so that I am justified in abandoning it in favor of a shared K-M-E last name. But in M's case, I need her last name to NOT be connected to her family of origin so that I can assume it without feeling like I'm leaving my family to join hers, becoming her property, or participating in some other weird patriarchal phenomenon. I guess the ultimate solution to THIS dilemma would be all of us changing to an all new family name, but it seems like a lot of trouble to make all three of us change and it's not like we have something we love to change to anyway.

I probably didn't explain that well at all. It's hard for me to articulate. I know the answer. If I take the name, I take it because it's E's - not M's, not M's family, etc. It's the name we decided to give E - a decision I'm 100% fine with - so I just have to decide if I want to take Elliot's name or not. And I probably do.

It just seems like such a freaking pain in the ass. There are little things, like I love the sound of my name. My last name has three syllables and I'd be changing to a last name with one - that's just a big change to the sound of my name. I like my initials and my signature. My signature hasn't changed a stroke in the last 15 years. My name feels like this hugely important part of me, and I can't imagine giving it up. I cringe when I think of all of the million little places my name will need to be changed - how did you all DO that?! It's all just kind of overwhelming.

That said, I suspect this desire to define and proclaim our family will only strengthen with time, so I suspect I will make the change eventually. I just have a little more peace-making to do with the idea first.

MTV Changed the World in the 80s - Here is What Comes Next

Catchy title, no? I got it here. See #38.

I guess you could say I have hit NaBloPoMo rock bottom. Tonight, I literally googled "things to blog about" and landed at the link above. Oy vey. The first step is admitting you have a problem, right?

I do actually have things to write about - I want to come back to the last name thing, and I also still owe a "part 2" post regarding my participation in Blogger Bingo. The problem is I am SO FREAKING TIRED that I just don't have either of those posts in me tonight, or any recent night, it seems. I took a bunch of time off while my parents are in town so any days where I actually go into the office (as I did today) are full to the brim with catch up. When I'm not at work, I'm entertaining family, co-managing the full-time side project known as Our Household, chasing a crawler-slash-furniture-walker who refuses to be contained or sit still for more than 30 seconds, and defending my grading philosophy to grade-inflation-damaged graduate students with wicked senses of entitlement. Yup, I'm complain-y tonight. It's the exhaustion speaking. Sorry. :-(

I don't think we have plans tomorrow night so maybe I will get an earlier start and post something interesting for a change. I don't think I'm a fan of NaBloPoMo. It was fun and manageable at the beginning but this blog has taken a nosedive lately. I'm anxious to get  back to the days of quality over quantity.

picking up a shift

I don't blog.  (this is M)   I'm not a great writer or communicator but I thought I'd give K a night off on her posting once a day thing.

K's parents are in town for two weeks and we are enjoying the benefits of having babysitting at our beck and call.  I have to say that these days I am proud of our lack of babysitting, its like a badge of honor for me. Our days of doing shifts with the baby so we can see a movie 3 hours apart from each other makes me feel like we can and are doing this all ourselves, so there.  When friends offer babysitting these days I balk at it because I think it hurts my cred.  There are times however when I just wish we could do more things together, so these two weeks will be nice.

So what did we do with our spare afternoon, you might ask?  We filed and cleaned.  I know, romantic right? Being an adult is lame.

Not to throw her under the bus, but...

I asked M to post for me tonight and she said she would. But as you may have noticed, it's me talking typing. She says she forgot. Hmph. She wouldn't last a week of this NaBloPoMo madness!

I was out with my parents tonight and I didn't think we'd be home before midnight, hence the request for a guest post. We did make it home in time, but barely, so this will have to be brief.

The novelty of standing has worn off and we're sleeping through the night again. Hallelujah. Not to be a choosy beggar, but if we could also go back to "sleeping in" (read: past 6am) again, too.... yeah, that would just be the bee's knees. :-)

We've introduced yogurt and E seems to love eating it, but I'm just not sure his stomach is quite ready for it. He was SO intolerant of dairy in my diet when I was breastfeeding. He's had yogurt two days in a row and today he was fussy and kept spitting up this terribly rancid smelling stuff. I'm not convinced it's the yogurt yet, but it's not looking good, either. Hopefully it's just a coincidence.

Thanks for all of your thoughtful comments on my post about names. It was really interesting to read through what you all have done and how you dealt with the corresponding emotions. You inspired some new thoughts on the matter, so thanks.

OK, 1 minute to go... better hit the publish button or I'll miss my deadline!!

out of my element, in a good way

I'm in a bar.

We're milking this visiting-grandparents thing.

Being in a bar = good for fun and bad for blog posting.

The end.

What's in a name? (part one)

I am thinking of changing my name. This comes as a great shock to me. When M and I had our (illegal) wedding in 2006, we discussed this and decided we would both keep our names. It was a pretty short discussion, really. Neither of us could envision taking the other's name, nor asking the other to take ours. We did come up with an all new name blending halves of each of our last names, and we still use it "internally" to this day, but it's not something we ever gave serious thought to taking on legally.

Until very recently, I've never second-guessed our decision to keep our own last names. I never thought it took away from our partnership, and in fact, I felt good about what it said about our individuality within that partnership. I have told people that I like to think I would have kept my last name even if I had married a man, and I still believe that. If I don't fall asleep before I finish this post, I'll even explain that seeming contradiction to you. Ultimately, I never gave much thought to last names at all... until a little over a year ago when it became apparent we would need to provide someone with one.

The one thing that was never on the table for us was hyphenating. This is 100% MY opinion for MY family, so I hope that I don't offend anyone with my explanation, but here goes: I was opposed for the obvious reasons - it makes for a last name that is cumbersome, long, awkward, etc., but the deal-breaker for me was that I wanted to equip Elliot with a name that would leave him all of the options to make when he is an adult and has his own family. In 20-something years, when he decides to spend the rest of his life with Ms. or Mr. Wonderful, I want HIM to be able to keep his name, take his/hers, or hyphenate the two. Hyphenated names are like T intersections in this scenario - you can turn left or right, but you can't continue forward on the same road. Can you imagine if he took theirs ALSO and had three last names? What if Ms. or Mr. Wonderful has a hyphenated last name of his/her own - they could put them together and each have four! Anyway, I just wanted to make things as simple as possible for him, both now and later, by giving him a straight-forward, single last name. Again, MY preference. I am not placing judgement upon anyone that came down on a different side of this complicated decision.

The decision to give him M's last name was mine. She was pretty uncomfortable with it at first. She didn't want my family to think she asked for that, and she felt bad that he and I wouldn't have the same name. I was adamant for two reasons: First, I felt that since I had the privilege of carrying him, she should have her own unique connection to him as well. Second, I didn't know if and when we would pursue a second-parent adoption, and I figured if they had the same last name, it would grease the wheels for her with his schools, doctors, daycares, and so on. Of course it doesn't make her his legal parent, but it might make some people forget they need to ask, and when you're in our shoes, that's a valuable thing.

I thought I was completely okay with him not having my last name, and once I got over the initial weirdness, I was, for a while. In the last couple of months, I have felt my Mama Bear instincts slowly emerging and I feel this intense need to define our family - K, M & E - as distinct from my family of origin. If we were legally married or Elliot was our direct biological offspring, I think that might alleviate the need for me a bit, but we're not and he's not. I still think we'll complete a second-parent adoption, although I don't know exactly when or how. But I want to do more. 2/3 of my family has one last name and I have another. The answer seems obvious, and yet I feel so much internal resistance.

I would love to unpack that a little more but I'm literally falling asleep typing this, so I'm going to leave it here for now, but I'll be back to work on this more soon.

Da Bears (warning: pics)

OK, I'm going to level with you. I got nothin' interesting to post about tonight, and no energy left to do it with. Today was one of the longest work days of my life. After I got off, I picked E up at daycare and headed back to work to finish up a couple of things, then fought traffic all the way home to drop him off, then all the way back downtown for a meeting, then all the way BACK out past my house to the airport to pick up my parents. Between 5:30 and 9:30pm, I estimate I spent just over 2 hours in the car. I am done.

So, call me lazy, but I'm using the free space on my NaBloPoMo bingo card tonight and posting some pictures. I fully admit it's a cop out.

I don't think I've posted these here before, or at least not all together. I wish we'd thought to take one right after he was born, but it took us a while to find the ground beneath us, let alone do anything that required forethought or creativity.

Without further adieu, I present, The Bear Pictures:

One month old:

Two months old:

Three months old:

Four months old:

Five months old:

Six months old:

Seven months old:

Eight months old:

Where did my baby go?!

I'm calling it a night. I'll do better tomorrow.

p.s. My cousin's baby arrived late last night, by c-section, after a couple of hours of pushing. Her labor experience may have started out differently, but it ended up eerily similar to ours. He's smaller than Elliot was: 7 lbs., 11 oz. and 21 inches long. Everyone is reported to be doing well.

Beware, it's a boring one.

I'm wiped so this is going to be short and possibly probably disjointed.

The kiddo is still awake (over an hour past his bedtime) and I'm sure it's because we had the audacity to disrupt his nighttime routine with a book signing, so yeah, mother of the year again right here. Actually, M has just emerged from his bedroom, sans baby, so perhaps he IS asleep now. We'll see. She says she has doubts he's really down for the count.

My cousin is in labor, as she has been all day. She was induced yesterday afternoon from 0 dilation and 0% effacement after her water broke. As of this morning, she was only dilated a centimeter so her chances of avoiding a c-se.ction were looking grim. Amazingly, her doctor let her go quite a bit over the 24 hour mark and as of about an hour ago, we heard she had made it to 10 and was practicing pushing! I hope it is going well. I know it could still be a while. I pushed for over three hours and that still didn't get him here. What is it with babies in our family taking their sweet time coming out? The nerve!

My parents arrive tomorrow for a long visit. I'm really looking forward to seeing them, and I'm also looking forward to exploiting them for free babysitting. M and I have several dates planned already. I took advantage of their visit to take several days off work, so I'm looking forward to that as well.

Our little stander slept through the night last night. I'm not expecting it to happen again tonight... but it would be nice, wouldn't it? :-) When do Grandma and Grandpa arrive again? Grandma loves the night shift, crazy lady.

good news and bad news

First, the bad: Crying baby at 3am last night. Nooo!

The good (for me): M responded to my 3am elbowing and got up with him. She successfully settled him back down with none of the multi-hour antics he and I went through the night before.

I have a theory. Now that he pulls himself up to standing at every opportunity, I think he's doing this every time he floats toward consciousness, whether he's ready to wake up or not. In the past, he'd probably lay there for a minute and drift back off to sleep, but not anymore.

He has NEVER alerted us that he was awake by crying before. He always seemed to wake up slowly and we'd hear him in his room, babbling contentedly, then go in to find him smiling and happy. Lately, all naps and nighttime sleeps have ended with us hearing loud, unhappy cries and going into find a groggy, grumpy baby standing in his crib. His eyes are barely open half the time. It's like he doesn't really want to be awake yet but his body got him up anyway. When this happens in the middle of the night, he's especially pissed to be awake. Can't say I don't share your frustration, kiddo!

So, will the novelty of pulling up wear off? How do we convince him not to do this in the middle of the night? What a strange (and inconvenient) side-effect of his new-found skill!