What if YOUR Kid is the Bully???

By: Tanya Dodd-Hise

“Often the right path is the one that may be hardest for you to follow. But the hard path is also the one that will make you grow as a human being.”
― Karen Mueller Coombs, Bully at Ambush Corner

This is hard to talk about.  It is embarrassing, humiliating, and somehow a reflection of how my parenting has somehow taken a wrong turn.  I am one who has no tolerance for bullying – EVER.  When my oldest son was bullied in high school by some redneck kid (because his mom is a lesbian), I took action, went to the school, talked to an administrator, and it was straightened out and over.  When my youngest son was bullied this year in middle school by a snarky girl (because his mom is a lesbian), I took action, called the teacher, who spoke to the counselor and together they dealt with it.  So imagine my absolute horror this morning when I receive a call from the assistant principal of the middle school:  my son was in her office…for bullying. 

She proceeded to tell me that he and another student had gotten into trouble during band class for talking too much, and when they didn’t stop, they got sent to the office.  The other student had told my son to “shut up,” but when pressed for the reason, the truth came out that it was because my son had been picking on him for weeks during band.  Teasing him and making fun of him when he got notes to the music wrong, or for making a mistake while they were all playing.  I hung my head as I heard her tell me that while my child had told the truth and admitted his role, that it was indeed a form of bullying, and she had just suspended another for ten days for the same thing.  What do I say?  What do I do?  I was immediately at a loss, and wanted to crawl under a rock.  I told her that I absolutely did not understand where it was coming from, considering he had gone through the same thing just a short time ago in the school year.  She also knew about the previous incident, and therefore didn’t quite understand herself.  So she said that she wanted to put him into in-school suspension for today, and for the two days following; I told her I was absolutely behind her one hundred percent.  But now I have to figure out what to say and do when he gets home – there has to be consequences here as well.  I am just at a loss. 

I have thought about it all day, since I got the phone call.  When I called Erikka, she was at a loss as well.  We have both seen how he can be with other kids, and have had talks with him about the way that he treats others.  We know he is very intelligent, but with that comes the problem that HE knows he is very intelligent.  We have seen and heard him with other kids, talking down to them like they are dumb, or not as smart as he.  So now he is apparently talking down to kids in band, speaking to them like they aren’t as good as he is as well.  After years and years, for as long as I can remember, he has been taught tolerance and to treat others as he would want to be treated.  We don’t believe that we are better than anyone else, so I’m not sure where he would obtain this arrogant attitude.  It is very troubling to me, as his mom, just as it was troubling when he was being bullied by someone else.  I absolutely cannot abide my kid being THAT kid – but how do I stop it?  I will, of course, call his dad this evening, and I am sure that he will want to talk to him.  It just seems that no matter what any of us say to him, or take away from him as punishment, nothing seems to get through.  I think this is what is the most disturbing to me – consequences don’t seem to phase him.  How do I get through to him, to make him see all of the potential that he possesses in that magnificent brain, if only he would use it for making himself into a productive and successful person on planet Earth?

What do you do when it’s YOUR kid who is the bully?

I tearfully told him of my disappointment, embarrassment, and disgust over his actions.  I told him about the little boy who lived a few miles from us, who killed himself three years ago at the age of nine, because he was bullied.  That boy would be twelve today, and in the sixth grade.  I told him that I could not tolerate my child being part of this horrible problem of bullying in this nation.

“Noah, you absolutely cannot be part of the problem, and it is a very big and very real and very wrong problem.  You MUST be part of the solution.  That kid that you picked on may not have very many friends, and what if you were the factor that pushes him to suicide – you don’t want to live with that kind of guilt.  Every one of those kids that have killed themselves over bullying experienced someone who was part of the problem – the bully.  You don’t want to be that person.  You can be part of the solution.  You can be his friend.  We can never have too many friends.”

“You will never reach higher ground if you are always pushing others down.”

~ Jeffrey Benjamin

Haywire

 

By: Danny Thomas

 

oh. my. god.
I have three kids
and a job
and a wife
who is at the beginning stages
of a career that is
the breadwinning career for our family
so she has to put in
the hours
whatever they may be
and she is a teacher
so that means
a lot of hours

my days
during the week go something like this…
if the kids haven’t been in our bed since five
I wake up at 6:45
wake up the six-year-old to get her ready for the bus
prod her along the process of getting ready…
pee, clothes, brush hair, brush teeth
4 simple steps…
which, some mornings, is no problem…
other mornings it is like Hannibal marching elephants over mountains…
on Tuesdays and Thursdays I have to do this with the three-year-old too
Jen is usually nursing the baby at this point
but is sometimes able to lend a hand in this process…
then it’s scramble to get food in the six-year-old…
the three-year-old gets fed at day care on the “T” days… (Tuesday or Thursday)
and after the bus on the other days…
scramble to get everything in the bags that need to go to school…
scramble to get coats and shoes on and get out the door
wait for bus
we usually have some time to play and goof around for a minute while waiting…
good times.
then it’s either walk the three-year-old to day care
or come home…
then I have a couple hours to get house work done
sometimes I fold laundry and watch t.v.
sometimes I do dishes
sometimes I write
sometimes I cook…
sometimes I zone out, listen to music and Facebook or Pinterest…
sometimes I do yoga
or take a shower…
Then, at ten-ish I head out the door
on the non-T-days I drop the three-year-old at the YMCA for 3 hours’ drop-in care
and take the baby to work with me – when I get there I feed her with a bottle
which sometimes goes well
but sometimes she complains about the plastic nipple a lot
and that is uncomfortable for both of us
almost always I spill a bit of sticky breastmilk on both of us…

after I get her to sleep
I work for a bit
checking emails, returning phone calls, updating websites… doing whatever…
then at 1:20 I race to get the baby loaded up
and head to the Y to get the three-year-old
luckily, she is always happy to see me…
some days though leaving the Y can be a tough transition for her
pouting or shouting or just general poopiness…

lets be honest any transition, or dirt, or birds chirping, or air touching her skin
could be cause for nuclear meltdown…
she’s three, after all.

Then when we get home it’s more housework
cooking, cleaning…
or playing Barbies, or princesses, or whathaveyou with the the three-year-old…
until the 6-year-old gets home
then it’s a bit of homework…
until gymnastics or ballet…

or if it’s a Tuesday or Thursday…
I head home to tend to the baby about noon – so Jen can go teach…
Then back to work at 2:30 to try to get ahead of the game (which never happens)…
and home at 5:00 pick up the three-year-old..
then home for dinner…
and maybe some relaxed time with the family
a walk to the park
or a movie
Or back to work for Box Office Will Call…

oh. my. god.
this pace is pretty tough.
nothing is ever as clean as i want it to be.
our poor baby sleeps in third generation hand-me-downs with third generation hand-me-down stains… bless her heart…
i am always behind on at least a half dozen things…

I feel like most of what Jen and I do together these days is talk about our schedule and calendar and make arrangements…
updating our Google Calendars together
mapping out the itinerary for the week…
so romantic…

If you add to our agenda any
of the inevitable variables
of life;
illness, car trouble, out of town guests, plumbing, a home project or a board meeting, or whatever…
we go haywire

not to mention the drama of various relationships and acquaintances..

we are constantly haywire…

I’m sure it’s common,
this pace…
I’m sure life is hard for everyone
no matter what the schedule
but I feel like, if I had to keep this up very much longer
my head might spin right off…

luckily
for us
we only have to get through
a couple more weeks
then school ends
for Jen
and we can re-adjust

but then summer camps start
Lil’ Chaos’s first drama camp…
and tennis
and swimming
and zoo camp
and wild buffalo adventure camp
and ballet camp
and all that…

oh god.
I need a drink.

I HATE You, Mom!

By: Tanya Dodd-Hise

So life has been buzzing along over here at Dodd-Hise Paradise at breakneck speeds it seems.  Noah had his twelfth birthday, and seemed to go from loving, sweet kid to alien creature, yelling at me and such.  But I will get to that.  Harrison just turned five months old last Saturday – oh my God!  Five months old!  She is doing so much, and a lot of things well in advance of when she is supposed to hit those milestones.  First she was rolling over onto her back, several weeks early.  Then she rolled from back to tummy, like, almost two months early.  She started blowing raspberries at us, which is absolute GREATNESS.  She’s trying really hard to sit up by herself, but just not quite there yet.  Yes, our child is an absolute genius – you don’t have to tell us…we know this.  We’re going to start sign language with her soon, and she will soon move into her big girl carseat – big, exciting stuff, huh??  In the next few weeks we will be filing the petition for adoption and get THAT ball rolling – so she should be legally mine in the next few months!  That will be a whole new series coming up, so be looking for it!

Playing Catch

By: Danny Thomas

A lot of my blogs start
with a train of thought
during a ride in the car
by myself,
often, early in the morning
which rarely happens these days.

sometimes,
I remember something
that I thought of earlier
in the week.
Or recall that Jen said, “you should blog about that…”
Usually I don’t remember anything, and my brain
finds its own path.

This week
I had a moment
that was all three.
I remembered an inspiring moment
that also happened to be something
Jennifer commented on…
and my mind took a little journey
along that way.
That is the best.

I was thinking about playing catch…

Earlier in the week,
I played catch with Lil’ Chaos.
We kicked a ball too.

I was also thinking about playing catch with my dad.
And my mom.
We played catch a lot,
It was the best.
Baseball, Football, Frisbee, Soccer…

And I was thinking about the ways in which playing catch are transcendent, rapturous, innumerable, and ineffable.

It is healthy; beneficial to the mind, body and spirit.

I was never much for Little League
I don’t think I had the attention span
for organized baseball…
I was one of those distracted by dandelions in left field..
An airplane over third base
could steal my attention from
whatever was going on in the game…

But I love to play catch…

The fact that Lil’ Chaos and I have
reached a point on our journey together
that playing catch
with a ball,
kicked or tossed,
is enjoyable
and gripping
for both of us
at least, for a period of time
is, for me, profound.

we played ball
in the backyard for
nearly an hour
worked on hitting for a while
and tossed the ball
and kicked one for a while too.

The peals of laughter,
pure joy
as she caught ball after ball…
and as she figured out how to get a ball to me
how to “hit me in the numbers”

Also, I was thinking about baseball mitts…

The baseball mitt
is a singular experience,
a unique sensuality.

We had a few around the house.
They didn’t come from anywhere,
they were just there.
There was a catcher’s mitt I liked best.
and it was the one right handed mitt around that fit me,
so that was lucky.

Maya is a lefty.
She needs a new mitt
the one she has is too small.
It’s also pink
and purple
and has Dora on it.
We are beyond that now…

Mom, I Want a Facebook Page

By: Tanya Dodd-Hise

So last week I wrote about our struggles that we have been having with Noah and his schoolwork.  That same day that my blog went live, he had a terrible day that poured over into his afternoon at home, and on into the evening and night.  He was in a foul mood, and I didn’t help matters by making him sit at the dining table working on assignments that he was missing in one of his classes – by God he was NOT going to take any more zeroes on my watch!  The evening dragged on, and his mood deteriorated.  I kept asking him what was wrong, and his attitude just got worse, until finally he was in tears – only I didn’t know why.  Bedtime of 9 PM came and went, and he still sat, crying, at the dining room table.  By 9:30 PM, I think he was done with his work, but still crying, so I finally told him to just go to bed.  I asked him, again, what was wrong, but only got tears.  So I told him again that if he wasn’t going to tell me what the problem was, then he needed to just go on to bed, and I got up and went back into the den with Erikka.

A few minutes later, he came into the den and, still crying, sat down beside me and just melted down.  My eyes got big as he leaned on my arm and sobbed; so I knew that this was more than just our crackdown on him for his schoolwork.  After a few minutes, when he settled down a bit, he finally got it out that he was tired of being picked on and pushed around by kids at school.  We asked if he meant in the hallway, in classrooms, or after school outside.  He said sometimes in the hallway, in several classes, and sometimes after school.  Now, I knew that he had been made fun of since elementary school for being smart, for wearing glasses, for having a big overbite.  We, all of his parents collectively, have told him to pay no mind to those who make fun of him for being smart, because when he is finished with school, it is unlikely that he will see a majority of them again in the future.  So okay, now I am going to have to go back up to the school and make ANOTHER report of bullying going on.  I have absolutely NO tolerance for bullying, so I’m not one of these parents who will say, “Oh just ignore it and walk another way.”  Aw hell no!  Stop it from happening!  Anyway, I digress.  Back to the tearful chat.  Noah continued, after telling us he was tired of being picked on and pushed around.  He said that in one particular class, there is this “kid” who threatens to hurt him regularly, and tries to trip him every day when they are walking out of the classroom.  This “kid”?  A GIRL.  Oh yeah, that makes it worse.  When he got to telling us about what this girl has been doing, he got all worked up again.  He seemed absolutely distraught to tell us that earlier that same day, the girl had taunted him…about ME.  Ohhhhhh.  Erikka and I glanced over his weeping head, and I thought, “Ah.  Well it has finally happened.”  I instantly went back to when it happened to Nicholas, but he was in high school, so the redneck who did it to him had a pretty classless name for me.  So now Noah has had it happen to him, and I braced myself for it.  I said, “OK son.  What did she call me?”  But he wouldn’t answer.  “Did she call me a dyke?”  No.  “Did she call me a lesbo?  Lezzy?”  No.  I was trying to avoid the worse ones, like what the kid had said to Nicholas.  “Noah, did she call me a….lesbian?”  Yes.  He looked mortified.  I had to keep myself from laughing.  “Um, Noah.  Do you know what that word means?”  Yes.  It means I am married to a woman instead of a man.  “Noah, it isn’t a bad word.  It isn’t an ugly word or ugly name that she called me.  It is what I am.  Now, she, I am sure, meant it to be ugly and was trying to be ugly, but you should not take it as such.”  I asked him how he responded, which is also important, and he said he just told her that she “crossed the line.”  We said that it was a very good response, rather than being hateful in return, or starting a confrontation – neither of which would make her see her wrongdoing.  I told him that I would take care of it as best I can, considering that I couldn’t go to the school and thump the ignorant little twit in the head!  We went on to explain to him about bullying, and that he cannot respond to other people’s bullying behavior by acting the same way.  I told him that if she says anything about me again, or about our family, that he needs to respond with, “Hey, you’re crossing a line.  That is my family you’re talking about, and I don’t make cracks about YOUR family.  How would you like it if I started saying things about YOUR mother?”  By a little after 10 PM, he had calmed down and was ready to go to bed.  He seemed a bit better, having gotten it off of his chest, and awoke in an entirely different frame of mind, I think.

I got up the next day, and after seeing Noah off to school, I called the teacher of the class that he shares with this girl.  After I explained to her what Noah had told me, she seemed appalled that this had happened in her classroom, under her nose, and she had not seen or heard any of it.  She said that she had gone through the same thing with her own two boys, where kids were saying the same thing to them about her.  I’m not sure if she was saying, in a roundabout way that she is also a lesbian, but it doesn’t matter; she sympathized and wanted me to know that she found it to be unacceptable behavior.  She said that she was going to have a “character development” lesson in class to address bullying and judging each other, and make sure that they all knew that it wouldn’t be tolerated.  She also said that she was going to mention it to the sixth grade counselor, and give her the heads up that I would be calling.  Apparently she did, because at the end of the day Noah told me that the counselor called him in to discuss what had happened – which made me nervous since I didn’t get a chance to talk to her first.  How was I to know whether or not this counselor would have a personal view about families like ours that would NOT help our boy?  Fortunately, he said that she told him that he needed to ignore this girl’s meanness, because there are all kinds of families, and that his is perfectly okay, because everybody can love whomever they want to.  Bravo Ms. Counselor!!  And thank you, thank you, thank you!  She also told him that when they return to school after Spring Break, she intended to have a word with the girl, and put some fear into her….hahahaha.  Hopefully it will be a good “come to Jesus” meeting – oh to be fly on the wall in her office THAT day!

 * * * * *

This morning Noah told me that he wanted a Facebook page.  My reaction?  HA!  Hell no.  No way.  No Facebook page until you are in high school.  He asked why, and I had to explain to him that as much as he hates being bullied at school for being smart, or because of me, that it is worse when you have a Facebook page.  I told him that kids now will not only bully each other at school, but that it doesn’t end there; they do it online, on Facebook, on instant messaging – and they do it meaner in the faceless arena of the Internet.  As I said before, I have NO tolerance for bullying.  I have seen kids do it unmercifully to each other, and as time goes on, it gets worse and worse.  Kids are now killing themselves because of bullying that has happened to them.  Some of those kids are gay and being bullied because of that; but others AREN’T gay, and still being bullied to death!

This is the link to a blog I wrote a year ago, last March, about bullying (in case you are interested):

http://domesticdyke.com/2011/03/07/how-many-bullies-will-it-take

If you, or someone that you know, is being bullied, don’t sit by and wait for it to get better.  Do something.  Call someone.  Step in and say something to the bully, if you must.  Don’t let someone that you love, or even someone that you remotely tolerate, be a victim of bullying.  If they won’t listen to you, then direct them to someone that they might listen to.  The Trevor Project is a great resource for crisis and suicide prevention, particularly among LGBT youth.  Too many lives have been lost as a result of bullying.  We must ALL do our part to prevent even one more.

 http://thetrevorproject.org

The Trevor Lifeline
(866) 4-U-TREVOR
(866) 488-7386
Open 24 hours a day, 365 days a year.
All calls are toll-free and confidential.

Stay out of the Doghouse: Top Ten Bits of Advice From a Birth Mother

By: Brandy Black

1. When you walk in the door offer to pick up the baby and if she refuses it ask if there is anything you can do to help, understanding that she is exhausted and wants to know that you are there for her.
2. Make her nap and if she tells you she’s not tired, make her lie in bed for one hour.  She will fall asleep.
3. No matter how insane she sounds; never tell her she’s crazy.   She already knows this.
4. When she is about to get angry or cry for no reason, stop everything and hug -or better yet, kiss- her.  She might fight this but I guarantee you if you do it right she will melt in your arms.  She may still cry but it will be for all of the right reasons.
5. Don’t ask questions.  Figure it out.  Phone a friend if you need to.
6. Buy her something that makes her feel sexy.  My vote is lingerie.
7. Have sex. When having an orgasm a powerful hormone called oxytocin is released, it’s a chemical that makes women want to nurture their young and stay close, it is known as the cuddle drug. The theory is that the more sex a couple has the deeper their bond becomes.  This will be tricky because the last thing a woman wants is sex after birthing children.  So wait -but not too long- and don’t just pounce on her, tease her, make it sexy and if you are good she’ll think it was her idea all along.
8. Tell her you love her everyday.
9. Text her.  Call her. Bring her coffee. Make her feel like a lover not a mother.
10. Make her laugh. Laughter heals everything in time.

You Have How Many Moms?

By: Kellen Kaiser

I was raised by lesbians. Yeah, but nowadays, who wasn’t? Even if I’m a little older than most, having been born in 1981, my situation becomes more common by the day. So the more remarkable thing seems to be their sheer number. When I tell people I have four moms, the common reaction, outside of raised eyebrows, is an attempt to figure it out. Two moms who got divorced and remarried is the most often given wager. Nope. Reasonable but wrong and interesting to me in the sense that it shows how pervasive the nuclear model is. We apply it instantly even to lesbians.

When I tell them an original three chose to parent together and then a fourth married in, I still can’t be sure they understand it. There is often an assumption applied that the three were all sexually involved, a threesome of motherhood which exposes another internalized belief about family, that those who parent together sleep together. In my case my biological mother, one Nina Kaiser, chose to parent with her lover and best friend. Three ladies, one baby. While the romantic relationship between the two ladies, Nina and Margery, didn’t last, the parenting paradigm did, a lesson that could certainly be followed in straight circles better. Eventually my bio-mom married another woman, Kyree, which then made four. That’s a lot of mothers! But there were mostly advantages to having extra parents.

More hands to hold me, more bosoms to hug. More parents to read my blog.

As a child, I didn’t get away with much (too many eyes watching over me), but I did occasionally manage to pit them against each other. I developed a technique in which I’d ask all four, one at a time, for whatever I wanted. I had four possible yes’s which I’d try for in succession until I’d heard four no’s.

Even now, when I have a dilemma, I have four numbers to dial, calling each one until I get an answer, or the advice I was looking for. The phrase it takes a village applies here. I have inherited personality quirks from each of them. As I grow older there will be four aging women to care for, two extra parents to some day grieve, but all in all I feel like I make off like a bandit.

The nuclear family model is so ingrained in our culture. My parents’ multiplicity has allowed me to question that dynamic. I have given thought to who I want to parent with, whether that is my sexual partner (whoever that may be in any given moment) or my friends. I have enough gay community that if I chose co-parenting in that vein it could be a reality. It’s a huge commitment being a parent. Especially if you aren’t biologically obligated and I am eternally grateful that the three women outside of my bio-mom cared enough about me to do so, and to continue to show up as the years go by. Love makes a family but that also in some ways defines it as a voluntary position.

Do we choose our families? We do and we don’t. We certainly choose our level of attachment
to them. We can choose to embrace those we weren’t born related to in the fashion of those we were, making the word form to our own definition. In the gay community the word “family” can be fraught, laden with the intolerance and rejection people have faced in their past, but it is also the holy grail of acceptance -a sense of no longer being alone. We are family! The disco song blares, an anthem of confidence and hope both. We make our families and they make us. 99.9% of the time I feel like I won the lottery, family-wise. The Robber Baron of Moms. I have four of the best parents on earth. So many people don’t get a single good one and I got a quartet. It seems unfair, really. The .01% of the time is when I’m thinking what man in his right mind would sign on for four mothers in law?!

Doubt that really evens it out though. More mommies, more problems? Nope.

Love you Moms!

Sleep Training Log

By: Jordan Gill

My husband and I decided to teach our five-month-old baby to sleep through the night. We both agreed it would be better if I was out of the house so I wouldn’t sabotage our efforts by racing in and rescuing her from the solitude of her crib while weeping wildly. So, my husband held down the fort and wrote me a nighty email account of his experience so I wouldn’t miss out…

First Report (For Posterity’s Sake)

I played with Goose for a while.  When she started to squawk a little, I decided that is was time to initiate the sleep routine.  It was right around 5:55 PM. I warmed the bottle and gave it to her on the couch in the living room.  She took nearly the whole thing, around 4 ounces.  The bottle giving was weird.  The last couple of bottles I have given to her she has pushed and pulled at the bottle, pulling it out of her mouth and shoving it back in.  By the end of the feeding, around 6:16, she was rubbing her face a little and getting fidgety and fussy.  I left the bottle on the coffee table and took Chloe back to her room.  I changed her on the table and then I held her and sang “Hallelujah” by Leonard Cohen.  When I was done, she was still awake with eyes wide open.  I told her that I really loved her and that I was putting her to bed.  I let her know that I really hoped that it wasn’t so difficult a night for her.  I put her face down in the corner of the crib with her pig blanket and closed the door behind me.  The clock read 6:21.  She began crying around a minute and a half after I left.  And went through cycles of more and less crying.  Some real screams and some just burbling.  The sounds of cheering are coming in through the window in the living room.  I can feel a breeze at my feet but my shoulders are sweating, and I can’t tell if I am woozy from the pizza at lunch or if I am just nervous that this will last a long time.  Each time she quiets for a minute, I think that we have won the day.  That this whole sleep training thing is unnecessary because our daughter, who is mostly perfect in all other ways, has been putting us on this whole time.  A joke.  A repetitive and loud joke at all hours of the night.  But these are small lulls.  Calms before storms, and the more excited I get in the quiet patches the more my stomach aches when she screams again.  Although, when she is quiet I will be worried that she is no longer breathing.  So is life for a first-time dad, I guess.  I am about to open a bottle of wine.  I love you.

Night Two

Shira,

It is Night Two of this journey called sleep training and our daughter is still not so into sleeping.  We read books, we danced and we laughed.  Then it was time for her to go into her crib and for me to leave.  I feel badly, because there are a couple of minutes before the crying starts where I imagine her thinking, “what a lovely rendition of Hallelujah my dad just sang to me, and then he told me he loved me so much, how sweet.”  Then, by the time I have made it to the kitchen to pour my first glass of wine, she realizes that she fell for it again, and she begins to weep.  In that moment, I am sure that the tears are fueled by her confusion and anger at a father who would sing so tenderly and then immediately abandon.  She doesn’t even know that I am just down the hall while she wails, indulging my twin vices of red wine and Law and Order SVU.  She played the bottle game again, and I think that it has something to do with the nipple letting the milk out too fast or with her sucking harder than she can swallow.  At least that is what the evidence (her coughing when I tried holding the bottle in there – only done once, stop your worrying) would suggest.  And another thing, she blasted such loud and forceful farts into my arm while I was holding her that I stopped feeding her to change her twice, both times to find that I had been mostly duped.  I think that when she can put herself down and we can regulate the time and amount she eats, it will be better for both of you.  She went down at 6:32.  We are at the twelve-minute mark and she has started with the periods of quiet again.  I would settle for more crying on the front end in exchange for her not waking up so soon after she is done.  Letting the most amazing person you have ever laid eyes on scream as if she is being beaten in the next room once, dayenu.  Getting the privilege, for longer, thirty minutes later, dayenu. 

Night Three

Shira,

This is different. I have not been relaxing the whole day and saving up my reserves to deal with this unfun task. I have left the office, with a stomachache and a case of mild annoyance, and now, the prospect of sitting and listening to the tears is even less appealing than ever. There are both positives and negatives at this point. She wasn’t feeling the bottle. Maybe it was the late feed you gave her, maybe she was pissed off because she felt herself on a slippery road towards being alone in her crib, but she was snippy and fussy throughout the feeding. Where she usually pushes the bottle away and stares at me, this time she would push the bottle away and cry a little. She took in just over an ounce before she refused to take any more. So, I sang her our song, bounced a little as I sang and patted her back to try to get the burps out. And when the song was done I turned her toward me and looked her in the eye and told her the things I was feeling. “I love you, I said.” “I hope that you go to sleep easily and that you do not have a difficult time in here,” I continued. I finished with, “I’m sorry.” That she seemed to understand. She gave me what can only be described as a look of disappointment, and when I put her in her crib she rolled onto her side and shot me one last nostril-flared look of condemnation before she started to cry. She didn’t let me get out of the room with the hope that this might be her day where she just goes down. She let me know immediately, “Dad, you have double crossed me for the last time.” In good news, the tenor of her screaming is less emphatic than in previous nights. Her quiet moments have been more frequent. I would have to say that I think this is an improvement (slight). We will see what the rest of the night holds for us. She went down at 6:34 PM.

I love you,

Jordan

Night Four

This is the chosen equivalent of Groundhog’s Day.  Here I am with my wine writing you an email while Little Goose wails in the background.  A bunny doesn’t quack.  That would be funny.  Good night old woman whispering, “Hush.”  Feed.  Hallelujah.  I keep waiting for Ned Needleman to come around the corner.  I keep telling her, “you’ve got this.”  She keeps looking at me like she is not sure.  She sure sounds unsure.  I will continue to drink.  I may pour the wine in my ears.  On the up side, I really belted it out tonight.  I think I thought I was Leonard Cohen himself in there.  I was FEELING that song, and before I knew it I was arranging the song hitting some pretty aggressive notes.  Hallelujah.  Oh, hallelujah.  Chloe and my bottle time were pretty comical tonight.  She had the same bug up her ass as last night, but I would not be denied.  One position wasn’t working, we tried another.  This room sucks, let’s try in there.  Her head turned this way.  Her head turned that.  Oh, she drank most of the 3 ounces (that being said, there is good reason to believe that she will need another bath tomorrow.  Every time she decided to pull the bottle away, a thin sheet of milk spilled over her lip and down her chin.  Also, some in her hair, but no matter), but she would stop feeding and cry a little and then when she stopped I showed her the nipple and she let me put it back in her mouth.  Suck, suck, suck, reject, cry, repeat.  And so on.  Wait a minute…  sweet silence.  11 minutes.  She went down at 6:35.  The cacophony died down at 6:46.

Too early to get hopes up too far.

I love you.

Night Five

I am expecting big things after last night.  Did you see that?  I just set myself up for disappointment.  I know better than anyone that expectations are a fool’s game.  I once got a fortune cookie that said, “Expect nothing and you will never be disappointed.”  But here I am.  I expect her to cry less than last night for sure, but I really want her back to how it was when she was on a linear progression towards being okay with sleeping.  The bottle went really well, and from what you say about how much she ate today, she is stuffed like a sausage.  She should be happy, right?  I would be happy.  Anyone would.  I think the only person who wouldn’t flinch if I told them that I was putting away a half bottle of wine a night would be my mother.  Wait… quiet.  Ten minutes.  Could it be?  I will check.  Two things I just learned.  Our Goose is insistent on being awake.  She is scooting all over the place in her crib, head up, butt up, scoot.  She is not really crying though, which is good.  The other is that I am incapable of a soft step.  I know people much larger than me who execute their ordinary steps with not so much as a floorboard creak.  My steps bend wood until it shrieks, and I have lost weight.  She is still at it.  She actually smiled at me when I went in which is nice, because I am pretty sure it means that she doesn’t hate me for doing this to her, but it also seemed like she was pretty awake.  I don’t get the feeling that this will be a short night.  Shit.  Patience.  Right.

I love you,

Jordan

Night 1000 (Really Night 10)

She knows that the song leads to the crib, so as I sing she tries to escape over the side of my arm.  She doesn’t try very hard.  I don’t think she has the energy to really make a go of the escape.  I don’t think she is aware enough to understand that my arms are the only thing between her and the floor.  That theory was bolstered by her leap off the bed the other day.  So I sing while she cries.  Not the truly strained screams of betrayal that push out from under her door once I have left the room and shut the door behind me, but a more resigned, “Oh, this again?” type crying that makes me wish there were fewer verses, or that I had a better and more soothing voice.  This has to get better.  Right?  I mean she is crying as aggressively as Night One.  For sure.  So…it continues to beg the question, will she get this?  I think I would be satisfied if the tenor of the crying were less desperate and accusatory.  I checked, there is not glass in there, no hot coals, no snakes.  Someday she will understand the word “perspective.”  I assume I will have to explain it over her first heartache – some boy with a thin mustache and the keys to his father’s car.  I will fight through the enormity of her sadness, filling up her room and spilling into the hall, and I will tell her that there are better times around the corner, and that this guy, this clumsy, stupid boy who accidentally kicked my little girl’s heart, is destined to die alone.  He will almost certainly develop a limp from an accident designed by G-d to show him that he fucked with the wrong girl, and she, princess that she is, can rest easily knowing that happiness is hers to claim.  I will tell her to have a little perspective, to raise her line of vision past today and look more toward what is on the horizon.  I will tell her a story about Night 10, when I had to listen to her screaming in the next room, and that when it seemed like it would never end, and when I had to fend off the competing urges of putting on headphones to drown her out and sweeping her up out of her crib and rescuing her like a fireman, when I was angry and watching the clock hands executing painfully slow circles, that I remembered the sweaty impression her head made on my shirt as she napped in the space between my arm and my side earlier that day, and in that moment I knew that not only would she eventually figure it out, but that until then I would still love her completely.    

I love you.  We have an amazing daughter.  Soon, she will sleep.

Night Eleven

At some point it will not be training anymore, it will just be sleep.  I cannot wait for sleep: Night One.  For TRAINED.  It will be so freeing to be able to give her her bottle without knowing what comes next.  It will be a new day when she hears the song and goes slack in my arms.  When she allows me to gently guide her into her crib and then slides to her preferred position when she feels the mattress beneath her.  She will take her pig blanket in her arm, put her thumb in her mouth and without anger or difficulty, she will let sleep embrace her.  She will seek it out.  She will know it by feel and she will place herself in sleep’s gentle arms whenever she is ready.  May this be the hardest lesson she has to learn.  I do not know why but I feel like we are close.  I feel hopeful that she will get this in the next couple of days or week.  I feel like she is catching on.  Her cries have been much much quieter tonight, so quiet that I have allowed myself to believe that she has fallen asleep twice already.  Wrong both times, but also quiet both times for prolonged periods.

I am tired tonight so I will be brief.  I love you.

Night Twelve

She did it.  I am sitting in the living room, weeping.  My shirt is a war zone, a mix of drool and tears, hers, and mine but in the end we did it – she did it.  13 minutes, no crying.  And now I am having a hard time getting a hold of myself.  I think that I numb myself a lot, let my mind flutter off or get lost in the duh duh duh of Law and Order so that I won’t think about the fact that Chloe needs me and that I could stop her crying by just picking her up.  It was really hard to do this with her.  I knew it was but I don’t think I let myself feel how much I hated letting her cry.  I know that it may not be all done.  I know there will be setback, teething and sickness and assorted other distractions.  But I watched her do something incredible tonight, and I think I could feel it before it happened, because I stood in the doorway the whole time.  I cracked the door just a bit and I watched her the whole time.  She cried a little during the song, but mostly she put her head on my shoulder and sucked my shirt.  At the last verse, she got a little restless.  I sang the final Hallelujahs as I lowered her into the crib.  I told her I loved her so much, and I wanted her to go to sleep easily tonight, to not fight it.  She whined a little at first when I closed the door most of the way and waited.  She rolled around the crib, sucking on her pig for a while, at one point getting on all fours and rocking back and forth over it.  She went from one end of the crib to the other, but she was silent for 9 minutes.  Then she started making noises, whines and grunts, little shouts.  And then she stopped.  Her head went down, then up again, just for a second and then down.  I knew it was done but I waited.  One, two minutes.  No movement except for the rise and fall of her back on the exhales.  And then I started to cry.  The beautiful silence.  The echoing absence of tears.  She wrestled with the sleep but she didn’t fight it.  She danced with it, apprehensively at first, but then she relaxed and let herself be taken by the heaviness of it, the weight of her tiredness.

I know it may not be like this tomorrow, but today I will celebrate.  I love her so much and I think she is totally incredible.

And, I love you.

Mama on a Soapbox

By: Tanya Dodd-Hise

So I may have mentioned this previously, but it annoys the hell out of me that I have to adopt my daughter.  Yes, it makes me want to run, kicking and screaming at the top of my lungs, about the unfairness of it all.  Well, when it comes right down to it, it pisses me off in a way that I don’t think many things have.  Every time I think about when a hetero couple has a baby, the father’s parentage is automatically assumed, solely on the word of the birth mother saying that yes, this dude is the baby daddy.  The dude doesn’t have to go through the process of having to adopt the kid, just because he didn’t birth it – so why should I???  Because our relationship and our family is dictated by a government full of assholes who SAY that they want smaller government, yet have to keep their fingers in countless people’s lives, marriages, and families.

It’s very hard to be part of an openly gay marriage, as well as be the non-biological mother to our child, when living in a conservative, Southern state.  It’s hard to hear, over and over for years and years, that my marriage isn’t real or legitimate or legal (all three of which it completely IS).  It’s hard to know that people look down their noses at us when we’re all together, disgusted by all of our same-sexness.  It’s hard to be out in public during the day with the baby, and have people assume that I am her aunt or baby sitter, because I can’t possibly be her mother, given the way that I look.  It’s really hard to sit back and watch hypocrites run for office who are SO against marriage equality, yet have in their own history adultery and divorce…multiple times!

In the very near future, I will have to shell out the money for my BFF (aka attorney) to file a petition to the state asking permission to adopt my sweet baby girl.  After that, I will have to shell out even more money (of which I will have to put aside, since it’s not just lying around) to a social worker.  This is my favorite part.  The social worker will come to our house to complete a Home Study – she will examine our home, interrogate me, Erikka, both of us together, and maybe even Noah.  She will decide whether or not she thinks that I should be allowed to adopt Harrison.  If she says she doesn’t think that I should, then what happens?  Well, the adoption won’t happen, but nothing else.  I will still continue to live here and always be her mama, but without those legal protections.  If she says that she thinks it will be okay, I think we then proceed to going to court to stand before a judge.  At that time, then HE or SHE will decide whether or not they think I should be allowed to adopt my own daughter.  Here is where it all comes down to it.  If the judge says no, that’s it, I’m screwed.  IF my adoption request is denied, there is no opportunity to try it again.  That’s it.  I could get all of the recommendation letters in the world, and if we don’t get the right judge, it could all be for nothing.

And THIS, my friends, is why I am pissed off.

There is no question whatsoever, or at least there shouldn’t be, as to whether this little girl is mine.  She has been mine, along with Erikka’s, since the moment that I watched the doctor perform the intra-uterine insemination.  Since the moment we laid the cell phone on the bed, speakerphone on, as the nurse told us that the blood test was positive.  I went to all of the doctor’s appointments, saw all of the sonograms, shopped, worried over her and Erikka’s health, changed my diet along with Erikka, painted, and helped build her little Dr. Seuss world in her nursery to prepare for her arrival.  I got to meet her before anyone else, and I took care of her while her other mommy was recuperating after the birth. 

I have bathed her, clothed her, fed her, changed her, sung to her, and rocked her to sleep.  Beyond all of these things or none of these things, I have loved her.  Because she is MY daughter.  I shouldn’t have to prove this, to a social worker or to a judge, just to have the legal protections that I rightfully should.

We need a change in this country, in this state.  We need a LOT of change.  The government needs to stop being such a puss and make the declaration that they have a hell of a lot more to worry about than same-sex couples marrying or having families.  They need to grow a spine and make the decision that they are going to stay out of it, and they are going to cease allowing any of us to vote on anyone else’s equality.  Sigh.  Sounds good, huh?  Too bad it is unlikely to happen.

Soapbox empty now.

A Day in the Life of a Deviant Married Lesbian Mommy

By: Tanya Dodd-Hise

So in watching all of the craptastic Republican jargon being thrown around over the past many weeks and months, I thought that perhaps I should take a good, hard look at this life that I’m leading and the family of which I am part.  Some of the candidates have declared that they wanted for marriage to be just like it is in the Constitution – I swear to God they’ve said it!  To this I constantly will yell at the TV or internet, “I’ve read the original Constitution several times and it says NOT ONE WORD about marriage in it!!!!”  Others have talked about homosexuals being deviants, unnatural, something that makes God “sad.”  Oh no.  I had no idea.  Again I decided that I might ought to take a look at my apparently deviant life.  So here it is.  A day in the life of a deviant married lesbian mommy.

7:15 AM – Alarm goes off; snooze gets hit.

7:25 AM – Alarm goes off again.  Snooze may very well get hit again.

7:35 AM – Alarm goes off again.  OK I’m up; gotta get Noah up for school.  Praying that baby girl Harrison stays asleep long enough for me to get him out the door.

7:45 AM – Make sure that Noah gets breakfast, gets dressed in matching clothes, homework in backpack, and teeth brushed.

8:15 AM – Noah out the door to awaiting ride.  I make a bottle for Harrison and wait for her to wake up, if she hasn’t already.

8:30 to 9:00 AM – Change Harrison’s diaper.  Feed Harrison.  Burp Harrison.  Get puked on by Harrison.

10:00 AM – Put Harrison down for morning nap.  Maybe I will lie down and nap with her, too.  Maybe I will have some coffee.  Maybe I will throw some laundry in.  I might even shower.

11:30 AM – Harrison usually wakes up.  Changer her diaper again and give her meds.  We play for a bit.  If we have somewhere to go, she will go in her bouncer in the bathroom while I shower.  If staying in, we move to the den where she might play in her bouncer or swing.

12:00 to 12:30 PM – Feed Harrison.  Burp Harrison.  Get puked on by Harrison.  Play with Harrison a bit more, and hope that she gets tired so that I can maybe eat some lunch.

2:00 to 4:00 PM – Hope that somewhere during this two-hour timeframe that Harrison will take a nap.  During this time I might clean one day, do laundry another day, edit photos another day.

4:00 PM – Noah gets out of school; goes to the band hall to practice his instrument for thirty minutes.  Some days I will take Harrison in the stroller to the walking track and we will walk a few miles – she usually naps during this venture out.

4:30 PM – Pickup Noah and Dee from school if it is rainy or too cold; otherwise they will walk home.

4:45 PM – Noah and Dee home from school; gotta find them a snack and get them at the dining room table doing homework.  Now I need to figure out what we’re going to have for dinner.

5:30 PM – Start dinner.  Have Noah unload the dishwasher and sometimes take out the trash and recycling.  Erikka usually comes home from work around this time, where she takes over with Harrison (with a bottle by now) so I can finish making dinner.

6:30 PM – Michelle picks up Dee for the evening.  We have dinner…hopefully.  Harrison will usually swing while we eat.  Sometimes, on rare occasions now, we might go out to eat for dinner.  I know, settle down – it’s a thrill a minute around here!

7:00 to 8:00 PM – Family time, usually hanging out in the den.  Harrison might nap and also get her evening meds.  We might catch up on some DVR’d programs.  Noah sometimes hangs out and watches TV with us, or plays in his room.

8:00 PM – Noah in the shower.

8:30 PM – Make sure that Noah does his reading, at least thirty minutes.  Harrison will probably have another bottle between now and 9:30 PM.

9:00 PM – Noah in bed with teeth brushed and headgear on.

10:00 to 10:30 PM – Bath time for Harrison.  Both mommies participate in this – she’s a slippery little booger.

After bath, Erikka takes her into the nursery to dry her, lotion her up, put her in jimmies, and play with her on her floor mat – tummy time!

10:30 to 11:00 PM – I assume my position in the nursery recliner/rocker, and proceed to rock baby girl to sleep for the night.

11:30 PM – I usually hope to get into bed by now.  Erikka is already there, and often already asleep.  I might watch TV for thirty minutes or so.

12:00 AM – Usually lights out and TV off.  Only a few more hours before the alarm goes off and we do it all over again.

So there it is.  I know it’s crazy and offensive to a LOT of conservative Americans.  I know that my family doesn’t deserve to have the same rights and privileges as all of our hetero counterparts…I understand.  When you live such an outlandish lifestyle like we do, then the government has to take it upon itself to step in and make decisions for all of us.

Yeah.  Right.

Next Page »