Motherhood Uncensored

Why my kids will be wearing the Old Navy Gay Pride shirts

The new Old Navy gay pride shirts caused quite a stir last week and I've been searching for them since their supposed launch date (yesterday), but have yet to see them listed on their site.

If you haven't seen the new Love Proudly line, they're pretty cute rainbow shirts for kids and adults, with 10% of the proceeds going to support the It Gets Better Project.

The opinions about the shirts that I've seen have been pretty supportive, save the few comments that subtly disapprove of the LGBT community. My favorites, though, are how it's inappropriate as parents to use our kids to further our political agendas by wearing a rainbow shirt. 

But really, what kids aren't part of furthering their parents' own beliefs?

It's no different than when they wear a cross necklace or ride in a car with a fish on it.

And it's not just religion.

It's all the lessons, values, and morals that we think are important that we proselytize to our children.

It's called "parenting."

And in my world, it's impossible to separate politics from parenting. We make the best choices we can for our kids based on our own experiences.

Sometimes we just make choices - like Tiger Mom. Or Genderless Children Mom.

We might discover that our choices are wrong completely or that they might just be wrong for them. It'll be up to our kids to decide, experience the world, and form their own opinions.

And hate us for the rest of their lives.

But I'm their mother, which means it's my job to educate them about why we choose what we do for our family.

After spending years trying to explain why other people believe in certain things, hoping to give my kids a veritable buffet of choices, let's say for religion, for example, I've realized that it's okay, even healthy, to have a strong belief system in one thing and not another.

It's okay to say "this is what our family values" and in the next breath "and other families might not value the same thing."

And "Boy are they idiots."

(Ha).

Putting the Old Navy rainbow shirt on my kids is my choice. It's something that I believe in.

I see this as a teaching moment - an opportunity to begin what will be a lifelong discussion about differences and acceptance.

And I'm more than happy to explain why I think these shirts are cool, as well as why my girls will never be wearing the "Looking for my Prince Charming" shirt on the next rack over.

The Margot Inteview Series - Video #2

Margot provides a helpful make-up tutorial. Thankfully, it only involves lip gloss.

I dreamed a dream.

Lately, I've become acutely aware that Bridget is my last baby.

Overnight she went from little blob to full fledged being, with the nerve to start pulling up on whatever she can balance with.

Steady or not, here she comes.

She somehow gets to her feet after crawling wildly around the floor, putting food, toy, and tissue paper, in her mouth.

Too busy to nurse or even let me hold her unless she's asleep.

As much as my tough labor and challenging baby made me say I'd never do it again, all it took was an easy labor, guest bed or not, and a happy baby for me to wish that it would ever end.

The coos and giggles. The innocent bliss.  They're a veritable fountain of youth. And I want to bathe in it. Drink it up.

Her cheeks. Her constant smile.

Her two tiny teeth that will soon be joined by a mouthful. 

As much as I hated babydom seven years ago, I love it.

Quinlan will be seven this summer. Drew is four. Margot is two. And a half.

The only solid memory I have left as them as babies is here on this blog. In a bunch of scattered pictures and digital photos on cds and flash drives. My journaled scrawlings of their milestones - most of Quinlan's, some of Drew's, none of Margot's.

And in Bridget.

I remember them through her.

As she grows up, the baby memories wane. Her milestones are their milestones, fresh in my mind for just a little bit longer, until they are all but gone, prompted only by a photograph. A video stuffed deep in a cabinet.

A sweet or funny story that I've written here.

And in other babies that aren't mine.

I don't mourn Bridget's babydom as much as I mourn those precious moments from all my children, four babydoms slowly disappearing right before my very eyes, turning from reality into a memory that I'm barely grasping at now.

What will it become in a year? In five years?

I know, I know. The best is yet to come.

A small consolation for growing old.

But whoever said that didn't have a baby.

This baby

And three other little children soon leaving childhood, and their mother, behind. Left to wonder if all this really did happen. Or if it was just a dream.

A glorious, miraculous dream.

The joys of raising a creative child

If you've got a crafty, creative kid in the house, then you know how hard it can be to throw shit away. She has no qualms going through the recycle bin or the trash can to find whatever she needs to make whatever the hell she is making.

And if she doesn't have a pressing need for something, she'll tell me "Don't worry, Mom! I'll find some way to use it!" which means I will find it or some part of it taped to an empty milk carton with an entire roll of packing tape.

I do put my foot down to formerly edible items, but for the most part, I end up giving in once she explains what sort of fabulous invention she's trying to complete and well if she doesn't have that empty tissue paper box then how will she be able to finish her "Namerator" aka "Big box with holes, a nail, and a lot of permanent marker that is sitting on my kitchen table that I'd like to accidentally drop off the back porch."

(Only after taking 15 pictures of it, bragging about it to all my friends, and patenting it).

Just when I'm about to tell her that she may not use the 400 styrofoam peanuts, I picture her first gallery opening where she's describing her unique "trashtastic" work and telling the captive audience about how her mother never let her use the empty toilet paper rolls and water bottles so she had to scavenge the neighborhood trash bin looking for materials.

And since I shall never be accused of not supporting the Arts, I reluctantly save anything that I think she could possibly use that won't pain me to look at for the next month or clean up pieces of and I give them to her. Willingly.

But the trash picking isn't the only issue.

There are the kitchen utensils with writing on them. 

 
I have no idea what it means but it makes me laugh every time I see it.

And there are spots around my house where it looks like a crepe paper bomb went off or the glitter fairy took a giant shit, which isn't so terrible but when combined with whining that ensues when I tell her that she needs to clean up the mess herself makes me want to do like the government and start cutting art programs.

"All by myself?!" she'll exclaim, to which I respond by singing the song, Celene Dion version if you're wondering, and say something like "If you make a mess yourself then you should be able to clean it up yourself" from the mouth that is now apparently attached to my own mother's body.

But my favorite is the one track uber-focused mind that results in post-bathroom break art sessions ala sitting naked at her craft table sifting through a sea of googly eyes. Or worse, forgeting to pack the jelly beans for our family trip last week.

Now I've never given much thought to jelly beans, but that was before I understood their true power: Children will do many things for them, including going potty and shutting the hell up on a plane.

So imagine my chagrin when my slightly antsy middle children requested access to the Jelly Belly buffet and found no such thing.

A whole bag of precious silence and eager potty breaks gone.

I glared over at Quinlan who was supposed to have put them in her backpack. It seems that when I told her to take the bag of jelly beans and put them by her bag so we don't forget them she heard me tell her to put them down wherever so she could finish making a weather vane out of some printer paper, yarn, and a wire hanger.

Alas, no jelly beans to be found, but in their place,  something even more entertaining, at least for me, anyway:

Perhaps she did, in fact, pack food!

Not sure if carrots will beat jelly beans, but worth a try.

 
Except they're not real carrots, but rather a carrot made from crepe paper, clear packing tape, and yarn. The bags of shredded paper you ask? Why CARROT TOPPINGS, of course!

Treats for humans? Not so much. But so glad her stuffed bunny was taken care of. Phew.

Well, at least her Knuffle Bunny was well behaved for the flight. And we got to come home to a big bag of jelly beans.

Sitting on my printer.

Of course.

What are we fighting for?

Last week, I watched a couple have a heated argument in public. I've seen people fight before, nothing physical, well except the one time two Asian men got into fisticuffs at a Chinese restaurant.

Suddenly everyone was super skilled with their chopsticks, slurping down noodles faster than you could say "Pass the low sodium soy sauce."

With couples, it's usually some verbal sparring loud enough so the people around them could feel incredibly uncomfortable, scanning the room for the nearest exit and hoping that they just leave already because OMG it's just so freaking awkward.

But this time they had kids with them. Three girls, elementary and middle school aged, just standing there while the two of them yelled and pointed, not really looking up or around at anything.

Oddly unaffected.

Then late last week, David Pogue and his wife were arrested for a domestic dispute that ended up getting a bit violent (allegedly, that is), over custody issues.

And apparently the kids were there while iPhones where thrown. Or arms were bitten. Or whatever actually happened.

I'm hardly one to be pointing fingers.

On the contrary, both of these incidents gave me great pause about how I fight with my own husband. And if watching someone else fight was as shocking to me, a complete stranger, I can only imagine how upsetting it might be for my kids to see it.

Actually, I can only hope that it is upsetting for them. To me, horror is better than complacency from regularity.

Putting a cork on my emotions can be pretty challenging, particularly when you pile on hormones, sleep deprivation, and two people who often butt heads for reasons too long to name. But we've both been pretty diligent about this for awhile now, a commitment that we both made with each other knowing that it was just an absolute no way not going there absolutely not.

There are still the random screaming breakdowns, which usually entail me yelling in frustration and running up to my room to clear my head with a hot shower and some Real Housewives, followed by an apology in front of the kids, explaining that yes, indeed, I do lose my cool. I do make bad choices.

And I do still require a time out sometimes.

But after seeing the couple battle it out with their kids, our decision was affirmed. And I realize even more now than ever that good parenting goes way beyond your interactions with your kids. It has almost as much to do with how you interact with each other.