the OTHER mother

It's BlogDay, or so I'm Told!

According to my sources, today, August 31, is officially BlogDay.  The purpose is help us move beyond the blogs we already know and love and find a few new ones.  Anyone can play.  If you don't have a blog, feel free to list your fab five as comments below.  Here are the official rules:

1. Find 5 new Blogs that you find interesting
2. Notify the 5 bloggers that you are recommending them as part of BlogDay 2007
3. Write a short description of the Blogs and place a link to the recommended Blogs
4. Post the BlogDay Post (on August 31st) and
5. Add the BlogDay tag

So without further adieu, here are five blogs that I've discovered recently:

Post Punk Kitchen

I just started reading Isa Chandra Moskowitz's Veganism with a Vengeance this week. Who knew veganism could be so hip, so now, so fun?  PPK is her website.

The Bamboo Project

Michele Martin offers up ideas and conversation about the issues that nonprofit leaders like myself think about a lot.  Topics include technology, professional development, and marketing.  She manages to keep it very human, very real.

Hahn at Home

Lori cracks me up. Somehow I felt that she and I were friends the first time I read her blog.

LesbianDad

Okay I'm cheating.  This blog is not new to me at all, but I am continually so impressed, interested, and inspired by what Polly has to say, that I snuck it into my list.  Rules are for breaking, right?

ZenHabits

For me, this blog is analogous to magazines you might read in the doctor's waiting room or on the exercise bike, but I find it reassuring.  True Confession!

That's my five.  Choosing them was harder than I expected!

Over at Big Window, I'm going to try to choose 5 favorite photoblogs, if you're interested.  Happy Labor Day weekend!

Home

Pearl is a real homebody kind of girl.  She loves her home.  She says that explicitly and often.  In the stories that she makes up, the worst fate possible for any character is (1) to get separated from parents, and (2) to lose a home. 

Pearl is feeling anxious about starting school next week, even though she will return to the same school, same teachers, and her best friend Alex will be there with her.  I was like that as a child.  What am I saying?  I am STILL like that.

Pizza

Some folks think Carrie is a serious child, but we know better.

Carrie Gets Set

Tuesday Carrie returned to nursery school. She was excited about her first day back.  Pearl has one week left of summer vacation.

Getting Carrie ready required efforts from the whole family.  She needed different supplies because she's in the toddler classroom now. She has no interest in choosing her own clothes, but she insisted on the exact shoes that she would wear.

Carrie's teacher and her best friend (Max, but she calls him MACK) moved up with her.  This has made her transition nearly invisible.

One of my strongest memories from the my childhood first days of school revolves around book satchels.  Does anyone else remember the poor outdated book satchel? Way before backpacks or these new things on wheels?  I spent a long time each year considering the book satchels and making sure that I selected the one that represented what would surely be the NEW me.  Because I always sensed  a newer me in the near future.

I couldn't find a picture of the bag that I remember on Google images, believe it or not.  The book satchel may well reside in defunct object heaven right beside the 8 track tape player. 

Defunct object heaven--sounds like a fun field trip, doesn't it?

Lesbian Moms Go Wild

Please forgive me for the exaggeration in the headline.  Posting it fulfilled a deep psychological need that some of you might understand.

I will try to explain.

Lately Marcia and I feel like we are coming out of the baby-raising fog. We have made a million sacrifices without complaint. Having children was a choice that we made knowing that we'd be giving up a great deal of freedom.  We have had no regrets about it.

However.

Things are getting more manageable now.  We're able to call more of the shots.  Not all the shots, but still.

We are thinking: maybe it's time to think about us.

On Sunday afternoon, for example, at the last minute we arranged for a babysitter and went out for 3 hours all by ourselves. Three hours!  This is the "wild" of the headline--should I apologize once more?

But it was nice to just look at each other's faces and talk for a while.  We must do more of this.

Question of the Day: Surprises

This question comes from the Manic Monday series which I found via Shrike & Wozat. Here it is:

What surprises you most about your life so far?

I'm going to try to answer this too.

Soon.

(picture by mohawk via flickr)

Beach Readiness 101

Like This, Coach?

Pearl "graduated" from her beginner swim class yesterday.  She started the "semester" (9 days ago!) filled with trepidation. There were tears and tremors, but by the last class, she did every single lesson.  She even went down the "big big" slide by herself.  In case you're wondering, Pearl says she's very "powed" of herself.

Reader Survey: What You REALLY Think

Dear Reader, I'm trying to do some DIY improvements around here.  I wonder if you would be willing to provide some feedback about my blog, The Other Mother.  If you don't mind, I'd be interested in learning:

• What do you like best about this blog? (photos, stories about family, stories about LGTB issues, rants, ideas, inspiration, information, links, etc.)
• If you were going to eliminate something from the blog, what would it be?
• Ideally, how do you hope to feel after visiting the site?
• What suggestions would you make to help me improve The Other Mother?

Feel free to leave comments or send your thoughts via email. Thanks in advance, Robin/Baba

Little Picassos

They say that in childhood we were all little Picassos.

This picture is one of Carrie's. She's still mostly interested in making marks on her page, but she has expanded her color repertoire, and she's experimenting with making basic shapes, such as lines, dots, angles, and "o-balls," as she calls the ovals of our universe.

Pearl continues to create intricate "story maps."  She follows the paths with her finger and tells the story by interpreting the images.  She gets very animated and involved with these tales.  Sometimes she actually scares herself.

Within Reach

Our Jojo has taken to spelunking, a fancy word for cave exploration of her own sort.  Her dark, unknown territories lie inside the drawers in the kitchen'  She can barely reach the items contained inside them. Certainly she cannot see what she is grabbing until she's already fished it out.

But these elevated grab bags contain so many wonders, and she comments on each object.

Scotch tape: icky

Flashlight: elp pearl! (she thinks she's Pearl lately; help Pearl means she wants some help turning on the flashlight)

Book of matches: shhhhhhhh

Marble: yum yum yum yum

Clothes pin: snap!

Swimming Fundamentals

Pearl started swim lessons for the first time last week. She says she doesn't like swimming lessons, but she does likes her teacher. She also likes the part of the class in which they pretend to be frogs.  The speckled frogs jump off their log and into the pool.  Stories are the way to this girl's heart, I'm telling you.

Question of the Day: Lotto

Let's say you were given $1,000 with the stipulation that you had to spend it online within the next hour.  What would you do?

Backward Glance

Here are some photos from the Grrrlville archives. Carrie at 18 months and Pearl at 13 months.  What do you think?  Any overall resemblance?

(Sorry about the bad pun--one of those days!)

Farewell, Cosmonauts

Sunday we went to a going-away brunch for our friends Cosmo and Cake.  If you will recall, Cosmo and Carrie are one day apart in age and were born in the same hospital.  They are, at times, accused of being twins.  We will miss these friends.

The party was hosted by Chuck and Hank.  We knew most of the people there.  One of the strange things, though, is how many of the people there have blogs.  Or is it strange?  Do most of your friends blog?

F 2 F

Way before Pearl was born, even before triying to conceive (TTC), Marcia and I joined our local LGBT parenting group.  Initially, our "status" was "wannabee."  We attended a few presentations on topics that were relevant to us.

Time passed.  Our status changed. One kid. Two kids. We remained members, but with two toddlers in tow, who had time to participate in anything?  Anything organized, that is.

But things are (knock on wood) getting a little easier for us, and after our successful romp on the beach last week, we decided to go all out and attend our group's beach party.

We had another great afternoon at Galveston beach.  We even got to meet face-to-face some friends we've made through this blog. Pearl and Carrie were so in love with the water that I barely got to talk to our new pals, but meeting them was definitely one of the high points.

Have you sought and found a parenting group that you enjoy?

Snip City

Houston, the haircuts have landed.

Marcia says that if we want people to know that Carrie's a girl, we'll have to put her in dresses for the next 6 months. 

Luckily we don't care about that.

Open-Ended Questions

This afternoon Marcia took the girls to a yoga class at a studio in our neighborhood. There were only 4 or 5 children and their parents participating.  The mommies followed the teacher's instructions, and the children attended to their own inner teachers, running around on the gorgeous hardwood floors creating interesting echoes.

At the end of the class they always sit down and read a picture book together.  Today the teacher brought in a book about the Northern Lights. Before reading it aloud, she asked if anyone wanted to share "something amazing" that they had seen.

The moms spoke of beautiful clouds and perfect pears and apples.  Pearl said she'd seen something too.  "It was an owl flying in the air.  It was whirling and twirling through the night," she explained. "And then something amazing happened.  Suddenly it changed into--

a light bulb. That's how I knew it was a dream."

Dateline

Every now and then it's good to look back and see where we've been.  Here are some points from our past.

Today: Carrie can say monkey only she pronounces it "Mom-bee"

One year ago today: Carrie gets adopted by Baba

Two years ago today: Pearl's goes all Curls

Three years ago today: Pearl discovers that blocks rock

Impromptu

Before Pearl was born, people told us all kinds of things.  You'll never: eat out, brush your teeth, get a good night's sleep, go to the movies, or do anything spontaneous.  With one child, only some of this turned out to be true.  But...

with a second kiddo added to the mix, everything has been more difficult. Doing anything that requires transportation (which in Houston means almost anything) takes a lot of effort.  Organizing so that we have the sunblock, diapers, water, and so on, takes work for people like us (the organizationally challenged).  But...

this weekend we altered the course of the mighty river of habit.  We made a spur-of-the-moment decision to go to the beach, and we pulled it off!  We tossed a bunch of beachy things into the van.  Couldn't find anyone's swim suit so we skipped that.  Once on the road, we called some friends in Galveston to see if they could meet us for brunch.  They said YES!  We ate omelettes and sandwiches and laughed over our respective vacation tales.  Then we went to play at Stewart Beach.  Galveston may have brownish water and brownish sand, but the sky is a miraculous blue and the clouds, clean and white.  Plus there's free parking!

We only stayed an hour, but Carrie and Pearl loved it.  And Marcia and I feel like a new phase of our lives is just beginning.  Let's go!

It's the Weekend

Marcia's 9 month teaching gig (Saturdays only) ended last week, and this is our first two-day weekend together in quite a while.  To celebrate that and the months we have managed to be vegans, Marcia signed us up for massages. 

This was my first bodywork of any kind in four or five years, and it was trippy for me.  I imagined that the two "babies" from my miscarriages came out of my body for an hour.  They were beautiful, colorful butterflies of light, dancing in the air.  I say "butterflies" only to suggest their way of moving; they were bodiless, rainbowy blips. Then they peaceably returned to me as the massage ended.  It felt very positive and comforting.

The vegan lifestyle still feels extremely new.  We don't have a repertoire of favorite foods.  Once we understand that, it will make a big difference.  I must say, though, that I don't dream of steaks or anything.  Giving up animal products wasn't hard at all.

Have a great Sunday.

Question of the Day

With all the emphasis our society places on elaborate "family" activities that cost money, I found this list of 100 free things to do with kids reassuring.

Carrie is obsessed with books lately and likes to read 8-10 of them at each sitting. Pearl likes to read with us too, but she also enjoys studying the pictures and telling the story to herself.  She tells us that soon she will be reading.  Good to hear.

I find that Marcia and I have different repertoires of things we do with the kids.  What are the favorite activities in your gang these days?