A Tale of Two Mamas
Trying to keep someone IN timeout
Archive for September, 2005
September 25, 2005 at 4:43 pm · Filed under Milestones
This past Thursday, Graem started saying “Ba-bye” when she waves! I also think she’s saying “Hi kitty” when she sees the cats or the dog, but I’m sure they’re just auditory hallucinations.
Graem came to work for a little while on Friday, and she did quite well. I have an old keyboard that she types on, her Fisher Price fishbowl, and a bunch of plastic cores from our plotter paper. She loves crawling at the office because there’s so much space.
She’s been somewhat grumpy this weekend, but we think it’s due to the three teeth she’s getting in on the top. Graem is also very protective of her new teeth, we have to hang her upside down and make her laugh to see them!
Hand in hand with the new teeth has been a new level of biting during nursing–she’s bitten me a few times this weekend, enough to bring tears to my eyes. I’m still planning to nurse her til a year, but these teeth are making it hard! And I generally tell her “No!” and quickly stop, but I don’t think it really helps when the reason she’s biting is that her teeth are coming in. I just hope she doesn’t bite a nipple off…
September 18, 2005 at 4:46 pm · Filed under Uncategorized
Graem is waving “hi” and “bye”!
Shawna’s been working with Graem over the past couple of days to kiss, wave “hi” and “bye” and to blow kisses. Well she’s finally waving! It’s so exciting and sometimes she actually bends her arm wrong and it looks like she’s waving to herself. I’m not sure she notices the significance of waving yet but she’s having a great time doing it. She even did it tonight when she was trying to fall asleep. Practice makes perfect!!
She is also crawling as fast as we can walk, and stands up at every opportunity. She will pull herself up and laugh and clap at her achievement!
She’ll stand for about 30 seconds at a time and then gets tired and either plop to the floor or lower herself down.
This week was a tough week for me, as I had two late night meetings in a row, and early hours at the office. While I’m at the meetings, all I can do is worry about whether she’s happy, and whether she falls asleep okay. And then I get home and everything’s gone fine. I miss her so much when I’m gone. I have a conference coming up in a couple of weeks, and as excited as I am to go, I’m dreading being away from Graem for so long–it’ll be the longest I’ve been away from her. I wake up early with anxiety about how I’m going to pump, and whether she’ll have enough frozen milk to keep her going. Of course I know she’ll be fine, but I worry that Shawna will be exhausted from three days of uninterrupted, undivided attention. Laura & Lydia will be helping us out, thankfully. And I know I will have to do some reciprocal duties on my return! I already miss her.
September 7, 2005 at 9:11 pm · Filed under Uncategorized
So Graem’s sick again, we’re all bummed about it. She has a runny nose, and was up half the night last night because she couldn’t sleep. I just keep thinking, Okay, it’ll be over soon. We tried booger-bulbing her at 1 AM, but it just makes her cry and creates more boogers. I had to prop her up on my chest so that she could be upright and her head would drain. She seems to be in good spirits during the day.
We discovered the playground at the Trumansburg school last night, and Graem played on the swings for the first time. She giggled until she got the hiccups.
Today Shawna took Graem to the library. Usually Shawna just plops Graem on the floor and lets her have free range of the library. Tomorrow there’s story time, so hopefully Graem will make it through–it’s at 10:30 AM, which is prime nap time.
I’ve been slowly spending more and more time at work, and I’m pretty ambivalent about it. Every day I count the hours and minutes that I have to spend with Graem (awake), and I’m sad that I spend 8+ hours at work. But I feel like my time is up, and I need to carry more of my load. The hard part of it is that my job requires evening meetings, and others have been picking up my slack so that I don’t have to go–and I feel like I should be going these days. I guess I should be thankful.
September 7, 2005 at 6:45 am · Filed under Uncategorized
I lie in bed most mornings and worry about something. This morning I started thinking about death and taxes, which made me angry at all the inequalities that my family has to face because we’re a gay family. Dress me up in khakis and call me a Republican, but most of my issues are financial ones–I see it as a form of taxation without representation, and the creation (or perpetuation) of second class citizenry.
First off, Shawna and I have come to the conclusion that Shawna’s staying home to raise Graem, as well as our future second child, is the best thing we could provide our family. Isn’t that a “family value”? Then it’s ironic that I can’t easily obtain health insurance for Shawna because she isn’t “family.” And, you all should know, it isn’t due to discriminatory practices on the part of my employer–they would prefer to be able to provide access to it. However, it is the discriminatory practice of our insurance provider, Excellus Blue Cross-Blue Shield of Central New York, to disallow coverage of same-sex partners for businesses under 50 employees.
In the same vein, I’m realizing that since I’m the sole income-generator at this point, the most prudent thing I can do to protect my family is to increase my life insurance coverage. However, I’m guessing that since Shawna is my primary beneficiary, and she is not my legal spouse, she would be taxed out the wazoo for receiving any benefits. I’m sure that there’s a way around this, like setting up a trust for Graem and having Shawna be the executor, but why all the hoops? The last thing I would want to do is die and finance another Republican government.
The same goes for Social Security benefits. I imagine that by the time I die, the benefits will only be $2 anyway, but if I understand correctly, only Graem can receive benefits because she is a blood relative. If Shawna were my legal spouse, I believe that both she and my children would receive equal benefits–and $2 is still $2.
It is extremely frustrating that we aren’t recognized as a family in the eyes of either the state or the federal government, but when calculating any income-based services, my income is included as a member of the household.
Frankly, I have no need to walk down an aisle, pick out bridesmaids’ dresses, or order invitations. I can do that anyway, and it all would seem like a big joke, because none of the important protections (i.e., financial and legal ones) would transpire.
I’m not even going to talk about the healthcare/end of life issues, because those are easily solved with a file cabinet of paperwork and a wad of cash paid to your local gay-friendly attorney.
It’s funny to talk about this with straight friends and family, because most of them ask me, “Oh, I thought you guys could already get married.” I guess when you are in the majority and your rights are protected, it’s easy to forget about the underrepresented. I think it is also a fault of the gay community’s outreach, in that there would be many straight allies out there, they just have no idea. Now if we could only get the majority in this country to think beyond the Republican agenda of “moral values.”
Lastly, gay families already exist, and they always will. Hopefully, there will be more and more of us, so we can become a louder and more unified voice and the bigots that write the laws will have to listen.
September 5, 2005 at 6:52 am · Filed under Uncategorized
Every morning I wake up and wonder if the situation in New Orleans has gotten any better. I think being a mom has changed my outlook on such tragedy. I’ve always been compassionate, but seeing the news and watching children suffer, and seeing their mothers having to cope with the inability to protect and provide for their children breaks my heart. I can’t imagine having to be in that situation, and I wonder, would I put Graem on a bus alone and sacrifice myself in order that she survive? How would I know that she was being taken care of, let alone loved?
Anyway, I know I’m becoming news-obsessed. I was talking to my coworker Bret about it, and he said that he and his girlfriend watch one of the panda cams to ease the depression. Here’s a couple that I’ve been watching:
http://www.sandiegozoo.org/zoo/ex_panda_station.html
http://nationalzoo.si.edu/Animals/GiantPandas/
If you haven’t already, please consider donating to the American Red Cross: http://www.redcross.org. Thanks!
