'Nuf Said

Could I feel more tired this morning?

A word of advice to those dedicated to designing good public restrooms.

Supersonic hand dryers like this Dys*n's machine sound pretty much like Beoing 747s taking off, so maybe you could consider installing them as far away from the baby changing stations as possible?

Just a thought. -Monica

P.S. For those of you not familiar with these amazing hand dryers, you'll know what I'm talking about the first time you encounter one. Effective? Absolutely. Loud? Unbelievably!

-M

So sad

Yesterday I worked from home, but decided I needed to run down to my office to get some important papers I wanted to hand deliver to someone at another agency. Once I was done, I got on the Metro and headed home but for some reason I was curious to see some construction that was going on behind our house so I stayed on the Red Line for one extra stop to get a better view. Once I got to Fort Totten I simply got off my outbound train and crossed the platform to catch the inbound train back home.

About an hour or so later I got a CNN alert on my blackberry that there had been a train crash in DC on the Metro. What I saw on TV horrified me. A terrible accident between Fort Totten and Takoma Station. 70+ injuries and at least 9 dead. A train struck an idling train at full speed and the striking train basically ended up on top of the last car of the struck train.

You know, I remember that I was in the first car of the train I was riding yesterday and was thinking about how cool it was that there was a window behind the driver so you could see the driver and the track ahead. I thought how Danny would love it and silently filed away that next time we rode the Metro we'd sit in the first car so he could see everything.

Please keep all of the victims in your thoughts and prayers. Just regular people doing regular stuff. Just like all of us every day. -Monica

P.S. Danny keeps saying "choo choo uh oh" whenever he sees the TV or radio. He's so right.

Baby Goggles

Thank you to all who sent us happy notes and comments regarding the news of Su's pregnancy. We are really excited and, just like last time, I propose at least 7 new baby names every day, and Su vetoes them. But the baby has to have some sort of name so I remain optimistic! Actually we do have a few that we both like. It's funny when you have a kid and realize later that you couldn't imagine him or her with any other name. I think Danny is just right for our number one son. It just fits!

Speaking of Danny, he had a great time this weekend visiting his Pop Pop in Richmond and going to two different birthday parties (happy day Amanda and Oscar!) Tomorrow his Nana will fly back from Europe so he's going to be a pretty happy camper.

I had a thought this weekend being around so many families with children. I was watching the parents watching their kids. Of course a huge part of this watchfulness is safety. Wouldn't want to lose them or let an accident happen right? But there is another part of this watchfulness. It's pure pride in that child. Their beauty, grace, intelligence, elegance, strength...whatever you see. Cuz when that kid is yours, you see it all.

I think it's like we all have "baby goggles". And unlike "beer goggles" we never wake up the next day wondering why we ever thought the object of our admiration was so cute.

Baby goggles. A permanent door prize of parenthood. I submit for your inspection Exhibit A. Have a great day everybody! -Monica

Most Wonderful Time of the Year…

Want to know a secret? Of course you do. Who doesn’t want to know a secret?

Ok. Here’s a hint.

What’s light and sweet and makes Su gain weight?

What’d you guess? Angel food cake? Gelato? Pop Rocks?

Well, technically although all are good answers (and are making me hungry) I have a better answer.

A LITTLE BROTHER OR SISTER FOR DANNY!

Yes, we’ve been holding out. We found out in mid April that Su was pregnant, but decided not to tell a soul until we saw the baby’s heartbeat on ultrasound at 6 weeks.

With a huge sigh of relief we immediately called our parents, and over the past few weeks have shared our happy news with a few friends.

Yesterday after visiting our midwife as we come to the end of the first trimester, and hearing the wonderful “thump, thump, thump” (160 bpm) of the baby’s heart, we decided to break our happy news here.

Su has been feeling pretty good—better then she remembers feeling with Danny. In fact it was getting to the point that we were both wondering if there was really a baby in there at all any more since she’s not showing and been feeling pretty goodl. So yesterday’s heartbeat was very exciting for the both of us.

Yes, this Christmas promises to be a great one. Due date Dec. 24th. Ho, ho, ho!!!

-Monica

Just call me Percy

Oh dear.

I never knew this before we had Danny, but apparently when I'm thinking deeply about something, or puzzled, I purse my lips.

I'd never noticed this before because I generally only look in a mirror to see if my hair is deranged or to see if my shirt is stained with toddler goo. I don't look long enough to see my mannerisms.

Recently though, Danny started pursing his lips. I thought it looked pretty silly so I sort of innocently asked Susanne where she thought he'd picked it up from.

“Oh.”

Puuuurrrrrsssseeeee. He's like a little mirror of me. Only way cuter! -Monica

Don't you ever miss the good old days?

Just to be clear. I'm NOT talking about being nostalgic for those good old days when Danny was a baby. I'm talking missing those good old days when I was a baby! How can it only be 2:00 now? Will my "to do" list ever end? -Monica

Found-one hollow leg

And this hollow leg is a perfect size for a two year old. Yes, Danny has been eating us out of house and home for going on two weeks now. I honesly pondered whether he'd eaten more in the past 14 days than he'd consumed in the past two years. Hmmm....I wonder if we'll see a growth spurt? If so, I figure he'll be about 5'6" tall when he gets home from Jenni's tonight ;-)

Sorry for the break in blogging. I had to go to Chicago for a week for work and Su and Danny joined me there. It was a lot of fun. But now I'm trying to get caught up on a zillion things. Ah life!

Have a great day everyone. I'll blog more when I get a chance tomorrow. Oh, and if you haven't been following the adventures of XBoxforNappy (see the bottom link on our sidebar) he and his wife just found out they are pregnant after more than two years of trying. He's a wonderful writer and will be a wonderful dad. Congrats Xbox. You know you really will need to trade in your Xbox for diapers now right? -Monica

File under the heading "huh?"

For a program I am involved in for work we decided to do a registration with the U.S. Patent and Trademark Office. So we did a lot of paperwork and then one day we got an official letter letting us know that it was now registered.

But here's the funny part. In order to maintain the registration for the full 10 years allowable, we have to file a declaration between the fifth and sixth anniversaries of the registration date...more mumbo jumbo...failure to file the required declaration by the end of the grace period will result in cancellation of the registration.

Okay, so in 2014, I have to remember to renew the paperwork. Does anyone out there remember that I have a slight case of the "anxieties"? Will my electronic calendar really send me a reminder like I asked it to?

Maybe I'll tie a little string around my finger. For the next five years. Hmmmm???? Maybe not. -Monica

Two year old stand up comedy...

Seriously. I'm working from home today and Danny and I were looking through the our recent pictures to select one to post, and when he saw this one he could no stop laughing. I think maybe it's because both he and the duck have bills. ;-) Come to think of it, that is pretty funny. (He is still laughing by the way!)

And I was especially pleased that he said pointed to Susanne's pic and said "mama" and to himself and said "me". Maybe the callling me "me" phase is over? Sure hope so. -Monica

I guess it is all about me…

So Danny has listened for months and months to the both of us saying “this is mama” and “this is mommy”.

But just to make doubly sure he got the difference we’d say it sort of affectedly like, “this is mama” and “this is momMY”.

Which if you think about it sounds exactly like “momMEEE!”

So now guess what his new name for me (mommy) is?

Yup.

Me.

Or rather MEEE!

So when he wants my attention or wants something from me he points my way and says ME.

You have no idea how confusing this can be. Oh Lord. I think I liked it better when I was Mamaca. -Monica

Danny and Oscar keeping it real...

Real fun that is!

Truth and Reality

(For the 4th annual Blogging for LGBT Families Day I'm posting an edit of a something I wrote earlier this year. Have a great day everybody!) -Monica

When we read stories to our two year old son Danny that have a mommy and a daddy in them, we always change the words to say mommy and mama instead. We read this idea in a book on gay parenting (sorry I can’t remember which) and think it makes great sense.

It is possible to find stories that talk about families having two moms or two dads, but they are pretty rare. Todd Parr’s “The Family Book” is a great example, but it’s the exception not the rule. You see, we want Danny to know that that even though our family is not the same as a lot of other kids’ families, it’s valid. It’s is true.

Truth. You may ask, “If you value truth, why would you lie to Danny by saying there are two moms when there are not? Isn’t he going to realize that you’ve been lying to him when he can read on his own?”

Well, let’s take a look at this concept of truth in our world. Remember the Brady Bunch? What a fun show! (I can only imagine how all those kids out there who had step moms and step dads loved that the Brady’s were all step siblings.)

But let’s peel our onion back a little further shall we? Robert Reed played Mike Brady. The quintessential wonderful father. He was so handsome, so wise. Go on--admit it--you loved him. He was a great dad. But in real life Robert Reed was gay. And closeted. He was not free to live a truthful life, much less portray a character that was true to himself on that show. Can you imagine if they’d done a show about two dads coming together to “form a family—that’s the way they all became the Brady Bunch”? Forget Mike and Carol! Go Mike and Darrell! No, that was not an option then. (Sadly, not even now I don’t think.)

And what about Maurice Sendak? He wrote a children’s story that is generally regarded as a classic of American illustrated children's literature--“Where the Wild Things Are”. Mr. Sendak came out of the closet when his partner of many years died in 2007.

He's been quoted as saying that he didn’t think he would have been a successful author, particularly of children’s stories, if people had known he were gay. So you know that our star of “Where the Wild Things Are”, little Max, did not have two same sex parents. Because even if Mr. Sendak would have loved to have written a story where he and his beloved partner were the parents in that tale, he could not have. "Society" would not have allowed that truth to be told."

So where was I going with this? Oh. Truth and reality. When Danny’s old enough we’ll explain to him why we changed “daddy” to “mama”. I think he'll understand that we wanted him to see that our world is not as "abnormal" as some might think. Quite the contrary actually. In closing I'll say that one thing that always rung true to me was the though that "our values, beliefs and behaviors are "caught" not "taught"." We'd like our son to "catch" an understanding of the world that is inclusive of all. And that's the truth! -Monica

In my dreams...

Our DC area just got something like 8 inches of rain this month and one happy result of this is that we've not had to water our vegetable garden beds at all. Everything is coming in beautifully, and this all got me to thinking that if Mother Nature can intercede like this and virtually eliminate a daily task for us, then mabye we should hope for more.

Like maybe a periodic mighty wind that could blow though the house and put everything back where it should be? And wash and fold the laundry too? I'm just being greedy right? -Monica