Just Powers

To celebrate Leap Day, Emma and I went in to the city with Mike via Metro and went to the National Geographic Museum just around the corner from his office on 15th Street between L and M. They have a special exhibit on frogs right now (running until May 11!) and were having extra-special froggy goodness today. Get it? Leap day, frogs…?

Admission was free and the place was surprisingly appropriate for different ages. I wasn’t sure Emma would enjoy herself very much, but it was one of those “have-to-get-out-of-the-house-or-die” days, so I took a chance. As you can tell by the photo, the giant photos of frogs were the highlight of her day - and certainly more fun than the ACTUAL frogs. Luckily there were enough pictures to keep her fascinated for a good hour.

The exhibit is in a small area, but they do a great job of packing in lots of information. The tanks with the live frogs are large and fun to look at. Most of the frogs were of the camouflaging sort, so there was no way Emma could even find them. The tiny dart poison frogs (which look plastic until they start to move) and the huge pollywogs got her attention though. There is one kiosk that creates a chorus of frog sounds when you press on the large buttons and in the middle of the floor are more pictures of frogs along with measurements to show you how far they can jump - and encouraging words to see if you can match it. Emma hasn’t quite perfected her leap yet, but had a lot of fun watching other kids try.

It can be tough to make a museum or exhibit appeal to the under-1 crowd and the over-5 crowd (and everyone in between) all at the same time, but National Geographic succeeded with this one I think. At one point I saw a mother holding her approximately 9 month old son up to the dart poison frogs, and as he laughed his head off, her just about 4 year old was talking to her about how many frogs there were in the tank. Pretty impressive.

After the museum we joined Mike for lunch at the National Education Association cafeteria just around the corner at 16th and M. The NEA cafeteria is open to all, has a great selection of affordable food, and a wonderful open seating area in an atrium where no one can hear, for example, a tired little girl complaining when she is finished with lunch. Just don’t get me started on the fact that the cafeteria is non-union …oh well, I guess nothing is perfect.

Happy Leap Day!

I used to wonder, before I had a child, how parents knew how to make decisions like when to start a child in preschool or whether to skip a grade if a child’s school recommended it. What gave a parent the ability to make decisions like this?

Monday I picked Emma up at daycare. She was as happy as I have ever seen her. It was 5:30. On the days I am home with her I usually have to break out the baby carrier to keep her from total and complete meltdown when 5:30 hits. On Monday she was happy all the way home from daycare and it really wasn’t until dinner was almost over that she got cranky, and it was a cranky that was completely understandable since she only slept for 40 minutes at daycare.

It made me think that maybe we need to figure out how to get her more time at daycare, and maybe look into enrolling her in an “early 2’s” preschool in the fall (since she won’t be two until December.) I am convinced that her good mood was a result of spending time with other people who are not me. Which is not meant to be an “oh-poor-me” statement - I am thrilled that she enjoys people and doesn’t seem to suffer much from separation anxiety. And I can only imagine that spending most of her time with me could get a little old.

No doubt when the weather gets warmer and we can get out and do more, life will become a little less boring, but it is the hubbub of a group of people that Emma seems to especially like. It seems so clear that an extra day at daycare or a couple of mornings at preschool in the fall might really be good for her.

All of a sudden those decisions that overwhelmed me before having a baby seem much more simple.

Liza Sabater just posted over on Personal Democracy Forum’s Tech President about Dear Senator Hillary Clinton, Please Step Down — a post written a few days ago by mommy blogger Erin Kotecki Vest, on her blog Queen of Spain.

My response to this is twofold - the letter to Senator Clinton is a heartfelt and well thought out argument for why the Democratic party and the country need Senator Clinton to end her run for President. Go read it. Right now. Seriously, go. Clearly I am an Obama supporter, but I have felt ambivalent/conflicted/sad that I am not more excited about the first viable woman candidate for President (even while I have been annoyed that so many think I should support her just because we have the same body parts). Erin’s letter puts into words how I have felt about Senator Clinton since she first got into the race.

Liza’s post at Tech President makes some great points about the power of mommy bloggers. The “Step Down Hillary” post has 146 comments and counting — many from mommy bloggers who are paying attention to the candidates but aren’t seeing that favor returned — and its popularity and the traffic it has generated on Digg has completely overwhelmed the Queen of Spain’s hosting company.

Blogher has been trying for months to get the Presidential candidates to sit down for interviews, to share their views with the 7.6 million women in the Blogher network. As far as I can tell, they still have not had any success. Which blows my mind. 7.6 million people. Voters. Right here, waiting for the candidates to come tell us why we should vote for them. Erin’s letter and Liza’s post make it clear why political campaigns and consultants need to start paying attention to mommy bloggers.

And now that there seems to be at least a burst of interest in us and what we have to say about this election, kudos to Erin for saying what so many of us have been thinking. We are a demographic that is paying attention, we are politically savvy, and we have a lot to say.

For today’s Some/Thing theme, Something Borrowed — in honor of Freedom to Marry Week – I give you a picture of Emma and a chair that my grandmother, Emma’s great-grandmother, first got when she was a small girl. My Uncle Tim and Gram colluded to give this to Emma for Christmas this year and while she is a little young to fully appreciate it, I am moved by it every time I look at it. We don’t let her sit it on, since we would like it to last beyond Emma’s childhood, but it sits in her room providing respite for various and sundry stuffed animals. I love seeing the chair in her room, it makes me feel connected to the generations that went before me and the ones that will come after.

This week is the 11th Annual Freedom to Marry Week. In support, The Other Mother has asked bloggers to post on the themes something old, something new, something borrowed and something blue throughout the week. Today is something new. (Thanks to Doodaddy for letting me know about this, who heard about it from an amazing and powerful post by LesbianDad, who heard about it from The Other Mother.)

Today also happens to be Mike’s and my anniversary. Which is really quite ironic, as I will explain.

Mike and I almost didn’t get married. There were various reasons we weren’t interested in nuptials, but the biggest was that we were, and are, disgusted by the lack of equality in marriage in our society, and we felt strongly about not getting married until our gay friends could. We also felt strongly that our relationship was our business and a little piece of paper from the state wasn’t going to make it any more “legitimate”, and it sure wouldn’t protect us from the fate of just over 50% of all relationships the state labels “official”. So thanks but no thanks, not for us.

Then we bought a house together, and started talking about having kids, and we were suddenly faced with the same legal issues our partnered, and parenting, gay friends deal with all the time. At that point I didn’t even know that there are 1,138 legal rights accorded married couples that non-married couples do not enjoy. I just knew it didn’t make sense that as a non-married couple Mike and I, and all of our gay friends, had so many more hoops to jump through if we were even allowed to jump at all.

We talked about this issue with our friends, gay and straight, and several of our gay friends told us they thought we should get married. They told us if they could, they sure as hell would. Still we resisted. Finally, we decided three days before a business-trip-turned-vacation to the US Virgin Islands that we should just go ahead and do it. But, we told ourselves, we wouldn’t tell anyone. We didn’t want a big deal made of it and, frankly, we were a little ashamed. We felt completely guilty that it was so easy for us and so difficult for some. So even though it didn’t solve anything, we would just pretend it hadn’t happen.

So we got married on this day two years ago, on a beach in St. John. And it was very nice and we didn’t tell anyone. But then we got pregnant a few months later, and realized we hadn’t really thought our plan through to the end. We suspected that our families would be upset at the idea of us having a baby without being married, and we were right. Although they didn’t put it this way, they were upset for precisely for the same reasons we are upset that our gay friends can’t marry when they have kids. Because, like it or not, in our society, marriage affords a protection to the family unit that being unmarried does not.

So, long story short (too late!), we told them. And there was great rejoicing.

And so, it is ironic that the anniversary of our non-wedding is the same week as Freedom to Marry Week. Actually I don’t really know if it is ironic or appropriate or nothing at all or what. I do know that Mike and I still feel chagrined that our family is protected in ways that other families aren’t. Until they are, we will keep trying to make some change by voting for folks who can make a difference and supporting our gay friends and their families and making sure the issue doesn’t go away.

So for the something new theme today I give you a picture of Emma holding her first political sign. Here’s hoping that we are entering an era of new hope and new equality and that our politicians will do their job. Maybe by the time Emma decides to become someone’s partner and have a family of her own, everyone will have the chance for equal protection under the law.

To learn more about why equal rights are so important, especially in emergencies, go here, and to learn what you can do to help, go here.

I would like to deal with a little issue here that I have been hearing and reading a lot about lately — the insistence by some that women should vote for Hillary because she is a woman, and she may be our last chance to vote for a woman for President for a long time.

Let me say this loud and clear - as a woman, I don’t *have* to vote for anyone. I have every right, and responsibility in fact, to vote for who I think is the best candidate.

As a feminist, it is important to me to support women in positions of leadership, and those who are seeking to be in leadership. Having said that, I also feel pretty strongly that it does me no good to support a woman just because she is a woman, if her views and opinions don’t mesh with mine. I mean, even though they are women I doubt I would ever vote for Elizabeth Dole or Katherine Harris, since we have very different views on a lot of things.

Kate Michelman, former president of NARAL, wrote about this issue recently on Salon and did a much better job discussing the whole thing than I ever could.

This is my favorite:

The women’s movement is about free choice, self-determination and challenging a status quo that fails a lot of Americans, not just women. And it is not about going along. It’s about transcending, about having the freedom to follow one’s heart, about creating and pursuing new opportunities, and about the American dream being for all Americans.

Amen sister. And as for the argument that Mrs. Clinton is the last woman who will run for President for a long time, Ms. Michelman had this to say:

Matthews’ other Hardball, which also deserved more time than the red light gave me, was: “How can you pass, Kate, on the opportunity to support a woman for president when this may be the last chance for that to happen in your lifetime?”… It may be news to Chris Matthews, but great women have already arrived on the national stage — and they are here to stay. They are running state governments, big cities and major corporations. And every day in the armed forces they are defending our families and our country.

I am thrilled that the first election in my daughter’s lifetime includes a strong, viable woman running for President, and I look forward to the dozens of women who will run in years to come. When my daughter asks me about this election, I will tell her how grateful I am to the women’s movement for making it possible for Mrs. Clinton to run for President — and for me to vote for her opponent.

It’s hard work being a kid. It’s hard work being a mom too, but really, I think it is still harder being a kid. I watch Emma every day, learning how her body works, learning that everything around her has a name, learning the difference between playing gently with the dogs and playing hard with her toys and learning that the world has rules, even though she may not always like it. I watch her soak up new information and process new experiences every day and I am amazed at how much work it obviously is, that she is able to learn so much so fast and that she is ready to start fresh every morning.

Emma turned 14 months old yesterday. When she hit about nine months old, I felt like something shifted in life with her. She became more aware and more excited about what was happening in the world around her and it felt like we entered a new phase. This past month has felt very similar. Mike and I have had more of those “Whoa, did that just happen?” moments in the last month than I can remember ever having.

Last month, Emma started dancing by bouncing her knees when music started. This month she took her dancing to a whole new level and now has a routine that I am pretty sure is worthy of the next season of “So You Think You Can Dance”. She twists and turns and even, dare I say it, gyrates a little, even getting her arms into the act as she waves them overhead. I have hours and hours of video of her walking around the house with music in the background. I keep shooting in the hopes that she will start dancing so I can share it with you. So far I have only gotten snippets, since as soon as she sees me videotaping her, she stops and comes over to see what is going on. I will keep trying though.

The thing that has amazed us the most in the last thirty days though is Emma’s new ability to understand and process language. I wrote in her 13 month update that she was starting to follow simple directions. Now she can follow two part directions - “Emma get the bear and take it to daddy” and when we ask her questions she understands what we mean and lets us know her answer. When we ask her “Emma do you want to go to bed?” she nods and walks to her room, turning around to make sure we are following. It is mind blowing.

She has also started being really LOUD lately. She screams and shouts and yells “EH EH EH”, and not always out of frustration or anger. My theory is that she is testing the range of her voice and when she does seem frustrated it is because she can’t communicate what she wants. Or she’s just plain loud, which is always a possibility. Whatever the reason, it makes me crazy and leaves me wishing for her tiny little newborn cry.

She still isn’t talking, which as a new parent of course I sometimes wonder about, but she understands language so clearly that I am not too concerned. The doctor assured me at her one year check up that some kids don’t talk until 15 months, and I didn’t say my first word until 18 months, so I haven’t started googling “delayed speech” just yet.

Her signing is going really well, even if her talking isn’t. She can tell us when she is “finished”, when she wants to “drink” and when she wants “more”. That last one is key - it’s how we get her to stop yelling about wanting more food and just tell us. She has sort of created her own version of the sign for “more”, but she knows what she means and we know what she means so we don’t correct her. She appears really delighted each time she signs it and she actually GETS more - as if she can’t believe how easy it is to make us do what she wants, and let’s face it, it is.

She brought home her first piece of art work from daycare this month, which proudly went up on our fridge. She also had her first visit from her Uncle Andy and Aunt Alyson this month, and went with them to the National Museum of the American Indian - her first of many trips there I am sure.

Her favorite books are “Goodnight Gorilla” and “Bear Snores On”, some her favorite foods are feta cheese, bananas, eggs and yogurt and her favorite new game is Torture the Cat, which we are working on discouraging. She loves the Obama pin I wear on my coat and has one of her own that she carries around with her - we are still hoping Obama will be her first word. She is funny and smart and snuggly, and truly everything I could ever hope for in a child.

Except for that yelling thing. Really hoping that is just a stage.

On the eve of Super Tuesday. Enjoy.

I think I might have a Girl on my hands. I have known for some time that Emma is female, but it is becoming increasingly clear to me that she might, in fact, be a Girl.

When I was pregnant, I was very anxious about the prospect of having a boy. I reasoned that I would have no idea how to raise a boy, but a girl, now that I could do. I would know how to make her strong and self reliant and I would make sure she learned early on how to take care of herself emotionally, physically and spiritually. Bring on the girl!

So here I am, with my girl. But um, something is becoming increasingly clear, something that is causing me more anxiety than any boy could have. Emma is becoming a Girl. Emma likes shoes. Emma likes purses. Emma LOOVES jewelry, not just to play with, but to put on and admire herself in. She hasn’t met makeup yet (except with her Aunt Jocelyn, ahem) but I wouldn’t be surprised if she loves that too.

I think, in the past, I have always assumed that little girls who liked Girly things must have been influenced by their mothers. Not that there is anything wrong with that mind you, but it’s just not my style. So it never occurred to me that a girl could like Girly things all on her own. I mean, I wear makeup maybe two or three times a year, I get my hair done once or twice a year, and let’s not even talk about my clothes. Mike has a better fashion sense than I do - all of my shoes have been suggested or purchased by him, with the exception of the black Sketcher sneakers I bought when he was away on business (which would never have made it past his watchful eye).

The first time Emma picked up my purse, slung it over her shoulder and walked around the house with it, I thought it was adorable. Now I have given her that purse (since it cost me $6.99 at Cuffy’s. Ok, ok, three for $15. And yes, I have two more in the closet.) and it is one of her favorite accessories.

I guess I could be reading too much into this and Emma might just be exhibiting normal toddler curiosity, but there is something about the way her eyes light up when she finds a new scarf to drape around her neck that makes me think I am going to be seriously outmatched by this little person. I suppose that even though I might have a Girl on my hands, it doesn’t mean she won’t have interest in learning how to throw a ball, play with bugs, go on a hike or climb a tree. But I want to make sure that I value and support her whoever she is and whatever her interests are, so even though my gut reaction to Girly things is “ugh”, I am going to have to learn to reel it in and let her do her thing, whatever that may be. Who knows, maybe she can even teach me how to shop for my own shoes someday.