Blogging for LGBTQ Familes Day: Now With Children

Yep, that's right--there's a new post here. I don't know that this will be the start of a trend, but when I realized that my first day of maternity leave and Carrie's first day back at work coincided with Blogging for LGBTQ Families Day, it seemed like a sign from somewhere.

The last three years have been some pretty intense times for our family. Remember when we went to Greece and London for our honeymoon? Oh, you don't remember because all you heard about that trip was these two pictures? Fair enough.

Well anyway, shortly after we got back from that trip, we met with a Reproductive Endocrinologist to start the process of trying to make a baby with Carrie carrying. That process took much longer and involved much more heartache than we expected. Infertility is unspeakably hard. For those who were with us on that long, painful journey, thank you for your love and support. And for those of you with whom we didn't share this process, please understand that we dealt with the stress and pain the way we needed to.

We'll never know what finally went right to create the two beautiful daughters we have today, but when I look at them now, I know that they were meant to be.

And now that the journey of trying to make these babies is over, I know that the new journey of parenting and raising these beautiful babies to become caring, strong, smart women has only just begun. I am immensely grateful for the modern medicine that helped us to become parents and to the LGBTQ families who came before us, paving the way for this process to seem possible. And of course I am enormously grateful to our family and friends, who have been wonderful so far and who I know will continue to support us and our girls.

The world is changing rapidly. Last June, Carrie and I celebrated with thousands of others in front of Stonewall after the historic DOMA decision. And near the beginning of Carrie's second trimester, New Jersey recognized our marriage. Since then, 5 other states have followed suit. As I look at our baby girls, I hope for a future world where their mothers' relationship won't be up for debate, and where they can be who they are and love who they love without fear.

Golden

In honor of my approaching half birthday, I'm going to share with you the story of my golden birthday.

Growing up in Minnesota in the 80's golden birthdays were a big deal.  You got a better party on your golden birthday, you got better presents on your golden birthday, and you got to lord the fact that it was your golden birthday over everyone.  It's actually unclear to me in retrospect whether other kids actually got different celebrations for their golden birthdays or if it was just the talk of the playground.  But in any case, as children those of us with an especially early or late golden birthday bemoaned the unfairness of our plight in life.

Now, if you are not a Midwestern child of the 80's and you were not involved in the planning of my birthday shenanigans, you're probably sitting there wondering what the heck makes a birthday golden.  I (and Becky too) had assumed that this was common universal knowledge, until I started announcing that mine was approaching.  Both because I thought it was funny, and also because I probably have some subconscious childhood scars from all that playground bemoaning, I was pretty pumped that I was finally getting my turn.  That is until my announcement was met with blank stare after blank stare.  After many a conversation and many a google we learned that this is almost exclusively a phenomenon of the upper Midwest.  For the uninitiated, a golden birthday is when you turn the same age as the date of your birthday.  I turned 29 on the 29th of December. 

Whether my family remembered my complaints from childhood or just thought my adulthood bemoaning was funny is still unclear to me (well, clearly Becky is in the later camp as she sadly missed my childhood, but the rest are unclear), but for whatever reason they played along and created a great birthday celebration for me.

They ordered a custom iceberg cake for me from the baker my sister loves, and decorated it with penguin holiday ornaments that apparently my mother had been saving for years in anticipation of just such a cake.  You can of course see the number candles - I think 29 individual candles would melt the penguins' playground!

You can also see that most of my presents were wrapped in gold paper, plus there was gold plastic silverware and gold plates and gold Hanukkah gelt for snacks.  In addition to the awesome train tour (documented on a golden scroll) that we recently enjoyed, Becky gave me several golden gag gifts: gold batteries, gold handwarmers, and cheap golden Christmas ornaments.

They also may or may not have forced me to wear a tiara for the present opening and candle blowing out.

 In addition of course they took me out to a delicious dinner at a restaurant called 3.  I enjoyed filet mignon, and Becky ate lobster macaroni and cheese she's still talking about.  The rest of the family ate food they enjoyed too, but six months later I can no longer recall.  Although we love the little boys dearly, in order to facilitate adult conversation my family was even thoughtful enough to hire a babysitter for the dinner portion of the night.

Thank you Jen, Sean, Mom, Dad, and Becky for  planning and executing such a wonderful golden birthday celebration!  There will be no more bemoaning regarding this once-in-a-lifetime experience!  Now what will they do next year when I turn 30???  Muhahahaha. 

Back in time...

Yeah, I know. It's been a long time. We're actually doing somewhat better on the rest of the list than we are on the blogging item, but I'll save that for another post. Probably a few months from now.

Last weekend we went up to visit my sister and brother-in-law and our nephews. We hadn't seen the boys since Christmas and we had grown ups only plans for Saturday night, so we took Friday off and turned it into a long weekend.  Matthew and Thomas skipped daycare to hang out with us!

We took them to the children's museum, where I masqueraded as my sister in order to get us in on their membership. Success! The little boys hardly noticed that the museum was mobbed due to school break. Like a good little future nerd, Matthew insisted on dressing himself in a Harry Potter t-shirt that is several sizes too big for him.

Dr. Matthew

We also took them to the mall and enjoyed some lunch.  At two the mall escalator is apparently as good as any other ride, but lots cheaper!  Apparently we did a very good job at tiring them out, but most especially Thomas, who fell asleep with a piece of pizza in one hand, a fork in the other hand, and his head on the plate.

Sleepy Thomas

On Saturday afternoon we left the little boys with Sean's parents and headed to Old Sturbridge Village to make an old-fashioned dinner.  Becky and I got assigned to the pastry table, so together with another couple we were in charge of making rolls, apple pie, and a dessert called floating island.  Becky was nice enough to let me take charge of the pie crust, due to the fact that several months ago I declared pie crust to be my domain.  But this project required four crusts which had to be rolled three times each, so we all ended up taking a few turns.  

Me rolling some pie crust

Jen (with others) manned the vegetable table and helped with winter vegetable soup, beets, cabbage, and macaroni and cheese.  And Sean was part of the meat table and helped prepare curried chicken, roast beef, and coffee.

Sean and his chicken

Everything cooked over the fire or in a fire-warmed oven, and there was no electricity in the building.  We prepared and ate by candle light.  While we were waiting for some of the food to cook we ventured out to a nearby restroom.  Jen and Becky stayed toasty warm in these cloaks.

Over the river and through the woods

Delicious, filling, and educational!

Aaawww....

Instead of driving back that night we stayed at a local B&B with hot tubs in every room.  We put on our swimsuits, uncorked our Asti, flipped on the fireplace, and giggled a lot.  Thanks for a great weekend family!

Vacation Mania

Welcome to 2012 everyone!

We're freshly home from holiday vacation in Wisconsin and Massachusetts and settling back down into the "real life" that 2012 brings us.

This was the third (well, technically fourth, but Salzburg was different) Christmas that Becky and I spent together, and the third year that we managed to spend time with both of our families despite the 1,000+ miles between their various homes.  I fear the pattern and good luck may not hold forever, but for the past three years we've spent Christmas with one family and "fake" (aka "2nd") Christmas at New Year's with the other, and alternated which family got real Christmas.

On Christmas Eve we flew to Wisconsin to join Becky's family for the start of our vacation.  (Apologies to any friends or family reading from Wisconsin who we didn't see - there was too little time and too much holiday celebrating to make it work this trip.)  We got dressed up fancy and went to the Christmas Eve service at Becky's childhood church, then home to relax and wait for Santa.  Her youngest sister, Jen, was home the whole time we were, and her middle sister, Angie, and her fiance, Ian, were home from Christmas Eve through Christmas evening.  Which means that everyone was able to be there for present opening and the all-important-in-Wisconsin viewing of the Packers game.  The rest of the week we spent relaxing, reading several Christmas books, and watching the 8th season of NCIS.  And eating too many Christmas cookies (Carrie Krispies, Rice Krispie Rides Again, and Krispie Next Generation!).  Not to mention of course some more quality time with Becky's family!

Mid-week we flew from Wisconsin to Massachusetts to join my family for my birthday, New Year's, and a "second Christmas" celebration.  I'll save the birthday shenanigans for a future post, but suffice it to say that my loved ones made a good time out of making fun of me for being obsessed with my golden birthday.  We continued with too much delicious food and lots of reading, used many many plants to protect our homes from zombies, and spent a ton of time doting on our nephews.  Plus occasionally acknowledging the adult members of the family.  When necessary.  (Love you guys!)  We rang in the New Year with Asti and chocolate cheesecake and televised viewing of Times Square.

And then we boarded a train that zoomed us back to reality.  Goodbye Santa, goodbye Christmas, we will miss you and look forward to seeing you again next year!  Please keep the snow at the North Pole and do not send it to New Jersey.

Summer, whether the weather likes it or not

My sister, Jen, and our nephews came to visit us again this weekend.  Jen reports that the travel was much smoother, thanks to her choice of riding in the car rather than the train.  While we were driving around on Saturday the boys demonstrated what Jen told us they did for most of their awake time on the drive to/from home: "bus! bus!  my side!  big truck! my side!"  They are both absolutely enamored with cars and trucks and things that go.  At one point Thomas was looking at a photo of the boys and their aunties and he pointed at the car-shaped play structure in the background and said "truck!" as if it was obviously the most interesting portion of the photo.  Matthew still frequently refers to a car or truck as a "vroom," which is quite cute.

We had all kinds of outdoorsy water based plans, but the weather forecast was calling for upper 60's and raining.  This was particularly disappointing after we endured a long work week of boiling 100 degree weather.  The forecasted temperatures came true, but the rain held off enough for us to summon our inner hardy Midwesterners and complete our plans anyways. 

Saturday we visited our favorite beach.  We were almost the only people at the beach, and definitely the only ones who were daring to venture in the water.  The tide was just right for toddlers, with a very shallow and calm area along the edge, where the water was actually fairly warm.  Thomas didn't seem to care at all that it was overcast or cold, and plowed into the ocean with a glee that only a toddler can muster.  Matthew was more cautious, several times wanting to spend his time on the "sandbox."  But he loved to fill up his bucket with water, carry it a few feet onto the sand and dump it out, and then repeat, over and over and over.  

Thomas and his toy truck

Matthew and his bucket

We changed clothes, warmed up, and blew bubbles on the boardwalk.

 While we were waiting for a lunch table we happened upon a vintage car show.  Thomas learned the word "engine."  Thomas was still a bit cold from the swimming, so we ended up draping my sweatshirt over him to help him warm up.  The boys also showed off how much they love holding hands right now, with adults or with each other.

In the afternoon we went to a place Becky found on the internet called Kidz Village, which was one part indoor playground and one part children's museum.  There was a series of themed rooms, such as the diner, the grocery store, the hair salon, and the construction room, filled with tons of kid sized pretend play props.  Plus of course the giant playscape with tunnels and slides and climbing platforms.  I think Becky and I might have had more fun climbing around in there than Matthew and Thomas did (two year olds are too young to go themselves you know!), although they loved it too.  At one point I was following Thomas around and he went down a slide before me (which incidentally resulted in a few scary moments where we couldn't find him), but while I was still at the top a little girl gave me that snotty wannabe pre-teen girl look and asked "aren't you a little old to be in here?" 

Sunday we returned to a sprinkler park/kiddie pool that is close to our home.  Long-time readers may remember our visit there last summer.  Once again it was chilly, and once again we were the only people playing in the water.  And if I thought that Thomas was happy to be at the ocean, I don't even have words to describe his excitement for the sprinklers.  He was sprinting through the sprinklers giggling and squeeling with his arms spread out.

We also spent plenty of time hanging out at home, playing with Mr. Potato Head, and enjoying some adult beverage after the boys went to bed.  I almost can't believe how much easier is has become to manage the boys in our not childproofed apartment.  Last summer having them play inside for even a few minutes was stressful, between protecting them from our stuff and protecting our stuff from them.  Both of these recent weekends they've been so well behaved and had a good time with the toys we offered them (plus of course the ones their mom brought from home).  Hanging out with Jen was fun as always too, but my apologies Jen, but your sons make for cuter blogging!

Badger State

My apologies again for the lack of blogging recently.  We keep resolving to do better, but the follow through has been lax.

Last week we spent the holiday weekend jetsetting our way to visit Becky's family in Wisconsin.  I am told that Wisconsin is not everyone's dream weekend getaway, but for us it's always fun to go to the Midwest.  Sunday was Becky's dad's final Sunday as choir director at his church, after many many years in the position.  Becky's mom threw a party for him and invited several surprise guests - including us!  If our traveling had gone as planned we would have arrived at Becky's parents' home just after 10pm.  However, due to "weather" (definitely not holiday traffic or airline or air traffic control error!) our plane didn't even take off from New York until around 11:30pm.  We surprised a very sleepy pajama-clad Becky's dad at 2am.

But we are not ones to let a short vacation go to waste!  Despite our exhaustion we hauled ourselves out of bed early Saturday morning in order to drive to Madison.  Motivation: fresh local cheese curds!   The only place we've found in the tristate area to get cheese curds is Trader Joe's, and while decent, they cannot compare to the fresh local variety.  Madison has the largest farmer's market I have ever seen, which covers the entire block around the state capital building.  Like any farmer's market there are fresh local vegetables and organic crafts.  There is also an over representation of delicious baked goods.  Unique to Wisconsin though are the dozens of cheese shops, most with plentiful sampling options. 

On the way in we stopped at Michelangelo's Coffee House.  I got fair trade coffee; Becky ogled baked goods (but chose to save space for the market).  Yay for cute little independent coffee shops!  My friends and I used to frequent several of these in the Twin Cities back in high school and breaks home from college, but I haven't found (admittedly nor have I looked very hard) around here to love. 

Bad photo of me in front of the capital

We ate and bought an excessive amount of cheese curds and toasting cheese.  Becky's coworkers have fallen for them, so now whenever she (or her fellow Wisconsinite coworker) goes home cheese curds must be brought to work.  By the time we made it around to Stella's we were already quite full.  The crowd/line around the stand was enormous, and we debated skipping the spicy cheese bread.  But the power of the crowd overcame me and I declared that whatever that many people were willing to wait for must be good.  Miraculously, soon after we joined the crowd, a truck full of fresh steaming spicy cheese bread arrived.  This bread is magical.  It is like challah and cheese curds all rolled together in one doughy amazing ball.  I declared it the best thing I have ever eaten, and I think I might stand by that.  

Doughy insides of mostly consumed hot & spicy cheese bread.

Madison still felt alive with the memory of the recent protests.  There were signs plastered in the windows of the capital, people passing out leaflets, "union thug" organic onesies for sale, and a People's Brat Fest in opposition to the usual Brat Fest sponsored by Johnsonville (a supporter of Scott Walker).  I think it renewed Becky's sadness that she wasn't able to be in Madison for the protests, but it was fun to see the spirit is still alive.  Hopefully this will translate into some political change.

On the way back to Becky's parents' home we stopped at a favorite non-farmer's market bakery, Greenbush, to pick up chocolate sour cream donuts.  Yum.  We were too full to eat them immediately, but they were as heavenly as ever when we got to them. 

After our whirlwind trip to Madison we headed back to Becky's family.  We helped a bit with the party preparation and lounged around with her family.  Saturday night we ate at an Italian restaurant and were able to order Chicago style pizza - another of the very few foods we have found to be unavailable in New York. 

Sunday we had a lovely time hanging out with Becky's family and family friends, celebrating the final choir Sunday.  Becky joined the choir, as she usually does on Christmas Eve (I guess this is a benefit to being related to the choir director!).  After church Becky's mom hosted a potluck party for the choir and all of the special surprise guests.  That night Becky and one of her sisters and I played ping pong, which gave me a splendid opportunity to show off my spectacular lack of coordination.  Monday we packed up, said our goodbyes, and jetted ourselves back to life in the big city. 

Auntie Blogging, or choo-choos and school buses

My sister Jen and her adorable sons Mathew and Thomas came to visit us this weekend!  They rode Amtrak in to the city and left Sean at home to work on the house.  This seemed like a great plan for Jen to have an independent adventure weekend with her vehicle-loving children (big truck!  choo-choo!) and for everyone to get to spend more time with the adoring aunties.  What is not to love about riding a choo-choo to New York City?  Well, apparently a lot, when you are an over tired and over stimulated two year old.  Jen had a rough go of it on the way in, and was quite relieved to have help wrangling her toddlers when they arrived.  Thankfully Matthew and Thomas had a much better time during the visit than they did on the trip to get here.

Friday night we all headed to Shake Shack in Madison Square Park.  Jen and I took the boys to the playground so they could run off some of their energy from being cooped up on the train, while Becky took one for the team and waited in the famous line.  You really do have to be a bit patient to be a New Yorker, which I seem to have grown accustomed to, but am often reminded of when people come to visit.  All five of us enjoyed our burgers, fries, and custard, and the weather was absolutely perfect for eating outdoors.  Unfortunately given the aforementioned circumstances on the train, none of us were with it enough to pull out a camera on Friday, so you just have to take my word for it.

Saturday we spent the morning and early afternoon hanging out at home and at another playground much nearer to our apartment.  For so-far childless adults we managed to come up with a pretty good showing of our toys (is it odd that Mr. PotatoHead is part of our normal knick knack selection?), plus of course a bunch of their toys from home.

Auntie Becky plays with toys

Matthew at the top of the slide...

Matthew at the bottom of the slide...

Thomas insisted on trying on Auntie Becky's rain boots.

This meant that we were able to let the boys nap at home, which I think may be key to avoiding two year old meltdown.  Jen also fell asleep in her efforts to get nap-resistant Matthew to sleep, and I decided that the end stages of my surgery recovery would be helped by joining them.  Becky apparently threatened to draw sharpie mustaches on all of us while we slept, but thankfully she thought better of it!

We then headed in to the city for the late afternoon and early evening.  Matthew and Thomas loved the "school bus" that we rode to get in, and also loved watching all of the different types of cars and trucks and buses going by.  They live in a sort of distant suburb/small town/semi-rural area, so the sheer amount of vehicular and pedestrian traffic in New York was extremely exciting but also a little bit overwhelming for them.  Even at our apartment, which is in a neighborhood we think of as very quiet, we can often hear police/ambulance/fire sirens.  Thomas was surprised to hear them and wanted to rush to the windows to watch the "fire truck!" go by.  Unfortunately for him this is often not something visible from our windows.  We also must have sounded like such silly tourists endlessly talking about the subway as "the choo-choo" for the boys, but we were trying to talk up trains for their return journey, and also....they are tourists, so why not enjoy it, right?

We rode the ferris wheel at the Times Square Toys R Us flagship store (no decent pictures, but Becky and Matthew and I were on the other side of the car):

And then we got sandwiches to-go from PB&Company and ate in the park.  Some random strangers actually came over and asked if they could take their picture with the boys because they were looking so cute.  Complimentary of course, but still, who does that?  Odd.  The boys were unbelievably sticky by the time they were done.

We went home and watched part of the first movie that Becky ever saw in a movie theater: Follow that Bird, the 1985 Sesame Street classic.  Still accessible today!  I was a bit dismayed by its less than complimentary portrayal of social workers and much to Becky's dismay playfully threatened that I won't let our kids watch it.  Mathew and Thomas went off to dream land after such a busy full day, and the adults stayed up to chat and drink Asti and eat dessert.

This morning we had an informal Mother's Day brunch (with mimosas!) for Jen, played of course, and then shepherded everyone back to the train station and wished them luck on the return journey.  We haven't gotten the whole report yet, but from a few quick text messages it seems that it was rough but not as bad as Friday.  Poor Jen.  But everyone made it, and we absolutely loved having our very favorite visitors this weekend!

Happy Mother's Day Jen!

We spent the afternoon relaxing, recovering, and of course wishing our own mothers (and my grandmother) Happy Mother's Day!

Hippity Hop (on Easter... Bunny Cookies*)

Happy (now belated) Easter to all who celebrate!

As any of you who have been following for a while or who know us in real life could predict, we spent the holiday weekend in Massachusetts with my sister and her family. My parents also flew in for the holiday (and of course the grandbaby time), so we spent lots of quality time with my family.

Becky and I lived with my sister and brother-in-law for eight months several years ago, back in their relaxed pre-children days and our pre-grad-school days. I've always been close with my sister, and I have recently been (lovingly) accused of being obsessed with my nephews. They live near enough that we can easily go for a weekend, but far enough that it really does have to be a full weekend. We have their garage door opener, know the security codes, and pretty much get how the place runs. Which all leads to the fact that their home is kind of like our second home. I must say that I am very lucky that my wife for the most part enjoys spending time with my family, and has also become close with my sister and brother-in-law and of course adores our nephews. (And I like her family too, but unfortunately they're a bit farther away!)

And so, yes, we spend a pretty large percentage of our holidays in Massachusetts.

Becky decided last week to get her bake on and whip up a batch of her aunt's delicious sugar cookies, with anticipation of convincing the nephews to help decorate. On rainy Saturday afternoon we stripped them down to diapers and set them to work. The highlights were probably Matthew's decorating technique of biting jelly beans in half, eating half, and using the remaining halves to decorate and Thomas' technique of letting us know he was done by picking up an undecorated cookie and licking the frosting off of it.

The finished toddler cookies:

And some for the adults (haha, we continue the ruse as if we are football fans):

We also had a lovely Easter morning, complete with baskets from the bunny for the little boys. Sadly my mom seems to have declared that we are adults now that my sister has children (it's my blog I get to say it, Mom!) But here's a nice family picture of all their booty:

And here are the boys playing with their new toys. Cardiologist Matthew is carefully ministering to the heart health of his monkey:

And even the doctor needs a check-up now and then:

Thomas invited the monkey to enjoy some tea with him:

And Auntie Becky read the monkey a bedtime story (that is one spoiled monkey!):

We also had a lovely time at the playground and just hanging out around the house. And lest you think that the weekend was entirely focused on babies, Becky and I also got out of the house in the glorious weather on Sunday and had a long walk around a local lake. I actually think I got a bit of a sun tan on my pasty pasty self for the first time since last summer! (Don't spite me with skin cancer for saying that, please?) I dipped my toes in the frigid lake and we wandered in the woods. It was a very nice break from the wilds of NYC, and of course the horrid stand still traffic in the Bronx that awaited us on our trek home.

* Jen - is it Easter... Bunny Cookies? Or Easter Bunny....Cookies?!?!

Ten Random Things

1. We used gift cards from our wedding to purchase a lovely expensive set of Calphalon pots and pans. For completing this item on our registry (and filling out some paperwork) Calphalon sent us a free 11" round "griddle gift." So far the pan we've used the most is the free one.

2. Our cat Cricket loves boxes, especially boxes that are a little bit too small to entirely fit her chubby body. She really enjoyed wedding gifts, although she is also still enjoying a shoe box my brother-in-law left here several years ago. Yes, we indulge her by keeping these ridiculous boxes.

3. In the 16 months since we got Android phones I fell in love with the NY Times app. It recently broke my heart. No, not by introducing the pay wall, but by ruining the app. I am so sad for this loss.

4. My favorite ice cream is Blue Bunny's cookie dough, because it has a delicious cookie batter ribbon.

5. We are spending a 3-day weekend in Ocean Grove in May and I am seriously impatient for it to come. The shore is by far and away my favorite part of living in New Jersey.

6. For the past 3 years we've had 10,000 places to see before you die wall calendars. This month we're visiting China's Yunnan Province. There will be pandas, which will make Becky happy.

7. Once I went to Edinburgh, Scotland and knowingly chose not to go see Emperor penguins at the zoo. I have regretted this decision since.

8. Becky made sugar cookies today, and she saved a tasty chunk of uncooked dough for me (true love). We're planning to decorate them with our nephews in Massachusetts this weekend; maybe we'll let the other adults play too.

9. Our cat Piccadilly has been waking us up precisely at 6:00am several mornings this week. This has led her to receive death threats from her mommies. Kitty needs to remember that tired mommies are not fun mommies!!

10. Happy Easter and Passover to all who celebrate either!

We're back and a birthday

It's been way too long since either of us posted, I know. I don't even have a good excuse. Last week was one of those weeks where nothing you resolve to do gets done, where the exhaustion from one work day just drags into the next work day, and you just don't feel like blogging.


Last weekend though we did have a lovely time celebrating the 2nd birthday of our favoritest (okay, I admit it, only... but still totally awesome) nephews, Matthew and Thomas. I remember so clearly the weekend two years ago, when on Friday afternoon my brother-in-law called me and let me know that my sister was being prepared for a c-section. After getting through the initial shock, Becky and I threw ourselves together as quickly as we could and frantically drove to Rhode Island, all the while fretting about making it before visiting hours ended. We didn't make it, and had to beg our way into the hospital. Mean security guard made us promise "only 3 minutes!" By which we meant "we will spend the vast majority of the next 72 hours as visitors in this hospital." This is helpful Auntie Carrie a few weeks later after both little boos were home from the hospital (April 18th, 2009): Here's Auntie Becky with both of them from May 2nd, 2009: And this is Auntie Carrie and the little boos on March 20th, 2011 (please note their obsession with Elmo, despite the fact that they've never seen Sesame Street... Elmo is apparently like crack for babies... and for some reason the Elmo birthday balloon seems to be wishing happy birthday to drunk Elmo... odd.): The birthday party was tons of fun, with a bouncy castle: And two awesome custom cakes, not harmed in the least by Mr. Matthew sticky his bare little toes into the green frosting:

We also made our usual stop at the YMCA for swimming, went to toddler gymnastics class, and did all the usual hanging out with the family.

We've spent countless hours with Matthew and Thomas in their first two years of life, from weekends in NY/NJ to weekends in MA to trips to Vermont and Minnesota and Colorado and the Jersey Shore. I've babysat and otherwise worked with a lot of kids over the years, but these two little munchkins are our family. I come from a very small extended family, so maybe it means more to me because of that. But they're going to know us for the rest of our lives, they're going to be our children's cousins, and we love them so very much. Happy Birthday Matthew and Thomas! (And since we're a week late, fingers crossed for their mommy on the big test she had to take today!)

Thing 1 & Thing 2

We spent last weekend in Massachusetts visiting my sister and brother-in-law and adorable nephews. The little cuties have not been sleeping well and their parents have been busy and thus the stress level appears to be high. Jen was on-call, which means that she had to go in to work on both Saturday and Sunday, and Sean had some projects around the house that needed to be done. Enter babysitting aunties!

The boys are superly crazy about books right now, which is in sharp contrast to my clients who use books as a form of punishment. Matthew and Thomas will ask you to read book after book after book and then start it all over again. It's so cute! In addition to playing at home we took the nephews on tons of adventures. These included Target, Famous Footwear, and Stop and Shop. Oooh, fun, right? But toddlers (and their handlers) both seem to do well with changes of scenery. Stores include all kinds of opportunities to ride in carts, "chuch?" (touch) everything, and lots of fun new things to climb on. Here they are with Auntie Becky:
And riding in the twin cart with Auntie Carrie:

And Matty practicing for his Famous Footwear audition:
As usual Sean cooked tons of delicious food for us (deep dish pesto pizza? yes please!) and we finished off the weekend with family swim at the YMCA.

We both love spending time up there and watching the little munchkins grow, but doing the drive so many times in the past two years is getting tiring. Speaking of which, I cannot believe that it is so close to being two years! Jen's big birthday party celebration plans are in full swing for next month. I'm sure we'll be regaling you with reminiscing when the time comes, so you can look forward to that!

What's in a name? That which we call...

This is my post in honor of blogging for Modern Families week at Goodkin.

As we were planning our wedding last year we settled on most of the big decisions pretty easily. A lot of the decisions, like where to hold the ceremony, how formal it should be, whether we would both wear white dresses, whether to invite children, just seemed obvious to both of us. We had already agreed on colors and patterns to decorate our home, and the decision to reuse those choices came easily. Overall, we found most traditional wedding planning and customs to adapt easily to a same-sex wedding. It’s surprisingly easy to read bridal magazines and wedding planning sites without even encountering mention of a groom, and when he does show up rarely do his jobs require him to be male or dressed in a tuxedo or called a groom.

One of the decisions we found the hardest to make was the one about last names. In the last name business we found little guidance from tradition. The night before the Massachusetts marriage license application (at which we needed to declare our new names, in order to benefit from the free name change granted by legal marriage) we spent hours debating back and forth, practicing writing and signing all combinations of possible names, and generally obsessing about the right choice. We had previously agreed that we would not share our debate with friends or family until after we had made a decision, because we wanted to feel confident that it was our decision. In the end we made one of the most nontraditional decisions of the whole wedding/marriage/anticipated life. We decided to merge our names. We kept part of mine and part of hers, and we ditched part of mine and part of hers. We would each have the same name, which would convey the connection to each of our extended families, and any future additions to our family would also be able to share that name. Our new name identifies us quickly and easily as a real legitimate family in a way that no other marker could.

When I told my mom she initially reacted with surprise. I can’t even remember now if she had expected us to keep our names or to hyphenate, but she did not expect the merge. My mom at times in the past has been a recreational genealogist, and thus one of her initial arguments against our decision was that creating a new name would make us difficult to trace for future genealogists.

Creating our family our way will probably cause many headaches for future genealogists. We hope that Partner 1 and Partner 2 on the marriage certificate will eventually pave the way for Parent 1 and Parent 2 on countless forms (unless conservatives have their way, in which case we'll have to flip a coin on who gets to be the "father"). We're stretching our own imaginations, and asking those future genealogists to come along for the ride. I commented on this to my mother, and eventually we agreed that it is a new world out here on the family frontier.

I have a feeling that our whole lives together are going to be a mix of repeating familiar traditions that are surprisingly non-gender-specific and occasionally needing to sit down and come up with creative solutions that may challenge us and the other people in our social worlds. In later conversations with my mother I have gotten the impression that she came around to our new name. Her initial reaction was more surprise, needing a moment to ponder and understand, than disapproval. So I can only hope that future genealogists can manage as well as my mother, with that decision and all the others we will have to make in the years to come.

Home again home again

We're back from another voyage to Massachusetts. After picking the car up at the car repair shop (and a whole fiasco where they lost the car's proof of registration. gr.) on Friday night we left late and arrived even later. Saturday we slept in and then spent the day hanging out at home with Jen and Sean and Matthew and Thomas. They're adorable as always, but apparently hanging out there is enough like hanging out at home that we completely forgot to take any pictures. Sorry. Saturday night of course was the famous yellow pants game, with the fondue and the wings and the champagne and the chocolate cake.

Sunday the family went to a multiples playdate while Becky and I hung out at home and then went to get haircuts. One of our oddities is that even though we get super cheap haircuts, neither of us ever gets our hair cut at home. Apparently living in the land of ridiculously expensive haircuts means that cheap haircuts are exceptionally bad. In the afternoon we went to family swim at the Y (Thomas is amazingly close to learning how to swim considering he's still under 2!), dinner at Olive Garden (sorry Italian food purists, it was convenient and someone had a craving), and home for baby bedtime and Despicable Me.

This morning we packed our car full of our wedding presents (which my parents brought from Minnesota at Christmas) and did the long trek back to New Jersey. Suffice it to say that I am sick of that drive. This afternoon and evening we've been much too lazy, and now the week is about to begin. How do we always end up back here, at the beginning?

I hope your weekends were refreshing and maybe had a bit less driving and/or car drama than ours!

Snowy New England Christmas

As mentioned in several previous posts, we spent Christmas in Massachusetts with my family. In a wave of brilliance, we created an itinerary that did not require us to drive at all. We took Amtrak (my first American train trip! Verdict: good, but no Shinkansen) to Providence, flew from Logan to Milwaukee, and then flew home to Newark. As we hauled our suitcases packed for both trips, 12lbs of cookie tins, and Christmas gifts into Manhattan, I briefly regretted this decision. All that was gone forever by the time we were nestled into our train seats, dining on traditional Wisconsin cheese and summer sausage and watching the Connecticut traffic through the windows.

My parents arrived by car from Minnesota the same night we did. Their car was piled up not only with Christmas gifts for everyone, but also with tons of wedding gifts we had been forced to leave in November! It was fun to see everything again, although only briefly: we weren't able to take anything with us, since we were flying out. But we'll go back in January with our car to pick our stuff up. Apparently destination weddings keep on giving!

Our adorable nephews continue to get more adorable. Thomas' truck obsession has only grown more intense, and dominates his small vocabulary. His favorite phrases seem to be "big truck," "my big truck," and "more big truck." He received Richard Scarry's Cars and Trucks and Things That Go as a gift, and showed a surprisingly long attention span for it. The cutest part is a page that shows a big accident, with several trucks all tangled up together. When Thomas saw it he stared at it with a look of horror and announced "big truck uh oh!" And every time (which is many) after that when he got to the accident page, he'd repeat it over and over and over.
In contrast, Matthew doesn't have a particular affinity for trucks. Unless of course it happens to be in Thomas' hand, at which point whatever it is becomes the single most important thing in the entire world. He's more cautious than Thomas and more socially aware. His sneaky little grin, when he thinks he's getting away with something he's not supposed to do, is precious. I think his favorite phrase is "mo"(re), which can be used to demand more of a type of food, more snuggles, more off-key grandparent singing, more slides down the slide, more bouncing on the bouncy ball, or pretty much anything that could possibly be repeated.
We did our usual ritualistic Christmas Eve and Christmas Day, with new ornaments and stocking hanging and church and wild rice soup and oyster stew on Christmas Eve, and stocking opening and full breakfast with coffeecake and one-at-a-time present opening ordered from youngest to oldest on Christmas Day. The little boys enjoyed ripping the paper off and playing with their abundance of new toys, but had limited patience for the extended version that my family has elongated in the child-free years.

For Christmas dinner Sean cooked up a lovely bazillion pound prime rib (every good holiday meal has at least a few pounds of meat per person!), mashed potatos, Yorkshire pudding, and bread pudding.
Yum. Unsurprisingly, we also ate well the rest of the time there, with a birthday meal out at the best restaurant in Providence (in honor of my mom, myself, and Becky), egg roll weather, Breakfast Nook, and Chili's chicken crispers.

After the Nor'Easter we bundled up Matthew and Thomas and introduced them to snow. They had of course seen the stuff last year, but never really had a chance to play in it.

I think it might take a year or two to catch on.

We also spent a lovely afternoon at the candlepin bowling alley. Before we lived with Jen and Sean a few years back, I had never heard of this wacky Massachusetts tradition. They have their own style of bowling, in which the pins are skinny, the bowling balls are tiny and light, and you get three attempts to knock the pins down during each frame. Matthew and Thomas really wanted a chance to immitate the adults and throw the balls down the alley, but had to settle for handing them to us, rolling them around on the ball return, and crawling under every row of seats. Thankfully this was much cleaner than the smoky, stinky bowling alleys I remember from childhood!