Parenting Beyond the Pale

All right, so the image has nothing to do with this post, but who can resist little naked Noa (in an photo I've titled "Windowdressing") and her cutie-pie Mommy?  My two favorite girls in the - to use Gabriel's version of the expression - "whole live world."

Now for the real news.  We are not taking the kids to CA for the legal nuptials - our third time at the altar - as per my prior post.  Why?  Its just too bloody expensive.  So scratch that.  But!  We have a different, all-day-marathon-wedding plan.  Sounds fun, no?  July 15 we'll fly to CA at goddamn early am, quick rent a car, speedily drive to the Alameda County Clerk for a licence, and then go out to brunch.  Then, ever the hedonist, I am trying to talk Melissa into driving me to the library so that I can rapidly copy about 10 articles that my dissertation can't do without.  Such fun.  Then, it is off to see the Rabbi.... and make an honest woman out of both of us with vows, pizza and champagne in her backyard...  then zap!  back on a plane home the same evening, hoping that our two short accomplices have not killed off Grandmommy and Papa in the intervening 18 hours.

Every little girl's dream.  No, all joking aside, we had our "real" wedding, and it was beautiful - just not legal.  We are just catching up the legal part, which makes everything feel that much more complete, right, and FAIR.  So what if our home state still won't acknowledge it, we lived in CA for seven years, both kids were conceived there... we just might move back to the land of oranges, air conditioners and legally married queer families.  Stranger things have happened.

So:  my most HEARTFELT CONGRATULATIONS go out to all the gay and lesbian couples who have already become legally married in California in the last week or so.  A blessing on your beautiful heads.  We'll be joining you soon. 

                                                                  Otherwise known as free child labor.  I'm telling you, you can't start them too young.  Just hold that bottle out at arm's length and say, "Not until you've cleaned Mommy's toilet..."

Don't call CPS.  Do notice that we removed the blade from the mower before this helpful little extravaganza began.  I expected Gabriel to have fun scraping all the crud out from the bottom of the machine, but just look at little Noa, agog over all the shiny silver tools.  She had a blast just trying each of them out and getting Melissa's toolkit all grassy. 

Gabriel likes to help me drive.  He has learned about traffic lights, and with his keen little eyes spies signals far in the distance...and expects an instantaneous motor vehicle response.  "But it is RED, mama."  "Where???"  "Waaaaay up there!"

Okay.  So this morning on the way to school he explained the system to me.  "Red is on top, see, because Spiderman is the top, and he is red."

And green?  "Green is the bottom because Spiderman 'feats (he mean defeats) the Green Goblin."

I knew there was a method to this madness.  He did not have an explanation for the yellow light yet, but I'm sure it is coming soon, to a booster seat very near myself.

Just look, look, LOOK at those cute little teeth.  They are lethal weapons.  I'm not kidding.  This charming child has been sick, and understandably cranky...  but she bit a small chunk of my nipple right OFF.  I'm maimed.  There goes that Sports Illustrated Swimsuit Issue gig... 

It began as a nasty, bleeding bite... when I finally got a look I thought 'No, that flap she chewed off of there will totally heal back down.."  Now I know the truth.  Parenting hurts.  I was considering applying vices to Melissa's nipples to give her a proper appreciation and "sympathy pains," until I saw her pale, weak complexion when I asked for ANOTHER cotton swab to clear away the blood.  She gets it.  She wouldn't put her nipple into that gaping maw of teeth to SAVE HER LIFE.

So I went to the doctor - we were going anyway - and revealed the wound.  Um, she says, you know, you have given her a good start.... at 13 months she's totally ready for whole cow's milk...  and yet I hesitate to wean.  Maybe its the fantastic pressure of the World Frickin' Health Organization telling me to keep it up for 2 years...  maybe it is the ease and convenience of putting her down for naps, and bedtime, with that hypnotizing boob...  but now I've lost a chunk of my nipple to this deal, and there is going to be hell to pay.  I'm calling La Leche in the morning and taking it out on one of those well meaning gals. Someone will sympathise! Just be glad I didn't post a pic of that nipple.

Save the date!  We've been watching this California same-sex marriage thing pretty closely, and it looks like real, legal, honest-to-Moses gay weddings are a-gonna happen.  Coming soon to a family near you.  As we don't live in California any more, travel plans are in order. 

There is some math to do.  Same-sex weddings may commence as early as June 16, 2008, but it may take a little longer.  And there will probably be a vicious little amendment on the ballot in November to stop them.  So midsummer seems best.  July 26th.  From the moment i wrote that date on the calendar, I've been a little giddy.  Which is strange.  I mean, we've been married before, twice, as those images and stories on the Wedding(s) page show.  But something about writing "Wedding" on the calendar box labeled Saturday, July 26 has got me all tingly-excited.  It's like seeing the big red plus sign on the pregnancy test.  Wow!  Its gonna happen!  Time to prepare.

Rabbi contacted? Check.  Location chosen?  Check.  Travel plans...  now this is a puzzler.  I admire women who gracefully glide through the airport with arm loads of children, but I am not one of them.  There is something inherently Herculean about dragging three suitcases, two car seats, two or three carry-ons filled with toys, snacks, lovies and Tylenol, plus of course the children themselves, pushed in strollers, balanced on hips, racing off in 15 directions at once to see the planes.  You should have seen the tantrum Gabriel threw once when he had to send his Spiderman shoes through the x-ray machine.   With full confidence that they were gone forever, he pitched a fit and fell in it.   Too bad for the security officers that they don't wear hearing protection.

So, to the question for us became: do we bring the children?  We really contemplated leaving Gabriel with my folks for the weekend (Noa is still tenaciously attached to my breast), especially since it would be cheaper and so much easier....  but I can't do it.  He has to come.  We are going to be talking about and looking at pictures of this wedding for the rest of our lives, and I want him to see himself there, smiling at the camera, proud to be standing on the grass with his mommies while they enter into this covenant.  Like the image of him here, in Melissa's arms, the day she adopted him.  All week I've been thinking about a ritual I used to hear my Mormon neighbors talking about, "sealing the family."  I looked it up on the web this morning: 

"...sealing refers to the marriage of a husband and wife and to the joining together of children and parents in relationships that are to endure forever."  (http://www.lightplanet.com/mormons/temples/sealings.html)

Now, 'celestial marriage' aside, this is an idea that really draws me.  The idea of a binding ceremony which celebrates not just the couple, but the entire family.  Is there a Jewish equivalent?  Does any one know?  If not, we'll be inventing some sort of Marriage/baby naming hybrid ceremony just for the occasion.  Just as soon as I make plane and hotel reservations, and stock up on Tylenol.