Parenting Check-In....

Mystjava

Good Morning

How was your weekend? Any new updates with your LO(s), challenges, accomplishments, successes? If you feel up to it, please remind us how old your little one(s) is/are. Some of us have "parenting" brains.

QOTD: Do you (or have you) any ideas of how to help your child/ren deal with their emotions when approached by others who do not understand the child's family?

Mystjava

Trying to get this started since I am going to guess that our wonderful friend has just recently celebrated a new member into their family.
Why did I post this qotw? I have been feeling strange emotions over the weekend repeated to this topic. Someone had asked me, "where's your husband?" My first thought was "ugh!" It didn't trigger anything in my LO yet, but I do worry about it since we live in a very rural community.
As for us, we've a great time over the weekend! We went to a Lego convention and got some cool stuff. My LO and I love legos. We love building things together. My favorite express of his is "I want to be creative first!". This is coming from a four year old?! Wow!

2brides

We had a good week - it was pretty much business as usual (school, homework, soccer practice...) but the kids had a fun soccer game Saturday, had a friend spend the night Sat night, and had 2 birthday parties yesterday. The weather was beautiful - so we had a lot of outdoor play time.

QOTD: Thankfully, we haven't really encountered this to a large degree. Last summer a kid asked one of the boys why he had 2 moms and he just said, "I don't know. I just do." LOL. That is pretty much how they handle it - it is just so matter of fact. They have never known anything else and we are just their parents. Period. We did a lot of talking'/reading when they were younger about various types of families, but now it is a non-issue among their school/friends/etc. We'll see what happens next year when they change schools, get new friends, etc. We'll do the same thing we do now when they are teased/questioned about anything - validate their feelings, help them figure out what they want their response to be, and we'll address any over bullying with teachers/administration.

trisholio

We had a good weekend with the girls.  Saturday we spent a few hours at Babys R Us registering for our little girl due in June.  M and K were actually well behaved most of the time.  I was surprised, but very pleased with them both!  We skipped church on Sunday and slept in.  We went over to my moms in the afternoon, which was just okay.  I wasn't feeling great and it is always more work when you are at someone else's house, so the day was exhausting instead of relaxing.

QOTD: My wife and I have talked about this a lot, but I am not sure how we will handle it when it happens.  We are very open and out in our lives, we take the girls out a lot in public and rarely get dirty looks but usually lots of smiles.  They aren't our biological children and don't call us mom, so as they grow up I am not sure we will have the same issues with them as we will with our biological daughter.  I just hope to explain that families come in all shapes, sizes, colors and gender.

Jazibel

@Mystjava - part of me wishes I was welcoming our LO, but he's still snug in the womb.  I am however exhausted because Kaden is sick with a cold and was up last night.  I did also have some mild contractions (20+ min apart) last night that made falling asleep even in the wee hours difficult.

Fingers crossed I'm checking in about 2 kiddos next week ;-)

Kaden is going on 2 - which I'm in denial about (@stringy813 - I totally relate).  He's currently 21 months old.

We had a great weekend - it was low key and we spent much of it at home catching up on homework and letting Kaden's toddler antics amuse us.  It's been really fun - I say this all the time but it truly just gets better and better.  He spends so much time reading, and being read to - seriously we read 30 books a day and he spends another 1.5 - 2 hours reading to himself (in increments).  He loves playing outside and when the weather is good I just keep the french door open and let him run in and out of the house.  (He's outside right now climbing on the patio furniture).  But the best is his adorable way of saying words. I haven't snapped a video yet but I keep telling EV we need to capture how he pronounces a few of our favorites.

QOTD: We were just talking about this the other day. It doesn't come up much right now. But the more involved we become in the community and when we start looking for daycare/babysitting options I think this will be even more pronounced.  We really want to have Kaden grow up feeling positively about his family, and are concerned about the conservative area we live in.  I think we won't be in this town by the time Kaden is school age (we're strongly considering moving back to the East Bay area) so hopefully we won't be struggling with this issue at that point. We're pretty open with the people we meet, and I try to share enough so that people can learn to accept our family.  That said I've lived here more than 6 months and have yet to make a friend    Again - very conservative area - sigh. When I visit Berkeley, or Oakland I seem to make friends with strangers right away, being LGBT, hippie, a person of color doesn't seem to be as much of a hindrance... Anyway sorry for the long explanation :-)

ATXmommas

Thanks for getting us started @Mystjava‌.

LO is 5 months. Our themes the past few weeks have been ear aches and sleep regression with lots of awesome mixed in.

In regards to the ear infections, we are currently on day 8 (of 10) of our third round of antibiotics. We took LO to a homeopathic wellness center last Monday and also started giving him some herbal ear drops, bovine colostrum (umm, who knew?), and, of course, probiotics. My doula also reminded me of how curative breast milk is, so I've put breast milk in his ear a couple times, but not regularly. I don't think I'll know until a few more days have passed if the infection has cleared. I mentioned in my WFDW post that the homeopath also recommended I go GF. I haven't taken that step yet, but will pursue it if the infection hasn't cleared up.

And, then there's sleep... He does not go more than 3 hours ever (more like 2). When I was up in the MON recently, I googled, "Why doesn't my 5 month old sleep?" and this came up - https://sarahockwell-smith.com/2013/08/29/help-my-4-5-month-old-is-sleeping-like-a-newborn-again-aka-as-the-4-5-month-old-babies-from-hell/
I resonated with this a lot (except our baby is very happy during the day, only cranky at night). Nice to be reminded that this stage is normal and will pass. Fingers crossed. I don't feel the need to do anything about it (sleep training, etc) except weather the storm...

Most importantly, there is the awesome - I feel like he has "woken up" even more. His actions and movements are becoming more intentional. He gives us huge belly laughs when we blow on or tickle his tummy. He almost always responds to a smile with a smile. He's reaching out to grab/pet the dog and cats. We gave him water from a cup last night and he LOVED it - both the water and drinking from a cup. Like I said, all sorts of awesome. Next milestone - sitting up unassisted. Looking forward to it!

QOTW: we haven't had to deal with this yet. There are times when we have been asked who the mother is and we just say both of us. Just last week the homeopath looked at LO and said something like, "Oh, you're daddy must be so pleased with you," to which I replied, "oh, he has two mommies." We having had to deal with any negative responses yet. Hopefully those will be far and few between - one of the reasons I chose to make Austin my home. I'm sorry you are dealing with some negativity @Mystjava‌. I hope others have good tips.

PIP from the weekend - Z has been dying to get LO some shades

trisholio

Jazibel I was starting to wonder about you.  I might have been stalking the board a little today to catch any updates on you :-)  Keep cooking that little man, he will come out when he is ready

Mystjava

Everyone.. thanks for the welcome and appreciation. That's what happens when you've been up for two hours and not a "peep" online, so I decided to roll with the punches.
We've haven't gotten the negativity yet, but I can see it shimmering on the horizon. Someone, whom didn't know me yet, had asked for my "husband" and another person (whom I've chatted with off/on for the past year) had assumed I was in a heterosexual relationship. Oy! It will be interesting to see Mikhail's reaction when he gets a bit older and more understanding of family.
Alright Owen... it's time to join your brother!!!

YBnormal85

So excited to have bopped over to the parenting check in after the arrival of our daughter Lennon on Monday! She is one week old today, and is more precious than ever! Her first week flew by, and she already seems so much older. She has been a champ with breastfeeding, and loooves to snuggle. When she is awake she is very alert and smiles often. I don't care what people say, I think they are real smiles:) Her cord stub fell off so soon we will be entering the world of cloth diapers!

QOTD. We haven't had to deal with this as of yet, however during our trip to get blood work most of the people we encountered were a bit confused by the fact that Lennon has two mother's. The one woman even thought I was my DWs surrogate. I just have been saying we are both the mother when people ask, and so far so good with their reactions.

mwagner25

@YBnormal85 so nice to see you checking in here.  Lennon is beautiful! we love our cloth diapers and they are sooo darn cute.  

We are doing well.  Oliver is 5 months old today.  He is working on sitting up on his own and loves his exersaucer right now.  He seems to be teething and drooling but is a pretty happy guy despite it.  He is still doing well with sleeping at night and is taking puréed fruits and veggies like a champ.  We haven't had him roll much but he does push up onto his hands and knees and rock.  We are trying to do more tummy time to encourage him to roll and move more but he mostly just gets frustrated and cries.  We are planning to go to Grant's Farm to see the animals tomorrow since I have a day off. 

QOTW: We like others haven't run into this yet.  We already have books that talk about different families and having 2 mommies so we will see if that helps when he gets older.  

ATXmommas

Enjoyed all the updates. Thanks to all of you for sharing a glimpse of your lives each week.

@YBnormal85‌ & @sarahtrpt‌ - Love seeing the new babies! Enjoy, enjoy, enjoy!

@Jazibel‌ - thinking about you tons! Looking forward to your updates as a parent of two!

@mwagner25‌ - We have some major push-ups going on here too! No food yet - I'm so curious to know how Ash is going to do with it. We'll see soon enough. Glad y'all are sleeping better

mwagner25

@ATXmommas‌ I am excited to hear about when Ash starts solids... I expect some adorable messy face pics from you!

ATXmommas

@Mamosey‌ - gorgeous! I felt like 8 weeks was a real turning point for us - we started to come out of the fog - we started taking him out more and really started to get into the swing of things.

I'll have to look up the brand later today. They are just now starting to fit him, so it may be a few weeks before any will fit R. But, so far so good. He didn't seem to mind them at all.

JGY

Can't believe I missed this yesterday!  What was I doing?  Oh yeah, I was spending 2 hours writing down our family sleep history for the sleep consultant that we've finally hired.  Ugh ...

Gabe is 13 months, and AWESOME in so many ways.  He's got a bunch of words (hi, bye, book, agua, kit-ty, duh-dee - for Duncan, YEAH!), it's so freaking adorable. He's also moving towards some pretty toddler-like behavior, testing us a lot.  It's fine.  Frustrating, but fine.  But yeah, the sleep.  If this personalized sleep plan works for us, you can bet I'll be singing this lady's praises all over this board!

QOTD:
We live in a pretty mixed community.  Gabe will absolutely not be the only GLBT family kid in whatever school he goes to (there are a number of us in his daycare), but there are also pockets of pretty conservative folks as well.

As PP mentioned, we have lots of books that talk about different kinds of families.  Perhaps tonight when I am home I'll make a quick list so I can post them tomorrow?  Would people be interested in that?

Also, we tend to be very matter of fact like many of you mentioned above.  When people make comments about Dad or Husband, I just say "Actually I have a wife."  I've not once had a negative reaction to that; I say it very politely and with a smile.  My hope is that Gabe will internalize the normal tone in my voice and will grow up understanding that this is, in fact, normal.

Kids are so adaptable.  My friend is a parent to her partner's son (they did not decide to have the child together, but my friend has been in his life since birth) and they came up with a name for her - "Snuffy."  The kid is very comfortable with his family, and regularly talks about them.  Some of his classmates have been overheard asking their Dads "Why don't I have a Snuffy?"  Now THAT is how it should be, right?

My major concern, and one reason I started the thread about male influence last week, is for when Gabe gets older.  When the teasing is less about someone thinking his family isn't "Right" and more about it just being something to tease him about; to make him self-conscious and get under his skin.  And, as I stated in that thread, my paranoia that some inappropriate dude will take advantage of him by worming his way in as a "Father figure." 

Ahh well.  If I didn't have that to worry about I'd find something else.

Have a great week everyone!  Good luck @Jazibel, nice to see you here @YBNormal85, and here's hoping Ash feels better @ATXmommas!

2brides

Here is a list of some of the books we read. The one that we read a lot that isn't on here, is The Family Book by Todd Parr. https://sfpl.org/index.php?pg=2000154901

We get asked with some degree of regularity about husbands/fathers/etc and I think the most important part is modeling complete confidence/truthfullness in answering in front of the kids. Also, as your kids get older, you get outed over and over and over. The kids yell, "Hey Mom!" and you both turn. You say to the kids in front of 1001 people, "I don't know, we'll talk to mom when we get home."
Your kids kiss both of you and say, "I love you" to both of you... Instant outing. Awesomeness.

Jazibel

2brides said:

Here is a list of some of the books we read. The one that we read a lot that isn't on here, is The Family Book by Todd Parr. https://sfpl.org/index.php?pg=2000154901

We get asked with some degree of regularity about husbands/fathers/etc and I think the most important part is modeling complete confidence/truthfullness in answering in front of the kids. Also, as your kids get older, you get outed over and over and over. The kids yell, "Hey Mom!" and you both turn. You say to the kids in front of 1001 people, "I don't know, we'll talk to mom when we get home."
Your kids kiss both of you and say, "I love you" to both of you... Instant outing. Awesomeness.

Thanks for the list :-)

ATXmommas

@mamosey - the sunglasses brand is iplay. We bought at a local store, but looks like you can find at Amazon.

JGY

@winstan1 maybe I've just missed it, but I haven't seen you around in a bit.  This was a great update, thanks for posting!

 

I'm hoping I have at least another full year before I have to start dealing with the "Killing" phase.