In other family news...

My grandfather was going to die today, but he seems to have rebounded. I don't mean to be callous about this; it's just the way it is. When he was about 85 years old, he started telling me I should hurry up and get on with my life because he hasn't got much time left. That was almost 15 years ago. He's a couple months shy of 99 now, and it's hard for me to get worked up about it.

To be fair, he hasn't been giving me much grief of late about "achieving my goals," (his way of saying having kids.) But that has less to do with the fact that I finally bore him a great-grandson than the fact that he drifts in and out of a state of senile dementia.

This is how he looked when I saw him just last month in New York:


Not bad for nearly a century.

He recognized me and The Boy too, I think, but we weren't able to carry on much of a conversation. He just sat and smiled and slept and smiled and sat. One thing is clear: the man does not want to die.

A couple weeks ago, he went into the hospital because he had an ulcer, and while he was there picked up some nasty strain of pneumonia that has been resistant to all the antibiotics the doctors have sent in after it. A ventilator is doing all or most of his breathing, and they've cut a hole in his throat because apparently its more comfortable to hook the machine up to that than to his face. They've also put some sort of tube in his stomach to feed him. He can't talk, but he shakes his head to say "no" when my mother asks if he's in pain. He isn't interested in reading or being read to or watching television, and he wants everything done that can be done to keep him alive.

I don't understand this. I know it's not my place to judge anyone else's quality of life, but I can't help feeling we've gone too far to keep this man alive. At the same time, I know my grandfather is afraid of dying, and the thought of letting him die when we have the means to save him seems unbearably cruel.

Why is it so hard for people to let go? Is it because they're so attached to this life or so fearful of what happens next? That's the big question, isn't it - the Big Question that drives us toward God and accomplishemnt and whatever else we strive for in this world: what happens to us after we die? I guess the upside of believing that life is inherently meaningless is that you have no fear of death. At least I have that going for me. I may feel differently when my body starts to fall apart, but let's face it: that process has already begun, and there are worse things in the world than for it to come to an end.

Note: Just because I believe life is inherently meaningless, does not mean I think it has no meaning. I think we give it meaning by living it, in our actions and our interactions, in our relationships and how we effect the world around us. This is why you don't need God to make sure everyone behaves. That and the fact that we've evolved to uphold a social contract, since it's much better to live alongside your annoying neighbor than to fend for yourself in the woods.

Please excuse the philosophizing. That's what you get for thinking about death.

Stable footing, at least literally

This is what your parents' divorce looks like when you're 32 years old:

These are my golf shoes, which arrived today in a plain brown box from Florida. No note. Just the shoes.

Which is OK. I mean, what is there to say?

Biology 101

We were walking down the street the other night, our cute, clean, All-American family, when The Boy began reciting all the facts he knows about me. It went like this:

"Mommy work."
"Mommy ride bike work."
"Mommy ride bus work."
"Mommy coffee."
"Mommy pants black."
"Mommy 'jamas purple."
"Mommy bath."
"Mommy 'gina."

It's not quite poetry, but as you can see, he's got the basics down: I go to work. Sometimes I ride my bike, and sometimes I ride the bus. I drink a lot of coffee. I usually wear black pants. My pajama top is, on occasion, purple. I like to take the baths. And, yes, I do have a vagina. Which is really not something I need my two-year-old announcing on a crowded city street.

Out of the mouths of babes, right?

Help me out here, fellas

You can chalk one up to the hate-mongering social conservatives - I have encountered a parenting situation in which I must admit it would be helpful to have a daddy in the house.

After frolicking in a fountain one sunny morning, I was changing The Boy into dry clothes when he informed me he had to pee. There was no public bathroom around, and I didn't want to tell him it was ok to pee in his diaper, since that's just the sort of behavior we're trying to discourage with the whole potty training endeavor, so I walked him over to a tree that was more or less out of the way, because, yeah, peeing in public is exactly the sort of behavior we want to encourage.

Reservations about leading The Boy on to his first illicit act aside, I was kind of excited, because he would have to pee standing up for the first time, and that seemed like some sort of milestone. (Have I mentioned in this blog that I need to get a job?) It seems, however, that this is not an innate behavior. After the first little squirt landed on his feet, I realized some instruction was required, but I was not sure how to proceed. His Uncle Julian is supposed to advise The Boy on such matters, but Uncle Julian was far, far away in a land called Pasadena.

"You have to hold it," I told him, but he seemed reluctant to grab onto his penis mid-stream. I wanted to point it myself at the tree, but isn't your mom holding your penis while you pee the sort of thing that can cause long-term psychological damage? In the end, he sort of bent his knees and thrust his pelvis out to make a nice pale yellow arc that landed in the grass.

So I ask you, dear readers with the male plumbing parts, have you any advice, a lesson plan, perhaps, on how to teach The Boy this particular skill? I'm just looking for the basics; I'm sure one of his uncles will be around when he's ready for the A.P. class on how to write his name in the snow. The Boy is eager to learn. He spent the rest of the day asking if he could repeat the performance.

HIM: "Pee grass!"
ME: "Yes, you peed in the grass."
HIM: "Again? Pee grass?"
ME: "No, sweetie. We're not peeing in the grass right now.
HIM "Pee street?"
ME: "No, we don't pee in the street."
HIM: "Pee tree? Pee grass? Pee tree?"
ME: "How about you get the peeing in the potty thing down and then we can talk."

What we're not doing this weekend

Here's what we're not doing this weekend: Spending $14 a person to go see Thomas the Tank Engine in person.

Does that make us bad parents? TheBoy LOOOOOVES Thomas. He loves his Thomas shirt, he loves his Thomas books, and when he go to the video store to get, say, the next three Deadwood discs for the weekend, he invariably demands a Thomas DVD. "Watch Thomas? Watch Thomas? Watch Thomas?"

This is new. For a while there, his world revolved around everything Elmo. (Click on that link at your own risk: Elmo has been known to cause severe tooth decay.) He still likes Elmo -- his toothbrush, for example, is a snazzy orange-and-red number with Elmo emblazoned on the handle. But he's moved on.

These phases are interesting. We seem to have made it through our Wiggles phase, which disappoints me only in that I had a bit of a crush on that nice Anthony fellow. I'm sure that next we'll get Bob the Builder, and then dinosaurs, and then . . . girls, maybe? Eek.

Still, $14 for a 30-minute ride on a train that's not really Thomas seems a little steep. Sorry, kid.

First day of school

The Boy broke my heart today when I dropped him off for his first day of Spanish summer camp. We walked in and he lagged behind as the teacher showed me where to put his stuff in the cubby room. I was signing him in when I heard his cry and looked up to see his weepy self reaching toward me from the arms of another teacher.

Oy vey.

This was completely unexpected and out of character. Back when I was a working mom and took him to day care for the first time at the tender age of six months, I handed him to Tatis, the lovely (and licensed) Colombian grandmother who cared for him and four other toddlers in her home, and he just looked at me as if to say "Ok, you can go now. This lady clearly knows what she's doing way better than you."

He's never had a problem with baby sitters and will haul off and leave his mommies without a second thought if something shiny catches his eye. When we went to visit the camp (a school, actually) a couple of weeks ago, he took one look at the children playing in the yard and ran off to the plastic play structures without ever looking back. He followed the kids into their classroom when recess was over, sat right down to join their afternoon activity, and cried when we told him it was time to go home.

So who was this poor pathetic little guy sniffling on my shoulder? I set him down in his classroom, where the teacher distracted him with giant lego-like blocks, and when he was playing with his back to me, I scooted out of there feeling like a traitor. My arms were empty and craving one more hug, though I knew this would just prolong the tears (his) and the agony (mine.)

This sounds a little overly dramatic, but I felt awful, and I MISSED him, and I couldn't wait to go pick him up four hours later. I spent the time running errands. It's amazing how much you can get done when you don't have a toddler to contend with and how weird it felt to walk leisurely through a store, not having to rush to get everything before the little one loses patience with the scenery.

I arrived early to pick the boy up. He was playing happily in the yard with one of his little buddies. The teacher told me he had cried just a little bit when I left, but she held him and he was ok. Then she handed me a fabulous drawing he had made and I chased him down as he ran from room to room because he didn't want to leave.

Oy vey.

When we got home, he kept saying: Crying, crying, crying. Me cry.
What did you do in school? I asked him.
Paint. Play-do. Play outside, he answered. For the record, these are a few of his favorite things, but when I asked him if he liked school, he said he didn't and went right back to chanting: Crying, crying, crying. Me cry.

And so it begins.

These kids today

There is no picture here, because none of dear Desiree's nifty little cartoon AnnaRays could capture my face right now. Imagine my hat popping off, my hair standing up, my mouth hanging open. And then add sound: Maybe the occasional, "Um . . . " Or "Wow." Or "Holy crap."

We've had a lot of news here recently in the little green house on 21st Avenue, as if we've fallen into some weird vortex of emotional happenings: My hearing isn't great, the search for sperm is proving a little frustrating, Judybat's grandfather isn't doing so well, etc. None of that, however, prepared us for the latest development.

Twenty-two years ago, my mother left my brother's father for the man I consider my stepfather. This week, she left my stepfather for my brother's father.

Let's take a second to let that sink in. . . .

Nope, that didn't work.

My mother is in the process of moving from south Florida to northern Washington state. Except for family pictures and clothes, she has left everything behind. On the doorstep of 60, she is making a complete, total, seismic change in her life.

I fell down when she told me. Fell down. Literally. I've got the raspberries on my knees to prove it.

I also cried. For quite a while.

Why? I'm not sure. On the one hand, it's not as if this affects my life all that much. It's not about me, or Judybat, or The Boy. If anything, my mom will be closer -- a mere four-hour drive away, as opposed to two flights stretching over an entire day.

And maybe she'll be happy. One of the few rules I try to live by is to never judge or try to understand other people's marriages -- god only knows there are people who probably wonder what the hell Judybat and I see in each other, given how different we can be. Still, I never quite got my mother's marriage to my stepfather. I worried that she was choosing stability over satisfaction, if that makes any sense. And I want her to be satisfied. Whatever makes her happy, that's what I want.

At the same time, my heart aches for my stepfather. It feels like someone died; just when I think I've gotten a handle on this, just when my mouth shuts and I think I've processed this, my brain conjures up some routine memory of family life over the past two decades. And I'm stunned and confused and on the verge of being a little weepy all over again.

Soon, I promise, shesaidshesaid will turn back into a routine if occasionally amusing account of our lives here in the PDX, rather than a constant display of our health problems, semen needs and family dirty laundry. Or, at least, that's what I hope happens. Soon.

Showing my age

I'm feeling a little old right now, and not just because TheBoy is moving into big boy pants or because I seem incapable of sleeping past 5 a.m. anymore or because all I really want to do this week is sit on the couch and watch my stories. No, this is a pop culture thing. At least, I think it is.

As a reasonably successful and still relatively young newspaper type, I'm occasionally approached by my bosses to offer career advice, counseling, free meals and other useful insights to interns, prospective hires, etc. This week, I spoke to my major media outlet's summer interns. One of them -- let me preface this by saying that she's a very mature, articulate, obviously talented young women -- emailed me afterward to see if I'd go to lunch with her to talk about her professional aspirations, how to get a job, what it's like living on the West Coast, etc. Our email exchange went something like this:

Her: "Where do you want to meet? I can come to your office if that's easier. Hot."
Me: "Sure. Next Wednesday. See you there."
Her: "Actually, how about if we meet at the restaurant? Hot."
Me: "Sure. What time works for you?"
Her: "1 p.m. Hot."
Me: "OK. I can do it later if you need."
Her: "No, that's fine. Thanks for taking the time to do this. Hot."
Me, unspoken to myself because I don't want to sound like a true geezer: "What's with this "hot" thing? It's actually quite cool outside today. I'm afraid your meaning escapes me. Don't you fear you'll sound unprofessional if you keep throwing that word around that way? Are you having some sort of seizure? Are you on drugs? And having premarital sex?"

Apparently, it's a Paris Hilton thing. Or that's what my 27-year-old coworker told me that. Does anyone know if he's right? Does anyone else think this is really, really weird? Did I suddenly turn 85? Do we need to plug the rabbit ears back into our TV? What are kids coming to these days?

If someone can help me figure this out, I'd be most appreciative. Hot.
Or not.

The midweek update

Cue snappy TV news music:

- We got our paperwork back from the lawyer, which means all of our stuff has begun its long trip through the state bureaucracy. Still, I'm anxiously awaiting results of the criminal records check. Do the bad things follow you across the country?
- Last night we had a few scary moments when it appeared No Cat had gone missing again. Turns out she'd just gone out for a smoke with Blue Bear.
- Joe Torre still hasn't been fired. But it's coming.
- The fertility clinic we're considering for Segundo, pretty much the only one we can use in this great-but-small city, requires new patients there for the complicated process we'll call, 'Getting Knocked Up Artificially' to see a social worker before proceeding. For $150. Judybat and I both find that a little insulting. And expensive. Harrumph.
- TheBoy starts preschool next week. My panic attack hasn't come yet, but, like the Yankee implosion and the Democratic Party comeback, it's coming.
- Great news: I don't have syphilis!

legally speaking

I can't tell you how angry I was in the hospital after The Boy's birth in North Carolina when they told me I couldn't put AnnaRay's name on the birth certificate. I was tempted to write it in anyway, as my own little personal protest, but apparently that would have rendered it invalid. It makes me angry now just thinking about it.

Now here in Portland, we have a legal document that says Anna loves the child. It is an undisputeable fact; we have it notarized and everything. It seems ridiculous, and yet I got a little weepy in the lawyer's office just reading that line before signing the adoption papers.

It's weird that I should get so emotional about what the government has to say about our family's relationship. Why should I care that one state refuses to acknowledges that my partner is also my child's parent and another declares her to be his loving mother?

Hmph.

What $900 will buy you

On Friday, we went to sign the papers that will, several months from now, make my adoption of TheBoy official. Right now, we're as unofficial and legally disconnected as you can be, except for the fact that I change his diapers, get him up in the morning, bathe with him upon request ("Mommy bath? Mommy bath?") and generally would die without him. Sure, he calls me Mommy. But in the eyes of the law, I could be any complete stranger. Forget about the fact that I was there holding Judybat's hand when they yanked him out of her, and taking the pictures we have of him slathered in his own baby filth before they cleaned him off.

A little exposition: Back in North Carolina, the place we used to live and still hold dear in our hearts, state law made it illegal for me to adopt him. Let me repeat that in case you didn't catch it: State law made it ILLEGAL for me to adopt him. Because the last thing we would want is for a child to have two loving, adoring mommies. It might turn him into a pansy or something.

Now we're in lovely, lush, liberal Portland. Here on the Left Coast, it's perfectly legal for me to adopt my son. All I have to do is pay a lawyer $900, pass my criminal records check and get Judybat to sign on the dotted line. And wait a couple of months for a judge to sign off on everything. If all goes well and the timing works out, we'll be able to take TheBoy's grandparents down to the courthouse when everything becomes official. Can you imagine? A happy ending.

There is one question, however. Our lawyer, an optimist despite the fact that she deals with divorce and dysfunction all day, says we can ask the state where TheBoy was born to create a new-and-improved birth certificate, showing his new-and-improved legal status. It would list JudyBat as the mom and me as the other parent. (Who's your daddy? Apparently I am.)

Anybody want to start taking bets on whether the good folks at the N.C. records department are going to go along with that? Personally, in a twisted sort of way, I'm almost hoping they show a little consistency and refuse. I mean, absolutely nothing has changed or will change about my relationship to the kid. He's still my son, no matter what they say.

Conversations overheard during The Great Sperm Search 2005 Part 2

JB: It's hard to say, 'well, we went with the color blind guy who's got colon cancer and Alzheimers in his family because the other guy was short.'
AR: Yeah. I think tiny guy is in the lead.

Here's the weird thing about shopping for 50 percent of the genetic make-up of your future child: it gives you a false feeling of control, as if introducing sperm to egg is ever anything but a crapshoot. You feel this huge responsibility, because you think you're hand-picking the traits your kid will have, and given a choice, you find yourself getting exceedingly picky.

So here's how our little experiment in eugenics is going:

Having narrowed down our search to a handful of smart, athletic, artistic donors who look more or less like me, (if eye color and hair texture have anything to do with it,) AnnaRay and I have paid twelve dollars a pop to peruse their long profiles, which detail their health histories, health histories of their extended families and, oh yeah, SAT scores.

At this point I should note that neither AR nor I would have made the cut. My m.s. would have ruled me out instantly, but even without that, my SAT scores and the fact that my grandfather had Parkinsons would have nixed me. Meanwhile, AnnaRay, as we all know, is going deaf, and her family's health history is riddled with cancer, not to mention divorce.

Maybe we should buy some egss while we're at it.

Anyway, now we're torn, because all of these guys seem to have some evil lurking in their profiles - Alzheimers, schizophrenia, ulcers, corrective lenses, a 600 on both verbal and math - except for one. Tiny guy. He and his whole tiny clan are the picture of good health. So why should we care if he's only 5'5'' and has fair skin? Who cares if our kid is short and translucent if he's smart and talented and healthy? And who's to say he will be any of those things? For that matter, what makes us think we would be sentencing our kid to a lifetime of serious health issues just because we used a donor whose maternal aunt had bunyons and a heart arhythmia?

It's funny too, how we seem to be assuming that Segundo will be a boy, since presumably, the potential lack of height would not be a problem for a girl child. And how awful and superficial is that?

JB: The thing about tiny guy is, he's just like me.
AR: Except I don't have to have sex with him.
Long silence.
JB: I don't think that came out the way you wanted it to sound.

Our week, in a nutshell

The bad news:
- I can't hear.
- StinkyPee has a tapeworm.
- TheBoy has an ear infection.
- Judybat has M.S.
- The Yankees can't win, and I fear that sweet Joe Torre is going to get fired.
- The Tar Heels have no players.
- The new Star Wars pretty much stinks.
- Our new favorite sushi place has changed its name, from "Pufferfish," which I think is cute and clever, to "Sushi Mania," which makes me never want to eat there again.
- We finished the third season of "Six Feet Under" on DVD, not realizing the last episode was the last episode until we went to the video store to check out another disc. I miss our friends, the Fishers. Especially Claire. Poor, sweet Claire.
- My feet stink.
- Hearing aids cost a lot of money.
- The new bathroom we want to put in upstairs costs a lot of money.
- TheBoy just pooped out something white.

The good news:
- If I can't hear, do I still have to pick up my socks?
- There is medicine for tapeworms.
- The boy fought off his ear infection before we noticed. Tough guy!
- In addition to M.S., Judybat has great hair. And those pants.
- Derek Jeter still busts his tail every play. Plus, our uniforms are still cooler than anybody else's.
- I trust in Roy.
- While stinky, the new Star Wars is not as bad as the first two. Plus, no Ewoks.
- There is nothing redeeming I can say about Sushi Mania.
- The fifth season of the Sopranos comes out this week. So we'll soon be replacing subtlety, boobies and nuance with violence, boobies and cursing. Seems like a fair trade to me.
- Judybat loves my big feet, despite the stench.
- Hearing aids will allow me to carry on normal conversations, and do my job, and stop infuriating Judybat when I pretend I can hear what she's saying.
- The bathroom will add value to our home, regardless of whether we stay here forever or sell the place and return east.
- It was a cute little white turd, I'm sure.

Poor AnnaRay

I, for one, am not freaking out. And just to be clear: AnnaRay was not the one complaining about her ears; I was. She's not so great at faking those conversations. She often nods when I ask her something like "how was work today?" or "what do you want for dinner?" Just this morning I said "you can leave that door open," and she responded by closing the door. So I am pleased to know that she just can't hear me, as opposed to she's just not paying attention to me. (That happens too, but usually there's reading matter involved.)

Also, I think bionic hearing could be pretty cool. Sexy even. I used to have a huge crush on Jaime Sommers. But really, who wouldn't?

I'm not the one going deaf, of course, but here's the way I look at it: it's a relief to know what's going on, since we already knew her hearing sucked. I was diagnosed with multiple sclerosis a bunch years ago, and when I read a list of some of the cognitive symptoms - memory problems, forgetfulness, slow word recall - I thought "This is great! Finally I have an excuse for getting lost in my own neighborhood and forgetting what I was going to say next."

Poor AnnaRay. I'm not the most sympathetic when it comes to physical ailments. She can expect to hear this sort of thing when she's pregnant: "Heartburn? Big deal. At least you're not nauseous 24 hours a day. Bleeding gums? Feh. Let me tell you about the back pain I had."

Could you repeat that?

Before getting too far into this post, I feel the need to establish a basic groundrule: There will be no freaking out. What I'm about to tell you isn't, on the grand scheme of things, that big a deal. It's life-shifting, let's say, rather than life-changing. I tell you not to win any sympathy, but rather because it's the only thing I'm thinking about today, and it's my turn to post. Plus, it's sort of interesting in a, "Gosh, I'm glad that's not me," type of way.

OK, here goes: I'm going deaf. No, that's not quite right, even though that's the thought that my brain keeps screaming at me. ("Screaming," get it? See how I'm keeping my sense of humor?) I'm not actually going deaf, at least not at the moment. But according to my doctor, I've suffered some substantial hearing loss in both my ears. It's in the middle range -- you know, the range in which most human interaction occurs.

This isn't, to be honest with you, a huge surprise. I've been complaining to Judybat about my ears for several years now, but just haven't gotten off my ass to make a doctor do a full diagnostic. To an increasing degree, I've been faking my way through conversations, nodding and playing along and reading lips and trying to avoid asking people to repeat themselves over and over again. I've taken to forcing Judybat to use the closed captioning feature on our DVD player more and more often. And when we saw Star Wars last week, I could have sworn there was something wrong with the theater sound system. (Apparently that was me, not Ewan McGregor's accent.) Careful readers of my professional work might notice a steady drop in the number of direct quotations I've used over the past four or five years. Geeks.

Nice Mr. Doctorman took lots of my blood today to make sure my problem isn't tied to something fixable -- like, say, lupus, lyme disease or everybody's favorite, syphilis. (We had a good laugh about that last one. Judybat swears she's clean.) He's pretty certain, however, that this is something congenital -- in other words, something that's just been hiding in my genes all along, and something that probably isn't going away.

His recommendation: Hearing aids, in both my ears.

Truth be told, this is sort of a relief. I've been trying to hide my hearing loss -- or maybe more precisely, pretend it's not real -- for quite some time now. My doctor says there's no reason to worry that this will get worse, although we're going to be very smart and safe and check things every six months to make sure that nasty little cookie bite in my hearing chart -- that's their term, not mine, although I do love a good cookie -- doesn't get any deeper. Once I pony up the several thousand dollars these magical hearing aids are going to cost -- we'll let you know when tickets go on sale for the "help AnnaRay hear" telethon -- I'll actually be able to participate in serious conversations with even the lowest of low talkers. And I'll be on my way to becoming a deadly human cyborg, something I've been dreaming of since the first "Terminator."

In all seriousness, I'm a little freaked out, as you can probably tell. But with the love of a good Judybat and the best technology money can buy, I'll be fine. Lord knows there are worse problems to have.

What's in a name?

I was filling out a form to sign The Boy up for a summer program, and right next to the line for Mother's Name, they ask for Occupation. Am I crazy, or is that question just a little too personal?

I'm not comfortable with the title Stay At Home Mom. It fits me like size six stilletos; it just isn't me. I don't have a problem with parents who chose child care over employment. In fact, I admire them, because even though I seem to have made that choice, I don't feel up to the job. "Unemployed" feels more like what I'm up to, though I'm not hugely comfortable with job description either. Sometimes I describe myself as a Former Journalist, but AnnaRay says I'm still a Journalist. Funny, I don't feel like it when my to do list includes "dust front room" and "pick up poop in the back yard."

I wish I could feel content to just enjoy this time I have with The Boy, but I can't stop worrying about what I'm going to do next. It's like I'm circling my life in a holding pattern until I find the right path. Why can't this be the right path?

I always thought being a mom would be something I am ( like being 36 years old) as opposed to being something I do (like produce multimedia for newspaper web sites.) The problem is that what I do has always been my way of defining who I am. So what am I doing while I'm being a mom?

I think the key lies in labels. All I have to do is find the right word for what I do and all will be right with the world. Currently under consideration: Negotiator, Freelance Consultant and Swashbuckler.

My Purple

Yes, it's true: I want my little boy to dress like a little boy, and I have some fairly strong opinions about what that means.

Hypocrisy, I know. Now that we're in lovely, liberal Portland, I find myself steering the Subaru closer and closer to Butchland, that happy place where androgynous looking women wear nothing but men's cargo pants and white tank tops. In fact, I'm not really resisting the urge to go around on weekends wearing. . . nothing but men's cargo pants and white tank tops. Yet I want my little man to look like a little man. And should Number 2 be a girl, I'll want her to look like the little princess we all know she'll be (if only just to spite us).

I guess it's my protective nature: These kids are going to have enough weird sexual orientation-related shit to deal with in middle school, assuming we're no longer in a place where having two mommies seems like the normal thing. My rational, reasonable brain knows that teenagers, particularly teenaged girls, pick on each other for an assortment of reasons -- if The Boy and Number 2 don't get teased for their lesbo moms, they'll get it for something else. Yet my snake brain says that for their own emotional well-being, our little poopers need gender-specific names and clothes. I'm not saying my little girl will have a pink ribbon in her hair from birth, but I'm not ruling it out.

That's nutty, right? And I'm willing to go along with whatever The Boy wants; each time we're in the mall or someplace similarly consumer-friendly, I stop in at children's clothes and ask them if they have anything purple for my son.

They look at me like I'm deranged, of course.

It's really not fair: The boys clothes are all functional and comfy looking, in primary colors that go well with anything. The girls clothes, even the toddler-ware, have spangles and frills and rhinestones and plunging necklines and tight legs and generally seem age-inappropriate and downright debilitating if you're in the mood for serious playground action. What's that all about? Are we, as a society, that freaked out about establishing our gender roles as early as possible? It's a little troubling. It makes me WANT to have a girl, just so I can raise one who is strong enough to swim against the tide.

Of course, the gods will send us one who wants pink and watches My Pretty Pony and likes to play dress up and wear high heels. She'll probably expect us to teach her how to use make up.

Maybe a second child isn't such a great idea.

Pretty in pink

The Boy wants to wear pink. I don't have a problem with this. AnnaRay has a bit of a problem with this, but she's open to the color purple, which is a good thing, because we also hear this from him on a daily basis: "Purple shirt? Purple shirt? Want purple shirt. Purple shirt?"

Unfortunately, we don't have purple shirt for him, let alone any scrap of clothing with the merest trace of pink on it. This is partly due to the fact that almost everything he wears is a hand-me-down from his cousin, whose mother (my sister) made sure that everything her son wore came from the BOY pages of the stereotype catalogue. Don't get me wrong - I am grateful for every pair of navy blue sweatpants, every shirt with bats and balls, all the pajamas with trucks and trains. But our boy wants pink.

I know he's not alone. Yet in every store we go to the gender line is so strictly drawn that your preprogrammed brain guides you automatically to the pastel side of the aisle if you're XX shopping, or to the primary-colored side if you're shopping for an XY. In search of a purple shirt for The Boy, we had to cross the aisle - which turned out to be a huge psychological barrier. I found myself digging surreptitiously through the racks, glancing up every now and then to see if anyone was looking, until I realized that nobody in the store knew I was shopping for a son and not a daughter.

What's wrong with a boy wearing pink? And when did purple become off limits? The color Nazis have ways of making you turn back if you're daring enough to attempt crossing that color line: every pink and purple article I pulled of those racks had satin cupcake apliques or the word "PRETTY" written in rhinestones or lace and ribbons and unicorns - even if we did have a girl I think I'd still be shopping in the boys' department.

Why do we have to draw these distinctions at such an early age? I'm so sick of hearing "he's such a boy" when a little man climbs all over the furniture, or "that's a girl for you" when a wee woman likes to play dress-up. My friend Thomas, who's almost 6, and his not-so-little brother Henry like to wear tutus, and my 3-year-old niece climbs better than any boy (and some monkeys) I've ever known.

I recognize that there are biological differences between men and women; I don't believe that we are all the same. But the fact is there is more variance among men and among women than there is between the sexes, so why can't we just let kids be kids and let them wear whatever the hell they want? It's not like they won't figure out who's who when they hit the eighth grade.