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Mom & Mommy

This evening, while I cooked dinner, the girls entertained themselves in the playroom. I overheard Sunny suggesting to Courtland that they play “Family.”

Her: You can be Mommy and I can be Mom. We’re the mommies to Bitty Baby. Like Addison and Olivia have two mommies.*

Courtland, not really understanding a word, went along with the idea. They continued with their play, diapering baby, taking baby on vacation, rocking baby to sleep, forcing baby to eat a banana even though she didn’t like bananas because they’re “mushy.” As parents. As two moms.

And it was nothing short of awesome. Getting a glimpse at their flexible understanding of what it means to be a family. I am so thrilled for their generation. So very hopeful.

And here they are, later in the evening, “helping” bake cookies. Just because I needed an excuse to share these silly snaps.

Now back to basking in that hopey, changey feeling.

*Addison and Olivia are twins and classmates of Sunny’s.

Currently Reading

Thanks to Kaki’s FGM for this read. I wish I still had a lactating breast and hungry nursling that I could take to the streets in solidarity.

Ohhhhh … It makes you uncomfortable.  It makes you … uncomfortable.  Because you are the one exposing a part of your body, that has been sexualized and vilified (insanely, at the same time), in a public area to provide sustenance for your offspring.  Because you are the one summoning the courage to get over the stigmas and social mores that scream at you not to do it, even though your baby is crying from hunger.

Oh no, wait.  That’s the women you’re shaming.

Full post here.

And as a follow up, watch this. Thanks so much to reader Colette for sharing!

Thought Infecting

Yesterday morning I received the following email from a fellow Eph and total rockstar and boss of a woman:

Currently on my mind: women. rape. rape culture. sexual assault. language (and abuses there of.)

Why? I recently saw a picture on Pinterest of George Takei overlaid with a quotation that read, “You know, when you hear of a man being raped you never hear about what he was wearing.” Thought. provoking. Actually…it was more like thought infecting, because I can’t stop thinking about that. So simple, and yet so very profound.

So, with this worm of a concept that has been in my brain, I was so very primed to audibly cringe in spin class yesterday when our instructor asked “So what do you think? Should we do another hill? Crank it up to level 18?!?” and in response to our breathless silence he creepily whispered into his microphone “silence is consent.” 

Now this is an instructor I adore. His was the last spin class I took at 34 weeks pregnant and the first class I took at 7 weeks post partum. He is encouraging and empowering. He is one of the only people I have ever encountered who makes me feel like it’s ok to fail — in that dark little room, on that darn bike, I push myself to failure most mornings a week and I truly believe that I’m able to do it because this man has created this very safe space in which I feel comfortable pushing my comfort zone.

But then he whispered silence is consent and I cringed. I wanted to get off the bike. I wanted to leave. I couldn’t believe I had just heard that phrase. And I couldn’t believe I sat blithely by. I should have said something after class….but I didn’t.

So all this has me wondering about language and the manner in which we use it and respond to it. We all bear the responsibility to mind our mouths, speak with kindness and respect, listen with patience and empathy. (I fail at this daily.) But what are our responsibilities when we hear others fail at this?

She gave me permission to post her email here so we could open up a dialogue about this. We would love to hear your thoughts on the matter. I’ll paste my response to her in the comments below, and hope you’ll continue the conversation…

Currently Watching

We’ve all heard the saying, Sex is like pizza. Even when it’s bad, it’s still pretty good.

But let’s take that metaphor one step further…

This is what I’ll be using when I have “The Talk” with my daughters.