If we manage to keep Elias in Sona’s belly until her due date, I only have 22 days left as the momma of only one boy. And, judging by how things are progressing, I don’t think we’ll make it the full 22 days.

We are ready for Elias to be here. The house is in order. The baby clothes are washed (and soon to be put away). All of Finn’s baby gear has been pulled out of storage, reassembled, and cleaned.

I am prepared for Elias. But, if I’m being honest, I don’t feel at all prepared to share my heart with another little boy.

Please don’t write to me, telling me that your heart grows. That you find the love. That the minute Elias is born, all will be right in our family-of-four world. I know these things to be true. I believe these things will happen.

Yet, this isn’t a post about logic or reason. This is a post about how I’ve found myself in tears numerous times in the past couple of weeks, trying to imagine what life will be like when I can no longer give Finn 100% of my love and attention. I’m crying now, just thinking about it, again.

Yesterday, Sona found out she is 3cm dilated and 70% effaced. The news set us into a frenzy of anxiety and stress and excitement. And a bit of panic. The irony is that we are not at all panicked about having another baby. Some of that may stem from our naivete about just how nutty life will be with a newborn and a toddler–or from the fact that we remember Finn’s early days really fondly, and we feel like we missed out on the often fraught exhaustion that sometimes clouds the newborn weeks.

But most of that is because we are both very worried about how Finn will fare during the transition. First and foremost, we’re stressed about having to leave Finn for the delivery. Of course, these things can’t really be planned, and the uncertainty of not knowing when Sona will go into labor–and who will be around to watch our toddler–is stressful. My mom is set to arrive on our due date, and she can hop a flight as soon as we call her, should Sona go into labor sooner, but she’s still at least a day away. To complicate matters further, my parents are going to be out of the country–on a remote, isolated Bahamian island–all of next week. So, there are 7 days in which they absolutely couldn’t be here.

Because of this, we have our favorite long-time babysitter on call. She’s got a bag packed and, should we need her to, she’ll be here to stay with Finn. But he’s never done an overnight with her–and he hasn’t done an overnight without us in well over a year. When you combine that with the fear and suddenness that will certainly accompany his finding out that we’ve had to leave without warning–and possibly without saying goodbye–and this momma is a nervous wreck about how all of it will go down.

So, for many reasons–those already mentioned, along with the fact that I have 10 days left in both the class I am taking and the class I am teaching–we’re really hoping that Elias hangs on until late July.

But regardless of timing–of whether papers have been written or graded or cribs have been assembled or grandparents are on standby–I have a seismic, raw ache and a pretty deafening sense of melancholy about letting go of the past 3 years in which Finn has been the most beautiful, spirited sun around which our little lives have happily rotated.

When we were pregnant with Finn, I experienced a similar ache, bemoaning the life Sona and I had lived as a twosome for 15 years. This is more acute, though. This is also accompanied by raging mom guilt–and by the knowledge that, whereas Sona and I can still escape for a week, pretending its just the two of us again–I know that, come early August, I’ll never again be able to have my whole heart so blissfully full of just one little boy.

Here’s the thing about being a mom: it’s a very different kind of love. It’s a love that warrants a special kind of attentiveness and care. A love that is engaged and active and alert. The way I love Finn won’t fundamentally change, I know, but the way I practice my love for him will have to, especially in the beginning.

And this is all, really, good. This is a change we prayed for and worked for and welcome. A month from now, I’ll be writing a blog post admonishing the fear and trepidation and sadness I am feeling now. I do know that.

But right now, I just want to have a few more days with the little boy who is my sun and my moon and the thing I love most in the entire wide, scary, beautiful universe. We have 22 days left, hopefully, and I want to relish them as much as I can.

These photos are from a night a couple of weeks ago. It was on the cool side of warm, the sun was setting, and we decided to forgo bedtime and take an evening scooter ride to the beach. We walked the fog-draped pier, waved at kayakers as they headed towards downtown, and watched as Finn splashed around in the water, the city we love so much blurring into the background.

I stood on the beach that night and thought, “Damn, I’m so lucky.” And I am. I so, so am.

 

This past weekend was the finale in what is a multi-week Pride celebration in Chicago, and we went all in.

Sona and I haven’t actually attended a pride event in like 8 years. That’s shameful to admit, I know. Something lit a fire under us this year, though, and we wanted to show Finn all of the Pride-centric fun.

We started on Saturday morning by attending the Family Pride Fest, which takes place in our neighborhood. Finn had a blast, rocking his “Cool Like My Moms” t-shirt. They had live music, a petting zoo, some rainbow swag, face painters, and–much to Finn’s delight–hoola hoops! I think that discovering hoola hoops was the biggest win of the day.

He did manage to do his funky leg dance to some of the music.

On Sunday, we met Finn’s bestie, Darcy, for some Pride Parade fun. Luckily, Darcy lives on the parade route. So, that made the day a bit easier. Still, since the parade got a late start, we ended up being out side for over 3 hours, waiting and waiting, and then watching the parade. These two held up like rock stars!

How cute are they, navigating the parade together?

Finn is like “Mooooooom–enough already! I’m with my girl.”

I can’t even handle these two.

Once the parade finally started–and the swag started rolling in–Finn was enamored!

More funky leg shakin’.

Just eatin’ his candy necklace, watching the boyz in their Speedos, and living his best Pride life!

 

 

There is a poem for every day, and this is the one for today.

There are times when I am especially grateful to have Finn, who serves as the consummate reminder that, even when the world seems like a sad and scary place–when I am feeling very, very low–there is always a little bit of good. Finn gives me a reason to get out of bed, when I need one, and it’s motivating to know that, if for no other reason, I have to pull myself out of the pits and be a momma.

Today, I needed to spend the day with my little guy, and I needed for us to escape the world for just a short while. So, he skipped school, and we drove 90 miles outside of the city, past lakes and small towns and Chik-fil-As, to visit a berry farm in McHenry, Illinois. “Do you want to go to school or go pick strawberries?” I asked Finn last night. The answer was obvious.

The first thing he said when he woke up this morning was, “We still going to pick strawberries?”

The two of us had a great time on our little adventure. Even though he was way more interested in eating the strawberries than picking them–something that made filling the two pre-paid buckets a bit of a challenge–we still really enjoyed our time together, and I think the little escape from reality did both of us some good.

I know we are lucky to be able to escape the world when it brings us down; this week has been a painful reminder that so many people–so many babies and kids–don’t have that same privilege. Still, even when the world is “at least fifty percent terrible,” my son is 100% goodness.

Today, I needed a day with my boy. And some fresh air. And too many strawberries.

Here are some photos from our morning together.

 

 

This is really a two-for-one blog post. It’s about all of the reasons we love raising Finn in a big city like Chicago, but it is also about how important it is to live somewhere you feel loved and accepted. Originally, it was just supposed to be about the former, but I think that I’m getting all up in my Pride Month feels, and the latter crept in.

Sona and I are both, mostly, from small towns. I say “mostly” because I was actually born in Pittsburgh, PA, and I spent most summers there for my entire childhood. Though my mom and I moved to Mississippi–and then Tennessee–when I was just a toddler, all of my family remained in the ‘Burgh, including my father.

So, while I went to school among a bunch of small-town southern kids who said “ma’am” and “y’all” and thought my Jewishness was totally foreign, I spent summers roaming the neighborhoods of Pittsburgh, sometimes on my own, and getting to experience what being in a city was like. I mean, I could walk to TCBY, and that alone pretty much sold me on city livin’.

Sona grew up in New Mexico and then Kentucky. Like me, she went to school in–and lived in–what we often call “one stop light towns.” The University of TN at Martin campus, where we met, was pretty much bordered by cornfields. Neither of us escaped the small-town lifestyle for college, either, but that ended up working out for us. (Cause, you know, marriage and a baby.)

There is a lot to love about small town living: wide open spaces, slow lifestyles, relative safety (we will get back to that, later), close-knit communities, wheat fields, and Chinese buffets, and high school evenings spent driving up and down Main St. just because there’s nothing else to do. Oh, and there’s the cheese dip. It all has its appeal.

But Sona and I don’t romanticize small-town living in the way that many do, and that’s because we’ve both experienced enough of it to recognize that, beneath the charm, there is something disquieting, too. When we moved to Chicago, we were both consciously making an escape.

Here’s some things I could tell you about living in a small town: How my first grade teacher spitefully refused to acknowledge that I was Jewish and my mother had to come to the school and fight for them to include Hanukkah in their holiday celebrations. How, as an A/B student, I was harassed by my high school principal during my senior year and regularly accused of being part of a “lesbian gang.” (No, I’m not kidding.) How one of my best friend’s dads, who I’d been very close with for years, once cornered me in the kitchen and told me, “In the wild, wolves who are gay are killed by the pack.” How Sona, who worked at Blockbuster during 9/11, was always asked whether she was a terrorist or knew a terrorist. How, even in 2005, her father warned us not to stop for gas on the hour-long drive between our college town and my parent’s home, noting that the KKK had been active recently. How, beneath all the small-town charm, we had to live with and carry and fear these sorts of things. Always.

“I knew that, once you left, you’d never come back,” my mom once told me. And I think she was right. As much as Sona and I are quick to admit that we don’t think we’ll live in Chicago forever, we are equally quick to say that we could never return to small-town living, again.

There are innumerable reasons why we love Chicago. As my now late idol Anthony Bourdain said, “You wake up in Chicago, pull back the curtain and you KNOW where you are. You could be nowhere else. You are in a big, brash, muscular, broad shouldered motherf****n’ city.”

I fell in love with it the second we first drove down Lake Shore Drive during a college spring break trip to visit the city. Sona and I cruised down what would become my favorite road in the world, Lake Michigan gleaming to our right and the towering city to our left, and I said, “I’m going to move here.”

Two years later, I did.

There’s a lot to say about why Chicago is the place we want to call home, and I think I’ll say it again and again in a variety of ways on this blog, but the truth is also this: as much as we wanted to be in Chicago, we also wanted to escape the oppressiveness that is a small town.

Small towns can be oppressive for anyone, really. Sure, it’s nice that Mabel, who lives around the corner, will lend you eggs and watch your house when you are away and knew your Great Aunt Sally when they were little girls, but it can also be suffocating when everyone everywhere knows your business, has very strong opinions about your business, and prefers your business to align with the usual business of small town life.

But when you are Jewish and Indian and gay–and when your business looks very different from the rest of the town’s business–that suffocation be deadening.

I’m not saying that every small town in America is xenophobic or racist or antisemetic or homophobic, but I am saying that everyone has the right to live somewhere where they can walk outside, holding the hand of the person they love–even if that person is of the same gender and a different race–and not feel the boot heel of judgement pressing down on their necks.

Chicago gave us that–and continues to give us that. Here, we know that, most of the time, no one looks twice at us when we stroll through the neighborhood, chasing our son on his scooter. When we walk down the street, we don’t think twice about exchanging a small kiss or holding hands. When we go back to Tennessee, we are very conscious of where and when we can do those things–and very aware that doing so is inviting some sort of discomfort, both for us and for others.

Here, the in-take form at Finn’s daycare asked for the names of both parents–not for the names of the mother and father. Finn is not the only kiddo with gay parents at his school–not by a long-shot. Everyone talks openly about all of the different kinds of families, and it is part of the school’s culture that all kids feel, from the very start, that there is no such thing as one kind of family.

Finn talks about having 2 mommies in a very matter-of-fact way, as do his friends in his class. “There’s Finn’s other mommy!” they will say. We have never sensed that our family unit is, within that context, atypical. And, more importantly, neither has Finn.

When we go to the park in our neighborhood, everyone looks different. Not all kids are white. Not all families have a mom and dad. Not everyone speaks English. Finn is growing up in a space where he sees himself and his family represented on a regular basis. He’s growing up in a space where he learns, innately, that people are different, and that’s okay. He is living in the kind of community that models the kind of world we want him to live in, and I can’t imagine giving him a more valuable gift than that.

For us, living here provides us with just a little bit of freedom from the kind of suffocation we experienced most of our adolescent lives. People often talk about how they “can finally breathe” when they get out of the city, but Sona and I held our breaths for our entire lives until we moved to Chicago. Even still, you can hear us audibly exhale anytime we’ve been away from Chicago for long and we first catch a glimpse of the skyline, again.

I know we can’t protect Finn from the world forever–not even for long. But I do hope that, by growing up in a city that welcomes him and his family so openly, he’ll be able to steel himself against the world a little better. He’ll be a little more prepared. I hope that when he thinks back on what it means to be home, he thinks about Chicago, and he feels only love.

And here are some photos from our weekend, where we scootered through puddles and attended the Swedish/LGBTQ streetfest in our neighborhood, Andersonville, which is currently decked out in rainbows in support of Pride.

Finn loves music more than any child I’ve ever met. He’s danced since he could move, and he had a blast at this outdoor concert on Sunday, which we happened upon in our PJs. We danced in the rain.

Since a lot of our friends and family members already know, we figured we might as well go ahead and spill the beans: we’ve settled on a baby name! Actually, we’ve been settled on a baby name for quite some time, but we’ve been waiting to see whether or not another name would come along; I think we wanted to keep our options open.

And we did, for a long time. We’ve been looking and asking and researching, and no matter how many other names we find and love–Asher and Atticus were two top contenders–we keep coming back to the one we loved first. And so, it’s decided: our second baby boy will be Elias Lake Aquiline.

We found the name Elias much in the same way we found the name Finn–and before we were even pregnant a second time. We knew we were trying. We knew we hoped for another boy. So, we kept our eyes and ears out, listening for names that caught our interest. Then, one night we were watching a not-very-good TV show, and a character introduced himself as “Elias” (pronounced uh-lye-us) in a long southern drawl. Sona and I  looked at each other and smiled. We both loved it immediately.

A couple of days later, when I was texting with one of my BFFs about having found a name we liked, she reminded me that she had actually told me about that name a while ago, as it is one on her possible someday list, too. (Don’t worry, I’ve asked her permission a thousand times, and she’s completely okay with our poaching it.) Though I didn’t remember having heard it before, something about it must have stuck with me.

So, the name went on the list, literally. Here’s an iPhone note I’ve had on my phone for well over a year:

Looking at the list, it’s pretty obvious that, while we were still a little unsure about Elias, we absolutely knew we wanted a middle name that speaks to our love of the water.

We chose the name “Finn” because we loved how sweet it sounded. We chose his middle name, “Atlas,” because of what it means. In Greek mythology, Atlas is the god who holds the world on his shoulders; he’s known for his strength. As a baby being born into a same-sex, mixed race family, we knew it was going to be important for little Finn to be strong, too. Using Atlas as a middle name was also a nod to our love of travel–and to the ways that having Finn has helped Sona and I navigate what’s important in our own lives. He’s shown us the way.

For our second boy, we immediately knew that we wanted a middle name that connects to the water. We both love the ocean, and we have had our happiest memories as a family while at the sea. We also fell in love with the city of Chicago, in large part, because of Lake Michigan, which we’ve always joked is like our own little freshwater ocean. When we bought our home, one of my requirements was that we be within a short walk of the lake–and we are. We love that “Lake” not only reminds us of the water, but it will also always remind us of this part of our lives–of the city we love, of our first home, of raising our two little boys in Chicago, spending our summers by the lake.

A few posts ago, I’d alluded to the fact that, though we’d found a name we liked, we were apprehensive about using it because we didn’t want people to default to a nickname. As much as we love the timelessness and tenderness of Elias, we don’t really see our little guy as an “Eli.” So, we are going to do our best to discourage folks from resorting to any kind of nickname.

Finn is able to say Elias perfectly–and HOLY COW is it adorable when he does. We figure that if he can manage it on the first try, everyone else can, too.

So, it’s settled, then. We have two sons: Finn and Elias. We chose their first names because they struck an emotional chord–they just felt right. We worked hard to choose middle names that had value to us–and, hopefully, to them.

When they are older, we can’t wait to tell them the story of their names–and the story of how hard we worked to make our little family. These two little boys are our sun and moon and stars and ocean and everything else that is good in the world, and we can’t wait for them to meet each other.

See you soon, little Elias. We’re so ready for you.

That’s the first time Finn was ever in his crib. He was just a week old, and it didn’t last long. Somehow, though, through lots of trial and error, we had him sleeping through the night in his own crib by the time he was 7 weeks old. We write about that process, here.

Fast forward 2.9 years, and Finn still, happily, sleeps through the night in that trusty ol’ crib.

There are lots of changes coming down the road for us at the end of this summer, most of which coincide with the arrival of baby #2. Our world–and Finn’s world–will be rocked. Earlier this year, we decided to keep Finn in his existing preschool, rather than transfer to a nearby Montessori program, partly because we wanted to eliminate as many changes as possible.

Another change that we thought was going to be inevitable was that, because the kiddos are going to share a room and because we don’t want to buy another crib, it is time for Finn to move into a “big boy bed.”

This is just something we assumed would happen without really giving much thought about why it had to happen. Most of Finn’s  friends–the ones who are his age–have long transitioned into toddler beds, and we already felt behind. (We’re behind with a lot of things, actually, including potty training. But that’s another post.)

“Shouldn’t you already have him in a bed?” my mom asked frequently, even offering to buy one for us.

We felt the pressure and guilt, but while we casually perused toddler beds online, we kept telling ourselves that we’d wait until summer to actually make the change. I think we were stalling. We stalled because we didn’t want our baby to outgrow his crib. We stalled because our lives are already full of all sorts of challenges, and we didn’t want to add transitioning to a bed to the list. We stalled, primarily, because Finn has always been an amazing sleeper, and why were we trying to fix something that wasn’t broken?

Of course, there are moms who would say that we should trust him. Believe that he’s capable of handling the transition. Let his maturity lead the way.

Yeah, that all sounds great in theory, but we are most interested in believing that we will be able to remain at least minimally sane and well-rested when the new baby arrives. And that’s when we had what should have been an obvious epiphany: We are Finn’s parents. We decide when it is time to try something new. If we want him to stay in the crib–and if he’s perfectly happy in his crib–why not just keep him there?

Why hadn’t this thought occurred to us before? I blame external influence, but the second we realized “Oh, you know what? He can just stay in the crib!” the decision was made. And a lot of anxiety was eased.

Here’s the thing: despite being a 6′ tall toddler, Finn has never once tried to climb out of his crib. (Knocking on wood as I type.) He’s never complained about his crib. He clamors to get into it at bedtime each night. He sleeps like a dream. He wakes happy and plays in his crib until we come to get him.

He’s also CONTAINED. In the crib, he’s a caged animal. In a bed, all bets would be off. Despite the fact that he’s yet to jail-break the crib, we have absolutely no doubt that, were he in a bed that he could easily climb out of, Finn’s life mission would be to subvert every single bedtime routine that we’ve worked to hone over the past few years.

Here is the scenario we replayed in our minds a thousand times before deciding to keep him in the crib: We’re exhausted, operating on just a couple hours of sleep. It’s 2AM. After many attempts, we’ve finally lulled our colicky newborn back to sleep and have just closed our eyes, knowing the baby will wake us again in just a couple of hours. Sleep begins creeping in; we welcome it. Then, suddenly, we hear a door creak open, the pitter-patter of little footsteps in the hallway, and BOOM! Just like that, Finn appears at our doorway, asks for a glass of water or a cookie or one of his toy cars, and any illusion of sleep we once had is yanked away from us. We rue the day we ever transitioned to a toddler bed, and we hate all of our friends and family who advised us as such forever. We die, tired and alone.

Okay, that’s a little melodramatic, but you get the idea. And when I posted the question on MamaTribe, asking 28,000 Chicago moms whether they’d put their soon-to-be 3 year old in a bed when he’s perfectly happy with a crib, I got an immediate, resounding “HELL NO!”

So, no. We will not be transitioning Finn to a toddler bed until he manages to climb out of the crib, asks for a bed himself, or threatens to burn the house down. The baby will sleep in our room in a Rock n Play for the first several weeks, and then we can transition to the bassinet I impulse-purchased from an online garage sale.

Our hope is that, by not changing this one thing, we all deal with The Big Change (aka: baby #2) a little better. And this is also a reminder that, no matter how much advice you receive about how to parent, ultimately, you have to go with your gut. And your sanity.

On Saturday, I cried on the drive between soccer practice and swim class. Finn was being difficult, and it was not my best mom day. Yesterday, Finn was an absolute angel, and it was the best family day we’ve had in weeks. And so is life when mothering a toddler. Luckily, his good mood coincided with Mother’s Day.

Here’s the upside of being a two-mom family on Mother’s Day: there’s twice as much to celebrate. Here’s the downside: there’s no dad to make breakfast in bed, plan an elaborate “self-care” day, or give either of us a day off of mom-ing. So, on our first Mom’s Day a couple of years ago, we decided to have a low-key family day, complete with a lakeside picnic. Last year, we continued the tradition with a beach picnic.

This year, though, it was unseasonably cold and rainy. (Thanks, Chicago.) So, instead of doing an outdoor picnic, we opted instead for a lazy morning inside, followed by a walk in a nearby nature preserve.

Finn must have gotten the message that it was a special day, because he let us sleep in until 8:45! Then, we did something we hadn’t done in a long time: we all lounged together in bed for a couple of hours, being silly, cuddling, watching cartoons on the iPad, and enjoying family time. Things have been busy lately, and Sona has been working a lot of Saturdays (though, she’s done with that, thankfully!). And in the midst of it all, we haven’t had much down time as a family, and I’ve missed it sorely.

Clearly, Finn has missed it too, because even though he was a pill on Saturday, he was in the absolute best mood on Sunday, and I have to credit our having a lot of quality time together for that change. (Or maybe his teeth weren’t hurting. Or maybe he slept better. Or maybe the moon was in a different phase. Who knows with toddlers?!)

Anyway, we lounged in bed, took our time getting up, ordered French pastries for breakfast, and then made our way to a local nature preserve for some much-needed fresh air. Initially, we’d planned on heading 30-45 min. outside of the city to explore one of the many forest preserves just outside of Chicago, but since the weather wasn’t great, we opted for a smaller nature preserve in the city, which is just 15 minutes from our house.

The North Village Nature Center did not disappoint! This city never ceases to amaze me. One minute, we were smack dab in an urban center; a minute later, we were surrounded by trees, watching a small group of deer feed.

Finn wasn’t the only one who showed up for Mom’s Day; the nature preserve turned on, too. “Cue the deer,” someone must have said, as we encountered nearly a dozen–and very closely–in our 90 minute walk. We also saw bullfrogs, turtles, a family of geese, a ton of birds, and other little critters. Finn enjoyed the whole thing, never asked to be carried, ate an entire bag of edamame, harassed a couple of squirrels, and tiptoed around the mud like a champ.

After, we all came home and took too-long naps. It was glorious. And I wouldn’t have traded it for a fancy brunch or a spa day, even if tempted.

 

In true boy form, Finn was as enamored with the sticks, the muddy puddles, and the tree stumps as he was the animals.

I’m not trying to be intentionally close-mouthed. We really haven’t chosen a name for baby #2, and–though Finn would argue otherwise–I don’t think Lil Pizza will stick.

Before Finn was born, we talked a lot about baby names. Mostly, we talked about girls’ names because, for reasons I can’t quite understand, it just seems a lot easier to generate a quick list of lady names that we love, as opposed to boys’ names, which always strike me as being either BAF (basic AF) or as trying way too hard.

We had a lot of girls’ names we loved: Lucy, Emerson, Hattie, Eloise. (The list goes on. Since we’re 100% confident that this will be our last baby, I don’t mind sharing our list. An Emerson Grey isn’t in our future, clearly.)

We had, comparatively, a very short list of boy names: Henry, Oliver, Liam, and Finn. Spoiler alert: We chose the last one. Spoiler alert #2: We don’t want any of the others for baby #2.

When people ask how we chose Finn’s name, expecting some grand tale in response, I always feel like I’m disappointing them when I admit that, after a process of elimination, we decided it was the one we liked minimally more than the others on our list. That is, we didn’t really feel passionately about any of them.

However, and I can’t really remember when, we decided that we wanted Atlas to be the middle name, and “Finn Atlas Aquiline” just kind of clicked. Everyone now says that he’s SUCH a Finn, and even though I’m not exactly sure what that means, I agree.

Now, faced with having to choose yet another boy’s name, we are in a bit of denial. I’ll be honest with you: we do have 2-3 names that we’ve been bouncing around since before we got pregnant, and there is 1 that is a clear front-runner. We also, like Finn, settled on a meaningful middle name WAY before we started identifying possibly first names. So, 2/3 of the equation is solved.

Still, I don’t think either of us are 100% certain about the name that’s positioned itself at the top of our list. We like it a lot, but do we love it? I don’t know. Our primary hang-up, without letting the proverbial cat out of the bag, is that people would absolutely defer to a shortened version of the name as a nickname, and that nickname is BAF. Thusly, any vintage-y coolness and spunkyness that the name has would likely be lost.

The reality is, also, that Finn Atlas Aquiline is a pretty difficult name to live up to. I mean, we can’t exactly follow that with “Thomas William,” can we?

So, let’s play the name game. We love names that are short and simple. We want something a little offbeat, and we love the now trendy vintage/ageless names. I also, for whatever reason, feel particularly drawn to boys names that start with an “A.” We want something a little unexpected, but we don’t want something that seems completely outside of the box. (Finn was actually on the list of trending boys’ names the year he was born, and the name we have in mind for baby #2 is on lists for this year, too.)

In the end, we know the name is just a name. Sona said we should wait until Lil Pizza arrives. She’s confident that we will look at his scrunched little face, and the perfect name will be divinely inspired. I, on the other hand, want to be a little more prepared.

 

When people tell me, “nooooo–you’re not fat,” I see that as an insult. I know that the intention is not to be insulting–it is, rather, to be consolatory–but that’s the impact. Why? Well, there are two reasons: First, it’s condescending. I am a big girl. I wear a size 22 in pants–a size I can’t find at 95% of clothing stores. I weigh a good 100 pounds more than I should, according to my doctors. (And a good 175 pounds more than I should, according to media messaging.) The reality is: I am fat, and we all know it.

Second, and most importantly, it implies that fatness is something I wouldn’t or shouldn’t own. It implies that being fat is something to be ashamed of.

This is 4-year-old Danielle. Ain’t she a cutie? If you look closely, you can see the very early stages of what would become a second chin that would follow me around for life. This is when I first started to plump up.

If you ask my family, they’ll tell you that I started to gain weight at around the same time my parents got divorced. I think they like that narrative, as it gives some sort of rational account for why I, by the time I reached 1st grade, was overweight. The conclusion being that–much like Kate on the ever-popular show, This Is Us–I must have been so traumatized by the demise of my family that I had to eat my feelings.

That’s a pretty popular narrative, culturally. I credit a lot of people for that; (Oprah is one one of them). I grew up being critically aware of the fact that I must be broken inside, as there could be no other explanation as to why I was a chubby kid. Clearly, as everyone seemed to believe, I lacked any self-control, and I used cookies as a way to deal with the fact that I couldn’t deal at all.

(Fast forward 30 years or so–past a diagnosis of PCOS, Syndrome X, Klippel-Trenaunay, and Type 1 Diabetes, along with some other medical anomalies–and I’m pretty sure my body just does what it was always meant to/designed to do.)

For most of my life, whenever I saw–or spoke to–family members who I hadn’t seen in a while, I was always greeted with a status report on my weight. Always. A large portion of my childhood conversations began with “Oh, you look like you’ve lost some weight!” or “How is your weight, sweetie?” Sometimes, the person I was speaking to would try to be a little more politically correct and would, thusly, opt for “How’s your health?” or “Are you taking care of yourself?” But ultimately, what I always knew, is that they were all really asking the same question: “Are you still fat?”

Yes, yes I was. (And let’s not even talk about how many times I’ve been told, pleadingly, “But you have such a pretty face!”)

I was on doctor-monitored diets from the time I was in elementary school. If there was a diet fad in the late 80’s-late 90’s, I tried it! Fen-Phen–the diet pill later found to cause heart defects? Took it! Weight Watchers meetings with a bunch of 40-50 year old women? Attended them (as an 11 year old)! Low carb, no carb? I did it all.

By all accounts, I should’ve been the healthiest, thinnest teenager below the Mason Dixon. Instead, I did what most kids who are repeatedly reminded that they are fat–and that their fatness is a defining characteristic–do: I internalized the fat-phobia and body shaming, and I felt really bad about myself.

(And I want to add: I don’t blame my family for their reaction to–or attempts to treat–my fatness. Their concerns about my weight were (are) driven by a social stigma whose influence is almost impossible to avoid. They did what the world told them they should do in reaction to my being a fat kid, and I don’t at all fault them for that.)

I didn’t wear bluejeans until I was like 15 years old. I tended towards overly-baggy clothes that hid every part of my body. I–ashamed of my hunger, not driven to it by shame–hid what I ate, often finding miraculously sneaky ways to pilfer chips or cookies or any other treat without anyone knowing that, god forbid, I’d opened the pantry.

I developed some necessary self-defense mechanisms–some healthy, some not so much–to steel myself against the never-ending concern for, and criticism of, my size.

My most powerful defense was stoicism. That is, I developed an uncanny ability to pretend that I didn’t care what others said about my body. I was, as it must have seemed to outsiders, the Queen of Self-Confidence. I used humor to deflect. You think my belly is too flabby or my boobs are too big? Well, I’ll walk around Wal-Mart, shirt tangled up high, flaunting my belly for all to see. It was a powerful defense and it worked, most of the time.

I wore that facade for so long that, at some point–and I’m really not sure when: late high school? college?–I actually crossed the line into believing the false reality I created: I really, truly stopped caring about how others saw my body.

I like to joke that being a fat kid is the best thing that ever happened to me. But in all honestly, it’s not a joke. I don’t remember a time when I wasn’t fat. I was never able to rely on my physique as a way to get things I wanted. I could never walk into a clothing store and buy something hip right off the rack. I don’t have memories of having a slim and slender body to think of, regretfully, when I look in the mirror. There aren’t any “goal photos” that I can pin on the fridge, reminding me of when I could fit into a size 4 bikini.

But I also never thought that my self-worth was dependent on my jean size. I never compared my thinness to the thinness of my girlfriends, wondering who had the flattest stomach. I knew that being skinny wasn’t in my cards, and so I never had that goal dangling in front of me, taunting me, making me feel guilty for what I did or didn’t eat, for whether or not I’d spent enough time in the gym, or for whether I could fit into last year’s dress. I am not afraid to post a photo of myself eating a triple-patty-cheeseburger or one-too-many donuts on Facebook. In fact, in the past couple of years, I’ve completely given up on uncomfortable one-piece swimsuits and regularly post photos of myself in a “fat-kini” for everyone on Facebook, including my boss, my wife’s co-workers, and others, to see.

I don’t allow myself to feel any shame about the fact that I really, sincerely adore food. I plan whole travel adventures around what kind of food I want to eat. I watch food shows and read food blogs and collect recipes like fine jewelry. I enjoy it, and I let myself enjoy it.

I don’t think about my body very much, now, but I find that most of the women in my life–especially my girlfriends who, ironically, all have very nice, slim bodies–are preoccupied by how those bodies look, almost more than anything else in their lives. As someone who is an outsider to that kind of thinking, I take notice of it constantly. I think that worrying about, complaining about, or shaming women’s bodies–either our own or others–is so common in our culture that most women don’t even recognize how much space those kinds of conversations and comments take up.

I have to remind my own wife, Sona, of this constantly. For most of our 17-year relationship, she’s been the picture of health and physical fitness, but she’s also fiercely critical of her own body and sometimes,  as a result of her own self-scrutiny, of others. When she complains that her size 4 jeans are getting a little tight, I am quick to remind her that I couldn’t fit my left arm into her jeans.

Being fat has impacted my life in other, less direct, ways, too. When I first came out as a lesbian, the immediate response from a large faction of my family was to assume that, because I was overweight and likely couldn’t find any boys who would be attracted to me, I must have chosen to be gay as a way to overcome the overwhelming loneliness and sadness that is being a fat girl.

Of course, that’s ridiculous. I mean, there are men who do like chunky women, and wouldn’t I have found them before opting for boobs, instead?

Further, whenever I go to the doctor for absolutely anything, the immediate assumption is always that my ailment is a result of my weight. And, to be far, sometimes it is. Being obese can be unhealthy, and doctors are, mostly, doing their jobs by reminding me of that. But also, they frequently over-look or misdiagnose me because they assume, like so many others, that being fat is all-defining. It is the only part of me that matters.

For 2-3 years, I suffered from extreme weight loss, exhaustion, and just all around cruddyness because my doctors assumed that, since I was fat, I must have been a Type 2 Diabetic. T2D is a lifestyle disease, often the result of a very unhealthy lifestyle. I was given medication that didn’t actually regulate my blood sugar, but instead, medication that made me more ill.  It wasn’t until I had to explicitly demand that I be tested for the antibodies that indicate Type 1 Diabetes, an autoimmune disease, that doctors recognized I had been on the wrong treatment plan for years.

Also, in the past couple of years, I’ve seen how folks’ barely-veiled disgust at my own weight has bled into not-at-all-veiled concern for Finn’s. Since he was born, we’ve had several friends and family members who have been hyper-vigilant about what he eats and how much he weighs. If we post a photo of Finn eating a donut on Facebook, it isn’t uncommon for us to get a text, questioning whether he ever eats anything that is not a donut. We have people who ask us, nearly every time we talk to them, whether Finn is “getting fat” or gaining too much weight.

And while I understand that health is a legitimate concern–one people have for myself and one people have for Finn–I think we also have to admit that concerns about health are not what drives most of the fat-shaming in our society. And I know that the internalized fat-phobia people have towards me heavily influences their concerns about whether or not Finn will, for lack of a better word, catch my fatness.

This is a post I’ve been wanting to write for a long time, and one that I–I imagine–is the first of many.

For now, I’ll end with this: No, Finn, really. Your momma is fat. And I’m 100% okay with it.