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.

For the first time in as long as I can remember, my 36th birthday fell on Easter Sunday, this year. So, we had a two-for-one weekend, complete with a lot of celebrating, family time, and too much food.

Sona and I had a food-a-palooza restaurant-hopping adventure on Saturday night. On Sunday, we woke up and the Easter Bunny had visited, left a basket of goodies for Finn, and had hidden eggs around the house. We did an at-home brunch in our jammies–which was my preference–and then we went out and bought 4lbs of fresh crawfish for a seafood boil for dinner (also my preference).

Here are some photos from our birthday-Easter-NOLA weekend!

It was Finn’s first time dying eggs, and he was SO stoked. All things considered, he did really well. I mean, we didn’t end up with Easter egg-colored walls. That’s the bar I set for success.

He got wilder and wilder as the process went on. Let’s say he was rather–enthusiastic?–about dunking the eggs in the dye.

Here are some iPhone shots from our birthday date night:

All I ever want for my birthday is shellfish!

Easter morning, Finn was  excited to see that the bunny had visited!

Will someone remind me to give him less chocolate, next year? 90% of the food he consumed on Sunday was chocolate. Clearly, he didn’t mind.

Doing chocolate egg shots…

Chocolate-induced singing and dancing…

Hello, lover! Finn said, “They not snapping anymore!” No, baby. No, they aren’t.

It was a great weekend, complete with the things that mean the most: my family, a lot of play, and a lot of good eats!

Be strong. Be brave. Be kind. These are all things I’m okay with your saying to my son.

Be tough. Man up. Don’t be a pussy. Be a man. These things? That’s a hard no.

I’ve thought a lot about how, as two moms, we’ll model masculinity for Finn–and for our next son, too. It weighs heavily on me, always, as I’ve internalized so much of what our society says about the importance of manhood. I think about the fact that Finn doesn’t have a dad (something about which another blog post is brewing), and I wonder how that will impact his ability to grow into a man.

This is ridiculous, I know. Most of the ridiculousness stems from the fact that the educated side of me–the kinda woke side of me–knows that our perception of manliness is almost entirely a social construct. When I wonder whether Finn will be a man, what I’m really worrying about is whether his expressions of manliness will align with what is perceived as normative. I’m asking, “Will he fit the mold?”

Still, even with my own gender biases, which I’m not proud of, I’m hyper-aware of how other people approach Finn’s masculinity. This is partly because I’m a mother of a boy in a very damaged culture. It’s partly because I recognize that, since Finn has two moms, some folks are hyper-vigilant, looking for any signs that his masculinity is, in some way, being suppressed.  And it’s largely because of what happened in Parkland, FL, recently, and what happens all too often in a country when perceptions of masculinity become toxic.

Toxic masculinity is a term that elicits confirmational head nods from some and skeptical eye rolls from others. I’m no sociologist. So, I think that trying to explain the theory underlying toxic masculinity is beyond my purview–both as a blogger and as a mom.

And yet, here is what I do understand: When we tell little boys, repeatedly, to man up–to be a man–that is loaded and coded language. What are we really saying, when we say those things? And, perhaps more importantly, what are they really hearing?

Here is what I hear when someone says be a man:

• your current behavior, whatever it is, doesn’t align with my expectations of manhood;
• a “man” doesn’t cry;
• a “man” doesn’t express emotions or vulnerability;
• if you allow yourself to feel vulnerable, you are weak;
• weakness is shameful;
• you should overcome your weakness by regularly and firmly expressing your power;
• you should behave like a man, you should not behave like a woman;
• women are vulnerable, weak, emotional beings;
• you are better than women;
• if you’re a real man, prove it;
• you wouldn’t want people to think you are like a woman, would you?

Of course, there’s a lot more to it than that. And I’m not trying to vilify anyone who has ever used this phrase. I think intentions, often, are innocuous. But impact? Impact can be difficult to measure, and it’s something we must think about, especially when it comes to our kids.

Here’s what I think we must acknowledge: something is broken about the way we raise our boys. In an era of #metoo movements and mass shootings on a near daily basis, which both provide a clear lens into the many insidious ways in which men, almost exclusively, are the perpetrators; when we have a President who jokes about grabbing pussy and bears virtually no consequences for that kind of language, which he uses regularly; when victims of homophobic hate crimes are more often male than female; when gang violence becomes a rite of passage for urban boys; when we chastise men for crying but respond with “boys will be boys” when they are cruel or violent; when mental health treatment is stigmatized for men, especially, because admitting any struggle, as a man, is admonished; when we buy young boys tools and toy guns and young girls dolls and princess dresses; when we laugh when boys are rough and chide girls who are too bossy; when we say to someone who is only two–who asks for Skittles for breakfast and insists on having a sock monkey on him at all times and who likes to shower with Momma and play with make-up brushes sometimes and who, without any guidance or pressure, exhibits such tender kindness to others on a regular basis–when we say  be a man,  we are doing harm. There is an impact, there–one that is often underscored by innumerable comments, gestures, implicit and explicit messages–and one that amasses over a lifetime.

We spend a lot of time talking about gun control after mass shootings, as we should. It should be very, very difficult for a man who is angry and vulnerable–and one who wishes to express his frustrations through violence–to get a gun.

But we also have to ask ourselves: why are so many men angry and vulnerable and frustrated? Why are so many men resorting to violence?

As a mom, it is my responsibility to protect my son. I don’t do that with a gun. I do that by telling him: It’s okay to cry. Everyone feels sad sometimes. You don’t always have to be strong.

I do that by making sure that no on ever tells him to be a man.

Ain’t no valley low enough. Ain’t  no rational way to explain the highs and lows of having a toddler to yooooooooooooou.

I recently shared this photo on Instagram (@allthefinn), which is an amazing illustration by @common_wild.

When I first saw it, it resonated with me so completely. This is such a pitch-perfect depiction of our daily lives as moms: We count down the minutes until bedtime, but then we sneak in and wake Finn up with kisses an hour after he’s asleep. We wait, excitedly, for date nights, and then we spend the entire time talking about Finn. We fall into our own beds at night, elated to finally have some quiet time off-duty, and then we spend an hour flipping through old photos of Finn on the phone.

This is the paradox that defines parenting, especially toddler parenting. When I initially shared the photo, I made a comment about how only parents can fully relate to this paradox. A few friends reminded me, rightly so, that this is not something unique to parenthood. You can feel like this about your significant other. You can feel like this about your girlfriends. You can feel like this about your own siblings.

But I do think that the peaks and valleys–the highs and lows–are particularly and uniquely acute when it comes to parenting. While I’ve certainly felt the emotional push and pulls of all kinds of love, I’ve never felt so absolutely shaken by a relationship until we had Finn.

What can I say? I am simply a puppet, and that kid holds all of my strings. (Which, of course, he totally knows.)

There have been quite a few lows over the past few weeks, as Finn has continued to suffer from persistent ear infections and other toddler-related illnesses. When he’s in the throws of sickness, he’s–how can I say this kindly?–not so pleasant.

Sona and I spent four nights in San Antonio during Valentine’s week. We were so excited to escape, but our trip was threatened by the worst snow storm of the season. Luckily, we got one of the last flights out of Chicago before the snow hit and all planes were grounded for a 24-hour period. You better believe we were in the airport, monitoring the departures board like crazy people, saying silent prayers that the airline gods would come through for us and let us get a much-needed break from toddler mom-ing.

While we were away, my parents watched Finn. We are extremely lucky to have them, and they usually jump at the chance to get him to themselves. However, he gave them a pretty hard time during a couple of the days we were away, and my mom was quick to tell me that she wasn’t sure she could handle two kids, especially if one of them is a toddler in a cranky mood. (I feel ya, Mom.)

However, now, Finn is starting to feel better. His ears are finally back to normal, and so is his attitude. I’m telling you: he’s a different kid when he’s well.

So, for the past week, we’ve hit the highs, again, which are often so much fun that they make you forget the lows. It’s a sneaky little trick those kiddos have: they will charm the PTSD right out of you.

These last few days, Finn has been especially sweet. He’s been letting us cuddle him more. He says he has a “secret” and then whispers “I love you” in our ears. He asks to be rocked for a few minutes before bedtime (something he’s NEVER let us do) and he sings Twinkle, Twinkle Little Star to us as we rock him. Then, he promptly says “All done. Time for bed.” He’s eaten dinner at the table for several days, sitting in his new big boy chair (he now says the high chair is for Little Pizza), and he actually engages with us the entire time.

Last night, we were spinning him before putting him in his crib–something we always do, as he asks for “dizzy” every night–and we were singing a silly little song: “Spin, spin–we love our Finn!” He started singing back: “Spin, spin–I love my mommas!”

Stuff like that. The kind of stuff that makes us forget, almost immediately, the kid who will throw himself on the floor in an absolute fit if we dare remove his shoes without him sitting on his play table first.

Loving a toddler is an emotional rollercoaster unlike any I’ve ever experienced. But like most rollercoasters, the thrills overtake the fear, and–against your better judgement–you get off the ride thinking, “I need to do that all over again.”

I did not win any Mom-of-the-Year awards on Valentine’s Day, yesterday. I’d planned to help Finn make some Pinterest-worthy homemade goodies for his preschool classmates, but instead we bought a box of ready-made Peppa Pig valentines at Target, complete with questionable neon-colored suckers, and called it a day.

Since Sona and I just got back from our little trip to San Antonio, we are still easing back into mom life.  And, as it turns out, crafting was not part of the re-entry process.

Still, we wanted to have a quiet V-day celebration at home–just the three of us. We made heart-shaped pizza and chocolate fondue, letting Finn do all of the heavy lifting. We ate in our PJs, let Finn basically bathe himself in the chocolate sauce, and didn’t even bother breaking out the big camera (hence these pretty mediocre photos).

BUT–we didn’t touch a TV or iPad once, didn’t have any meltdowns, and we did  do a lot of laughing. So, I’d say it was a win.