Our Son is Gay and Trans Gender. I am going to talk about it so you don't have to. Plus Family Pictures

Our Son is Gay and Trans Gender. 

I am going to talk about it so you don't have to. Plus Family Pictures

Anyone who knows our oldest knows that he has never been the stereotypical boy, nor did I raise him to be such. I just wanted my kids to be who they are: to play, dress, and look the way they want to look. When we found out for sure there was an adjustment period. We ultimately didn't think anyone would be shocked, but we have been surprised at how many people are. I guess he has always just been himself around us and didn't really hide anything, but that hasn't always been the case with others.

Things I want people to know:

1. Chandler is still Chandler. His appearance may be different but inside he has not changed. The only thing that may have changed is your perception of him.

2. It does not matter what our belief system is or is not, we are going to love and support our son no matter what. This may seem like a no brainer but not everyone feels this way.

3.  Have we always known? Yes and no. We always knew he was his own unique high heel wearing spirit but for us, anyway we still assumed he was straight until he told us otherwise. (I am curious if all parents assume their kids are straight)

4. The hardest part for me was transitioning my mindset for the future. From the time you hold a baby in your arms you picture him or her growing up, getting married, having babies--a "Normal Life." As much as we suspected, it was hard knowing that having Chandler’s long blond haired little daughters running around is probably not going to happen, and my long awaited girls weekends with my daughter-in-laws is dwindling in number. Yes I know there are a lot of “buts,” “what ifs,” etc., to theses statements. I am simply expressing what I needed to deal with myself.

5. Chandler feels more like a girl than a boy, so he dresses that way most of the time. He is comfortable this way and has had very little opposition to this at school. 

You are always welcome to ask Eric and I any questions you may have. For now we want all of our kids to be able to feel happy and comfortable with who they are. This is a unique situation for all of our family members. We are still a family, happy at varying degrees just like any other family with two teenagers. Since Chandler is more comfortable as a girl we decided to allow him dress this way for our family pictures. These photos are supposed to represent our family and this was the best way to do that. 

The Working Dilemmas!

It has now been a year since I have gone back to work. It has now been 6 months since I have been a Manager working full time. My schedule is very erratic. One morning a week I open the store, 1-2 nights a week I close the store and the rest of the days I am a mid shift so I am there till after dinner time and barely make it home to see the kids before bed. I have let go of any sense of a clean house. That does not mean we don't have dishes to eat off of but there are simply organizing projects that need to take place so there are not boxes on the floor of every room of the house. I never have 2 days off in a row so on my days off I often have to be at work early the next morning and closed the night before. Needless to say I am exhausted on those rare days off. Did I mention that at my job the managers all walk 12000 steps a day or more just at work. We have all been checking this. I think the reason behind monitoring our steps is to justify why our job is so physically exhausting.

I don't want you to get the wrong idea. I LOVE my job. I LOVE the people. It challenges my creativity daily. I learn so much from the other associates and customers with amazing ideas, talents, backgrounds and insight. I Love that my family will be able to afford Christmas presents this year.
(Do any of you ever feel guilty that you would rather go to work than stay home and deal with your teenagers?)

Here is what prompted this post. I don't know how to do it all. I don't mean compete with Martha Stewart I mean simply complete the things I want to do. I had to keep the kids up late tonight just to carve pumpkins with them. Forget about a chance to go to the pumpkin patch. 2 of the 3 costumes are done. Elliot's was easy I only needed to make a Fez and bowtie (can you guess who he is?) Dylan made his costume by himself with some verbal guidance by me. Chandler's however is very complicated with a lot of detail and my sewing machine broke. I am getting it fixed in the morning but there is so little time left.

I am constantly torn between what I want to do as a mother and what I have the energy and time to do with them. Since I am never off on the weekends to be with the whole family I feel even more compelled to make sure things like costumes get done. Especially for my Cosplaying Chandler.
I don't know that there is a solution other than mentally changing what I expect out of myself. I suppose that the root of the evil is that I don't feel like I have unrealistic expectations. I have embraced "Letting It Go" over the last year and my husband and kids will tell you that.

Feeling this overwhelmed by Halloween has me nervous about what Christmas has in store. We pulled it off last year but we crammed 2 weeks worth of activity's in 1 day. We did it though and had a great time. We are pre planning our elf Shenanigans so that will be fun.

This is the end. Have a great day. I am going to sleep.
P.S. Elliot carved most of his pumpkin by himself. YAY!

Start of School!

This is the first year that I was sad for school to start. This summer went by way to quickly. Working full time has changed summer for us in a drastic way. The fact the our complex pool was closed until a couple of weeks ago made free summer fun harder. We did have a few fun family days but it did fly by and I feel like we didn't do enough. Mostly I was dreading having to get up to an alarm the days after I have to close at work. Because of a last minute change at work I was able to take Dylan and Elliot to school this morning. I missed seeing Chandler since he has to leave so early.

  On the way home from dropping them off at school I had a sudden realization. I was going home to an empty house. I have not had more than one day since last school year where I had more than 3 hours alone. Since I am closing today I had 4 1/2 hours alone this morning. It has been glorious so far. I ate popcorn, watched chick flicks, did some laundry and took a short nap. Did I mention I worked late last night. I then had horrible dreams all night. I kept dreaming about Dylan when he was little and all of the health problems he went through. How I use to picture how he would grow up with his terrible asthma, out of shape, constantly sick, suffering from prolonged steroid use. The light of the day however has made me extremely grateful for my 6ft tall son who is healthy happy and joining the cross country team. 10 years ago I never thought we would be here. I realize now that my health struggles lead me to finding solutions for myself which in turn lead me to helping my children have a healthy drug free childhood. This is amazing to me.

Happy start of school to everyone. Thank you for all of you who help drive my kids and take them after school on days that I work. It takes a Village and I am grateful for my tribe.

It has been awhile.

Since my last post Eric took a Grant Writing Job at UCSB and I became the CEM customer experience manager at Michaels. Customer Experience Manager you ask with a tone of confusion in your voice? I run the classroom program. I make sure we have all the teachers we need for Knitting, Crocheting, Fine Arts, Paper Crafting, Beading, Wilton, Kids Crafts, Rainbow Loom, Passport to imagination, and birthday parties. I am also in charge of specific areas within the store as well as running the store when it is my shift and a long list of other boring to anyone who is not doing them duties. "Wait didn't you just get hired?" Yes, yes I did. I was hired in November and promoted in April. Yes is was a fast move. If I do say so myself it was the best thing the store could have done ;-) I really do love the job. It is super fast passed, crazy, busy and hectic. My crafting knowledge gets tested daily. I now know that I did not know which glue was best to glue artificial feathers into a horses main. I also didn't know how to cast resin to mold wood paneling on. The best of all. Modge Podge has a glitter version!
Anyway other than that life has been life. Adjusting to having 2 full time working parents and summer break with a young child still at home will take some time. The plus and the negative is that my 2 days off each week are usually weekdays and Eric's are usually weekends. This means that there are only 3 days a week where the big boys have to take turns being in charge of the youngest boy. The negative is that Eric and I rarely have time off together and the whole family is almost never in the same place at the same time. My shifts are usually mid shift that end in the late evening so on days that I work I am rarely home for dinner.
The boys are taking their turns with cooking dinner and while this house is no where close to being spotless everyone always has clean clothes to wear. This is a feat if you ask me. Oh and most of the time there is even food in the house. Thank goodness for all those who have stepped in to help out and the fact that Eric's job is close and flexible and that he can work from home when you have a sick or injured kid. Yes we have had to use that. With this new schedule of mine I am not online as much, or at social events as often as I would like, or planning them like normal. This is just the way it is. I still want to be involved it will just be less frequent.

In the last couple of months
Elliot turned 9, Sprained his ankle 3 times. Finished 3rd grade, got the flu, and has anxiety about having a working mom. Started Reading, really reading like finishing big chapter books reading. This is HUGE!

Dylan made National Honors Society, Promoted 8th grade, turned 14, went to his first church dance, danced with girls and admitted to being interested in girls. He is also willing to ride his bike anywhere to hang out with his friends.

Chandler turned 16, dyes his hair  a new color almost every Friday, talks very little to us controlling adults, starts city college next week for summer classes and rides the bus almost anywhere. He also had some cool artwork displayed at an end of the year VADA art show.

Jo, I just came back from a fabulous sisters weekend. Then had my big open house event at work. Came home from work that day and curled up into a ball and shivered for 2 hours. At that point I realized why I had been so sweaty at work all day. I ran fevers all night and into the next day. Had to call in sick to work for the first time 2 days in a row. Luckily the 3rd day (today) was my scheduled day off so I was able to have 3 days to rest. I still feel pretty crummy but will be at work tomorrow.

Eric plays the guitar every chance he gets and is getting pretty impressive.

This is just a brief overview of our life. I have a lengthy post I have been mulling over but it will take some time to complete. We shall see. I hope you are all well and enjoy your summer. I am seriously looking forward to the day our pool reopens.

Job update and much randomness!

I have purposely not updated on my hubbys job search as much this season. He had many interviews and jobs that looked like the one. Unfortunately this year didn't turn out much better than before.
On a different side he was offered a job at UCSB. I am not going to go into specifics other than to say it is not in the English department and not a professor job. It looks like we are staying in Goleta.
    We have extremely mixed feelings about this. Living at the beach with gorgeous weather has us happy. Paying outrageous amounts of money on rent has us reluctant. The kids will be happy to stay at their schools with their friends. I will be happy to remain with my friends and continue to have scrapbooking buddies. I was so ready to move though. Start fresh. Maybe live somewhere where we could someday see the light at the end of the financial tunnel. What is better living in literal paradise struggling or living in the real world stable? I have days where staying here by the beach is all I can imagine. Then there is bill paying day when I realize we pay more for our apartment than most people pay for their much larger homes. We go swimming regularly all year long and I love it here. I am also starting to resent it.
We are immensely grateful for a job, for both of us having jobs. Sometimes the guilt of wanting to have a better life is topped by the guilt of feeling bad that I want more when so many have so much less.

For now I am relieved that we don't have to move right away. However we will need to find a new place to rent sometime this summer probably so I should start the purging now. Isn't it amazing how fast we fill up our living spaces. We don't even buy much so I am unsure of where it all comes from.

I have so often used FB and my blog to rant or just get things off of my chest. Much in the way a journal would. Now that my kids are older I am not always able to seek this release publicly and get the sage advice and honest concern from others that always comes from doing so. I miss that.

I think the best way to put it is that my life is full of grateful turmoil. I am on both spectrum almost daily. I was unaware until the last few years that this was possible this way. As a sufferer of depression I had always just gone to the bad space when things were not good. Luckily for many reasons I am able to stay out of the bad space most of the time and when I do go there I am able to recognize it and leave quickly. Having all the mixed emotions daily is confusing and relieving all at once. I am unbelievably grateful to feel happy and see the good around me even when so much could or would have brought me down. I am blessed for all the good that is around me daily. My family, friends, job, schools, church I don't know what we would do without these.

These are my random mumbling s at the end of a tiring day. Good Night.

Boys and Girls

Some of you probably won't agree with this post but I have been mulling it over in my mind for quite awhile now.

I have 3 boys. 3 incredibly different boys. My oldest has always loved dolls, the color pink, designing fashion, fixing hair, painting his nails all the the things defined by society as being "for girls". My middle son has been the complete polar opposite. He loves all things mechanical, robots, cars, trucks, computers etc. My youngest son has been a complete mix of both. (is this environment or genetics?) He loves the mechanical but he also loves my little pony's, making jewelry, and clothes. Oh how he loves clothes!

When my youngest was about 1 I started watching my friends kids daily so she could go back to work. Her youngest and my youngest are just a few months apart so for the most part it was like having twins all day. I noticed at the playground people would always comment on her behavior. Oh she is a tough one for playing in the mud all day. Wow she is brave for tackling the cross bars so young. Look at her go on that tricycle she has no fear. The reason this stood out to me was that my son the same age was doing all the same activities. Why was it socially acceptable for him to get dirty and push his physical limits but for her is was daring.

We have had so many great and positive changes for equality for women. I feel in the last 10 years or so the push to be girly is setting us back. Don't get me wrong a girl in a tutuu with a huge hair bow wearing customized jingle socks to match her outfit is a dream of mine and one I love to see. I just want that little girl to also get dirty, climb trees, run to fast, play hard, and have a well rounded childhood. The same goes for boys. I want all boys to be able to play dress up, dolls, and wear the color pink if they want to. Great dads are as important as great moms. Let the boys practice this with their playtime while they are young. There is an unnatural fear that if a boy plays with a doll he will turn into a girl and that if a girl doesn't wear pink sparkly clothes and likes to play sports she will somehow not be womanly enough.

At my work it is a common problem among mothers shopping for birthday parties to try and please both sexes. One was having a pirate party for a 5 year old and was feeling compelled to buy princess crowns for the girls instead of pirate hats and eye patches. I don't want to live in a world where girls can't pretend to be pirates. More importantly I don't want to live in a world where the parents push the little girls to be princesses not pirates. After talking to her I convinced her to keep everything pirate and told her that from my experience girls love to play pirate as much as boys and she was happy and relieved to hear so. In the same note if you are having a princess party please include boys. And for those of you that do you may find out that they like to make sparkly jeweled crafts as much as the girls. Kings wear crowns as well as queens, princesses, & princess.

One of the reasons I have loved having my kids at "hippie schools" is that the gender divide is not as great as with other schools. I have noticed much more with my youngest that girls and boys (often at the prompting of the parents) only instigate play-dates of those of the same gender. Not necessarily those that have the most in common. Whey do little girls and boys need their best friends to be of the same gender? Once they get into jr high and high school this is a little bit different but I can tell you from experience that the kids that are the most comfortable as a young child playing with the other gender will do better socially in jr high and high school. They will fit in because they are not embarrassed by or afraid to talk to anyone.

I have loved the Lego add going around that shows the most adorable little girls wearing overalls and the biggest grin on her face showing her Lego creation. None of which was pink or included a Lego make up kit. I want a world where all kids can play the way they want without judgment from peers or adults.

I think the biggest problem is that most parents don't even realize that they are helping to perpetuate this divide. If we want equality as adults we should have equality as children. I know  many of you are saying boys and girls are just different. I am not arguing that fact. They are different but not always as much as we think. I think each individual human is different. There are many boys that would rather play with dolls and many girls who would rather play with trucks. My oldest would design amazing dresses for his Ariel Barbie and then make a parachute and launch her off of the balcony to test which parachutes worked best. Each time she got a newly designed dress for her launch. Don't assume and let them be and play in whatever way makes them happy.

At work in a craft store I hear little boys debating on what to buy because they are afraid the craft will be to girly and their father, brother, friend, will not like that. Sparkly things are pretty to boys and girls. Messy mud pies are fun for boys and girls. We don't take the pink crayon out of the boys boxes and the blue crayon out of the girls boxes. This would be seen as absurd but we are doing so much worse in so many other ways.

I was happy to hear that at toys r us they are trying to remove or lesson the gender divide in most of the store.

On a side note, Lego being one of the best toys ever invented, I feel like they are losing a lot of what made them great by having all of the pre made kits. It is getting hard to find just the boxes of bricks anymore. Why not include pink and purple bricks in the regular brick boxes? Why not sell all the people and parts separately and let us make a zombie, swamp man, star wars building sinking into the mud being saved from King Kong?


I will get off of my soap box now. Have a great day. Let's PLAY!

Working

So in November I was Hired at Michaels craft store. When I started putting out applications the one thing my hubby said was "don't work at Michaels or Lane Bryant it will end up costing us money". On the contrary I have had little time to do the hobby's I so enjoy since I started working so that has not been problem.
The problem is wrapping my brain around my new role in life and how our family is now going to function(or at least attempt to).

I have always admired, been jealous of, and felt bad for working mothers. I have admired how hard they work to support their family's and still make sure the house and children are taken care of. I have been jealous of the time they get to spend away from their homes and family to do something that deals with other adults. I have always felt bad for the many woman who want to stay home but can't. For the working mothers who miss the field trips, class plays, and getting to work in the classroom.
I have always had a job of some sort but one that was part time and I could set the hours so I could do the crazy things that I wanted to. When  I was hired in November I thought I would have 15-20 hours a week. Little did I know that they were going to put me at 40 hours rather quickly. This was a huge adjustment for my family and myself. One of the things that has been hard about it is the fact that I love the job. It is a long 8 hours of running non stop helping people figure out ways to complete their craft projects. Once my feet didn't feel like they had been at Disneyland for a year this was all great. I really didn't expect to like it this much. Everyone who works their is great and hard working. The break room is always full of treats that people bring in to share. It is a fun place to be. Busy, Crazy, Messy, Crafty Fun place. I am having mommy guilt however that while I am there in the Crafty place I think very little of my family. I do feel bad about many of the mommy jobs I don't do anymore. A few weeks into the job I had a very busy week and I had worked 10 days in a row. One customer started talking to me about all the demands with school the last week before winter break. I was agreeing with the fact I had 3 places to be the next day and had had no time to prepare or bake anything. She put her hand on my shoulder and said "Dear some things need to be left to the Stay at Home Moms". While I don't fully agree with that statement it was the first time I was forced to realize that I am no longer a stay at home mom. I really don't want my kids to be left on their own. Mostly I don't want my youngest to miss out on the things my first 2 got to have with my staying at home. So far we have worked it out so either myself or my hubby have been home with them after school. Days off of school are going to be the hardest but occasionally it is not a problem. Summer time is what I am concerned about but I don't want to worry prematurely. Gratefully this job is very flexible and understanding of a busy life. I am able to request not to work on the nights my hubby needs to be gone or when the kids have special events with school. I am sooo grateful for this flexibility.
Working has been an adjustment. One thing I learned is that my hubby would make a great stay at home dad. He has truly stepped up to the challenge. He has not once expected me to do all of what I use to around the house and keep working full time. As of right now my hours are less and He is teaching 3 classes. My hours will be increasing again soon as well as one of my new rolls as the papercrafting/scrapbooking instructor at the store. I am super excited about this.


One thing we have done is assigned one night a week for the boys to be in charge of dinner. We planned the meals they would cook together and planned for a month at a time. They also have their assigned chores for the week and personal chores that must be done daily in addition to homework. As long and we stay on top of this I think we might make it without falling apart.

I don't know what my purpose of this post is other than to express my conflicted feeling. Going through all of this over the holidays did make them go by in a blur and I do feel a bit sad that they flew by without me. We did have a great Christmas and thanks to some wonderful Santa's our kids had a great Christmas.

I have never understood the Mommy wars. I have never felt like one side works harder than the other or that one is right and one is wrong. They are both hard and both must have sacrifices and triumphs.