Erin, I'm glad you're home!

Thanks for the solace, folks.

I would never want a hypothetical transgender kid of mine to get beaten up for being transgender, but even MORE, I would never, EVER want to give my child the impression that his/her core identity is unacceptable. If your *parents* don't accept who you are, starting at age 3, that's just about the ultimate negation.

I'm currently reading Raising an Emotionally Intelligent Child by John Gottman (he also wrote Why Marriages Succeed or Fail). It's very much about allowing kids to trust that their feelings are genuine, valid and acceptable, (and distinguishing between feeling sad, hurt or angry, and choosing how to act appropriately on those feelings). His findings (he studied a large number of families over an extended period of time) was that trivialising or dismissing (or worse, punishing) a child's hurt feelings was damaging to their identity, not to mention self-reliance and self-discipline. This whole transgender thing has to be orders of magnitude worse.

Meanwhile, work-is-my-antidrug moment: peer reviewed a document, the following exchange now appears in the comments:

Work Bod: Should we be using a different name for [Billytea's team]?
Me: Yes - refer to us as "The Lords of Kobol".

I am pursuing a degree in Secondary Education - Language Arts major. Haven't really chosen a minor yet.

My mother got similar comments regarding her insistence on studying Latin in her teaching degree. She still got a job. Oh! And they put her in charge of the library, told her it had been neglected recently and could she improve the book selection a bit, but forgot to set any limits on how much she could spend. They get a great library and no budget for sporting equipment for two years.

And we know he’s not gay, since you’re gettin’ it regular ;)

Huh. I thought a certain degree of irregularity was kind of a goal here.

Also, dang. I thought I was the only stepmother on b.org. It's good to be not alone on that weird little step-island.

You can form a club! You could step out together!

Who replaced Matilda with a big girl? She was a baby last time I checked.

I think when I saw her she was going through a pupal stage where she was cocooned in a pumpkin.

Dear Macy's,

It's not a One-Day Sale if there's a "preview" day the day before.

Duh!

-vw

Thanks for checking in, Erin. I was hoping everything went okay. I'm sorry it was more involved. Was it the size of a grapefruit? It seems like giant cysts or tumors are always the size of a grapefruit, just like hail is either the size of a golf ball or a softball.

I have spent practically the whole damn day on the phone. My mother would not get off the phone, plus she depressed me by saying her congestive heart failure is getting worse. (Yes, it is all about me. I was mainly irritated because we both said closing phrases like "I'd better get some work done," but then the call went on and on.) Then my neighbor with the tumor that now may or may not be cancer was very upset about the fact that she needs to see her pcp again before her surgery, but the scheduling people were saying things to her like, "Well, there's an opening on May 21." I went through the same kind of nonsense myself, and under those circumstances, you're in no mental shape to deal with it. I cried a lot, but knowing my neighbor, she is going to raise hell you can hear in California. There should be some kind of ombudsman to deal with this stuff for people with serious diagnoses.

Sorry you're having such a stressful week plus extra added not breathing, vw. My allergies have been killing me because I'm allergic to the tiny flowers on shrubs like boxwood, which all seem to have come into bloom in the last week.

Oh, Erin! Please get better soon.

Cindy! Have you seen the latest Matilda pictures? It turns out that the cute and loveable don't go away as they get bigger; they just increase. Imagine that!

Oh JZ, that's no baby! Matilda is beautiful. I can't believe how big she is. Oh and she has a Nilly! Look E, too. He's also just so big. How are you all doing?

We move on the 16th, and we're really not packed.

It's the most stressful thing, isn't it sj? You'll get there. It always feels like it's an insurmountable task, but it always gets done, somehow.

I know for a fact that that isn't true. You might feel like that's what you're doing, but you're actually a delightful conversationalist.

Tell me more, tell me more.

Cashmere, are you around? Is your inspection tomorrow?

It's the most stressful thing, isn't it sj? You'll get there. It always feels like it's an insurmountable task, but it always gets done, somehow.

Thanks, Cindy. It is stressful, especially because I feel kind of useless while everyone else is doing the hard work. I just can't right now.

but it, sadly, was not a teratoma.

I'm kind of bummed. I mean, in a glad-Erin-is-okay-and-everything-went-well kind of way.

t edit Also -- CINDY!!!!

{{{Jilli}}}

{{{vw}}}

recovery~ma to Erin~~~

Matilda is just beautiful and so big.

t waves at Cindy

I think that covered everything...

{{vw}}

{{Jilli}}

It's only been in the past few years that my mother has accepted that my not liking pink was a genuine aesthetic preference, and not just rebelling against girliness. I was looking at a display in a store, and said, "Ooh," when I saw a purple thing, and then, "Ooooooh," when I noticed the green one, and completely ignored the pink one. Mom said, "You really don't like pink, do you?" I think that was the first time she realized that no, I just don't like the color.

I wasn't exactly tomboyish as a kid, but I didn't like skirts, I didn't like pink, and I didn't like anything overly ruffly or lacey. My mother loved Laura Ashley. This led to many disagreements. (I was also hypersensitive, so something like the stiff lace edging of a dress resting against my leg could get me screaming. For when I absolutely had to wear a dress, we could usually compromise on something made of really soft fabric, trimmed with either eyelet lace or fabric ruffles.)

Speaking of which, I noticed a few weeks ago that pretty much all of the Gap summer stuff is made of this incredibly soft fabric. It's great! I bought a whole bunch of stuff.

I once commented to my sister that when I was a kid, I got the impression from our mother that it was OK for a girl to be a doctor or a lawyer or an engineer or a scientist, but not OK for a girl to be a mechanic or a carpenter or an electrician or things like that. My sister responded, "No, it's not that it wasn't OK for a girl to be one of those job, it's that it wasn't OK for a child of hers to be one of those jobs." I told my mom about this conversation, and she laughed and said my sister was right.

Most of my favorite toys were either construction toys or dolls. Cuddly dolls, not Barbies. Give preschool me a Cabbage Patch Kid and a big bucket of Lego, and I could entertain myself for hours.

One day at the store, an older dad (like, late 50s, possibly 60) came in with his eight-year-old daughter. Total tomboy, outrageously bright (she spoke like a really well-read, poised thirteen-year-old, at least).

They asked me to help them find some spring clothes for her. Adorable Girl headed straight for the boys' section, to her father's dismay. (I'll note that she was dressed in jeans, a brown shirt, a navy-blue hoodie, and one of those boys' hats, like a fishing hat without the dangly things.)

Adorable girl knew exactly what she didn't want. Nothing pink, no skirts or dresses, nothing with a pattern (although she did confide that she had camo pants at home that she loves). She wanted a couple of boys' polos in the worst way, but there was no convincing her obviously-discomfited dad.

They settled (after a half hour of me picking out plain white girl's polos, brown cargos, green cargos, sky blue tees, and a few other things) on an army green tank top and an army green tee. At the counter, Dad spotted the bin of socks, and tried via wheedling and what he thought was logic to convince her to get some pink and pastel striped ones.

She choose a five-pack of boys' socks in brown, navy, and green, and I had to TALK HIM DOWN FROM THE FUCKING LEDGE to let her get them.

I just wanted to hug her. And drag her to the food court for a soda so we could talk about books and why she should wear anything she feels comfortable it and how her dad obviously loves her even if he Doesn't Get It.