scarymommy.com

We watch him attempt to weigh down his son by piling objects in the boy’s backpack and tethering the boy with a string. All parents want to protect their children from physical and emotional harm — and for parents of children with special needs, it’s even more of a reality. As tension builds, we watch the father and son attempt to visit the park where many other families are enjoying a sunny day. As the boy begins to float and laugh, clearly enjoying the freedom of being outside among other children, once again the father is forced to quickly decide what to do.

He’s a boy…in the GIRL’S bathroom (GASP! ). My raging TMJ would most likely disagree as gritting my teeth to the point of enamel corrosion isn’t super comfortable and/or fun by any stretch of the imagination, yet if I allowed myself to impulsively react prior to running shit through my prefrontal cortex, people would be hurt and my kids would only get to see their mother through a glass window on special occasions. ) 7-year-old son who peed together in the privacy of our own tiny locked stall that you took it upon yourself to not put your energy towards a worthwhile cause like self-growth or proper post-piss hand hygiene but rather shame me for bringing my kid with a penis into the girl’s bathroom because he was scared to go into the other bathroom alone. At any rate, please let me assure you that, based on your impromptu bathroom intervention, I will not think twice about doing the exact same thing again because I hereby vow to support and protect my sweet deviant child in any/every capacity from now until my last life’s breath regardless of his sick and twisted second grade instincts toward middle aged women who enjoy humiliating young kids and bullying mothers

But then I read a blog from a woman who was having difficulty bonding with her baby conceived with a donor egg. Now, when I gaze into the faces of my three beautiful children who were conceived with the help of that donor, I do not see the physical characteristics they share with the egg donor. When talking to my friends and family I would refer to the egg donor as my daughter’s “biological mother. While I never see the likeness of our egg donor on the faces of my children, I believe our donor’s character is evident in my children’s personalities.

When another uncle got married in Washington, my dad, his cousin, and one of my little sisters and I traveled in our station wagon from Illinois to Washington and back, making stops in Wyoming to see our future home, Little Bighorn to see a National Historic Site I didn’t understand, and Mount Rushmore (in what would be my first of at least three stops there over the years). While I haven’t left the country since my husband and I married over seventeen years ago, we have continued to travel all over the country, often camping when other options (such as my in-laws getting the whole family a condo in Key West) are not available. My parents, who didn’t care whether or not the four of us girls wanted to travel because we were going to do it whether we liked it or not, raised a daughter who became a mother who didn’t care whether or not her kids wanted to travel because we are going to do it anyway. When our kids were younger, we allowed fears of all of the above to keep us from taking extra long road trips, but like my parents before me, I didn’t feel like I had much of a choice; I couldn’t avoid travel entirely.