Week 18 Day 5: Happy Mothers' Day

I went on a date with my wife tonight and let me tell you, I haven't seen so many hooters and snotty noses in a long time. No, we didn't go to a ragweed burlesque show, we went to see Babies, a movie I've been eagerly anticipating for months (I'm a sucker for documentaries and I'm a sucker for babies). So yes, Stacy and I went out (without Gavin, and at night, even) for the first time in a very long (too long) time in order to watch a documentary about other peoples' babies. It was, honestly, a perfect date movie for us. I mean, Gavin's 9-months-old, and while that sometimes seems astoundingly "old" (meaning, "Holy shit, where has the time gone?"), he's still a baby. And we are both madly in love with him. So you could say we have a personal interest in the film's subject.

I really liked Babies, as I knew I would from the moment I saw the preview. Though I am not sure that folks who don't have kids or baby fever would dig it so much. The film depends largely on the audience's reaction and emotional connection to the babies in the film. For me personally, I was very much in mama mode while watching it. When the babies did something especially cute like cooing or babbling or smiling or grabbing a baby goat by the head I would smile all over the place. And when they did things like tip their stroller over on themselves, eat toilet paper, pick animal bones off of the ground and put them in their mouths, or nearly get trampled by cows, I reacted physically, tensing my body and holding my breath. When they fell I winced. Maybe the falling hit a little too close to home, but it also was good for me to see other babies fall and trip and clunk their heads and continue to live.

Seeing the relatively sanitized and safe-guarded way the babies in the San Francisco and Tokyo lived versus the more rustic and tribal lives of the babies in Mongolia and Namibia. Gavin definitely lives a life much more akin to the Japanese and American babies. I can't even fathom a rooster strutting around newborn Gavin's bed or Gavin playing naked in the dust and the dirt. That said, I never felt that
"my way" was superior to that of the other parents. Though I admit I couldn't help but wonder how many babies choke to death on stones in Namibia. I also badly wanted to reach into the screen and wipe the babies' noses as every single one of them often really needed a Kleenex intervention, even Hattie, the American baby. I mean, I can understand the mother in Namibia not rushing to wipe her daughter's nose, but come on Hattie's parents. You take your kid to baby yoga and probably only feed her organic food. Bust out a handkerchief.

So we're headed into Mother's Day weekend and this will be my first Mother's Day as a mother. It's kind of weird, actually. But I'm getting used to the whole thinking of myself as a mom thing. I've been stressing about what to get Stacy's for Mother's Day since it's our first and all. My wife is the kind of person who thinks she is easy to shop for but really isn't. She's just not materialistic enough I suppose. While this is actually a good quality in a person it makes shopping for them hard. Thankfully Stacy offered me an out when she said that what she would really like would be flowers. Not cut flowers in a vase, but some flats of annuals she can plant on and around the deck in the backyard. I can handle this. I think. I don't know anything about flowers or plants. As far as the yard goes, that's Stacy's department. My department is maintenance (at which I am doing a terrible job. My lawn has not been cut since Jamie did it years ago. How the hell do people with kids ever find time to mow their lawns? All parents should live in condos.

Speaking of Mother's Day, my sister Laura sent me a link to Erika Milvy's "A Lesbian Mother's Complaint: I Want To be the Only Mommy on Mother's Day" on Slate. I definitely don't feel that way. I don't mind sharing Mother's Day. Maybe because I've always shared by birthday with Laura (we're twins, yo). Part of Milvy's deal is that she's the bio mom, so maybe Stacy feels differently than I do and secretly wishes she could disappear me on Sunday. But I kind of doubt it.

While Milvy seems to be asserting primacy as the biological mom, she acknowledges how easily her girlfriend's role can be dismissed by others. She writes, "Most people know better than to question [the non-bio mom's] maternal legitimacy, but once in a while someone will ask 'who gave birth?' in a way that implies, 'Which one of you is the real mom?'" Ah, yes. I can relate. But then, everybody says that Gavin looks more like me than Stacy, so maybe she's the one who needs to worry.

In any case, whether you are a mother, have a mother, will be a mother, or just frequently preface your cusses with "mother," Happy Mother's Day to you. Or if you have to -- no, get to share, Happy Mothers' Day.