Mothers Day part deux

Mama Drama Times Two asked why as a two mom household, (they are one too)we have a separate day for me and honor K on Mothers Day.  I shot them off a quick email but it made me think back to our early parenting days with Chet.  Chet was, as I have alluded to in earlier posts, a challenging young child.  Actually it was sort of a time line that in brief was --really sick toddler, challenging pre-schooler, progressively tougher through elementary school, raging in puberty, to sort of settling into a calmer (for the most part) adulthood. 

The point of the time line is that he was so erratic and prone to meltdowns that there was no way both of us could enjoy a celebration on Mothers Day.  And it amped up his stress as he was now trying to do for two of us when he could barely handle making and doing for one at a time. Chet always called K, "Mom" so it made sense to give her that day and find some other way to celebrate me (and give me a break).  So I would handle the craft, the serving of breakfast and then typically take over care of him for the day so that she got a chance to relax and do what she wanted to do.  We never had respite care, or reliable babysitters so it was never an option for us to go out together to celebrate.  It might have been different if that had been possible.

  Additionally, we found that while he was in public school it was important that he have someone he felt he could make a card or gift for when the Fathers Day holiday came around.  Public school is sort of the place where DOMA is graphically evident.  It doesn't seem to occur (or didn't then) to teachers that some kids would not have a father --absent or otherwise--in their life.  He liked just making the card and having it be for me.  The fact that he has always called me "ooma" which is a varient of Hindi for mother made it something that other people wouldn't know right off was for his other mom. And he wouldn't write "happy fathers day" he was clever in his wording but no one outside the family would necessarily have picked up on the difference.

We don't have Ooma's day on Fathers Day.  Usually it is the week after but the scheduling part has gotten somewhat loosey goosey over the years because a few years ago K began working on weekends.  But I get the pampering sometime in June and I look forward to it.

One other funny aside about the whole convoluted situation of same sex parenting. . . When KC was little (infancy) he was in a family day care where I work.  The woman who watched him is still "Abuelita" to him but she had a hard time wrapping her mind around what to do with the 2 mom thing.  We tried to explain the Mom and Ooma concept and how we handled things but something got lost in translation.  But she tried--because on Fathers Day he got bundled up to come home clutching a card that said Happy Fathers Day to (my name) from KC and had a picture of him pasted in.