Alright so I haven’t written a post in 3 months. A lot changes in three months when you have a baby under 1, like your kid goes from not talking to talking.

Not posting for three months also means that I haven’t shared with you the latest about her development, or my suffering and joy with respect to it. I tell myself that I haven’t written because there was so much going on in my life (which there was) but this is hardly an excuse.

I also think I have some insecurity about the blog, which has contributed to my serious writer’s block. Who is reading it anyway? I’m reminding myself that this is not an ego game, it’s a sharing game, so it actually doesn’t matter if anyone is reading it. How liberating. My agreement with myself (and with my 10 readers) is to take my ego off the table and JUST WRITE. Lezbihonest, my posts ain’t gonna win a Pulitzer so I’m going to stop worrying about perfection and get some freakin’ words down on the page.

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I have received many “Congratulations, you survived!” comments in the wake of my daughter’s first birthday. I often add… “congratulations, she survived, too!”

Damn, that first year was crazy. I can’t tell you how often I worried that my child was going to find some small throat-shaped object on the ground and try to eat it, or that one of her caregivers would inadvertently feed her something that would make her choke. I still hesitate when anyone else offers to feed her solid food. I wish I was kidding. This continues to be my primary fear as a parent, although I hear from my pediatrician that I should leave choking fears behind and focus my attention on developing my fears around the Beast falling from things. Oh great.

Fear of death and loss has never been so visceral for me as it has been since having a child. I love this little Beast more than I have loved anything so I guess it’s not all that surprising that I’m terrified of anything happening to her. Anyway this post really isn’t supposed to be about fear of death but rather about celebrating her first year of life!

I cried on her birthday. It was emotional thinking about how quickly the first year passed. I remember the first six weeks so vividly. Like when I said to Mrs S, “Can we put her back?” or “I never want to have another child” or “What the hell have I gotten myself into.” Now I am knee deep in the muck and mire of parenting and would never go back. This is not to say that I haven’t had my fair share of moments bucking against the total eclipse of my former self. Date night is precious as it never was before. I am lucky if I get to practice yoga for myself more than once during the week, and man, I forget the day when I could have a full adult conversation without having to run after a child who is about to eat an acorn.

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Last week I was talking with a queer friend who is pregnant and as I was telling her about starting this blog she asked, “What is different about queer parenting? I thought it was all just parenting.” This surprised me to hear this from a fellow queer and I had to think about that for a while. For me, being a lesbian family was so significant at the beginning of this adventure. Planning for a baby took more work than for my straight friends and we experienced abundant microagressions throughout the course of the pregnancy. Being the non-bio mom during the breastfeeding phase has also been a challenge (See Eating my feelings Part 1). Not that queer parenting is always more challenging because I’ve also noticed that childcare dynamics are much less gendered in same-sex households. For instance, I can’t tell you how many women have said to me, “Oh I don’t let my husband do {insert childcare task here}” or “I have to see if my husband can babysit tonight.” Not things that ever crossed my mind in my childrearing dynamic with Mrs S.

Upon reflection, I recognize that I have basically become a regular ‘ol stay at home mom like every other straight SAHM I know. My primary concerns include worrying about healthy meal planning (more on this in a subsequent post), keeping the chaos to a minimum (I have no solution to this) and making sure my child has abundant learning opportunities. So maybe queer parenting isn’t all that different, just as queer relationships aren’t all that different from straight ones.

And yet, there are small differences that can feel really big. Sometimes it’s nice to have a community of folks who understand that the differences can be significant. And let’s not forget that we are still “family.” With the growing acceptance of queer relationships and families in broader society, the need for queers to stick together has seemed to abate. However, I argue that we still need to take care of each other. The other day, Mrs S and I were at a beer festival and we walked up to a booth to order some beer and a lesbian practically pushed two pints of free beer on us. She was clearly just taking care of us because we were “family,” which is something that we don’t get much of anymore from our fellow lesbian sisters. It felt nice. And then it made me think of this blog. And the fact that even if queer parenting is exactly the same as straight parenting, we still need a space to have a voice and to support one another. At least I think so.

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I recognize that the content of this post has diverged greatly from my daughter turning 1. So I’ll return with a bit about the birthday party that we threw for her. It was Hungry Caterpillar themed. Mrs S went insane with the decorations. We hosted it in our local park and invited 80 of our closest friends. Families of 11 babies came, along with my parents, my brother and some straggler single friends who were troopers to tolerate a 1 year old birthday party (there was booze). It was a joyful experience and wonderful to realize how many friends with kids we’ve made over the past year. I felt (and feel) truly blessed.

I’ll end on this note: I fall more deeply in love with my child with every day. I am reminded constantly that the moments are fleeting, both the challenges and the good stuff, so I am trying to embrace it all because as the yogis say, it’s all divine.