Of the four of us, three of our birthdays are in the first week of March. Then there's a lull, and then NT's is on the 21st. So, 3 of 4 birthdays are over for the year!
AA is two -- can you believe it? She's a little smartie, too -- recognizes and can say most of the letters of the alphabet, both uppercase and lower.
We only spent about half our $100 budget for her -- got her a stuffed animal (character from a favorite show), two boards where you use a magnet pen to trace letters and numbers and little ball bearings pop up where you touch it, and some CDs of kids songs by They Might Be Giants. Her grandparents got her tons of stuff, and her British grandad put 50 pounds in NT's account for her. It was supposed to be to buy her presents, but since we had $50 left over in our own budget for her, we put the 50 in savings and bought her some stuff "from" the British grandparents using our own money. She also got $2 from my mom and an Amazon gift card from another British grandparent. We taped her opening her presents; hard to get a 2-year-old to be equally excited by everything, but everyone will just have to understand.
We asked NT's family not to get us adults anything, and AS's mom is usually too disorganized to actually ship presents. No use telling my parents not to get anything -- they live for spoiling kids and grandkids. AS got an iPod nano, a couple books and DVDs, and $150 in iTunes cards. I got an Elvis jigsaw puzzle , some DVDs and $150 Target gift card. And $20 in my card that was sent separately. NT's gifts have already arrived but we don't know what he got yet. Oh, and we got some nunchuks for our Wii.
My parents are so hard to read sometimes. I chatted with them on Skype on Sunday and was telling them how we're trying to get AA to call me and AS "mom" and "mama" instead of both "mama." My dad sort of squirmed and said something like, oh, but when you're in public, people will think she has two moms. I made things very clear in a letter when this relationship started, and I try to be clear still, so that they know AS is my partner, her baby will be my son or daughter (aka their grandkid), etc. But it seems like they don't get it. Yet they spend hundreds of dollars on presents for AS, so they clearly do consider her to be part of the family. I'm just not sure in what capacity. They like her, they would've paid her airfare to come to the family reunion this summer, they always get her presents and send her cards for every holiday. So it doesn't bother me too much, but I'm just glad we don't live close enough to them that they might be around our kids when we're not, and say confusing things to them. Life is going to be confusing enough for our kids; we need a tight-knit team to support them and make them feel confident in their family structure!
Maybe when the official adoption happens after the birth, they will at least be able to comprehend that our kids legally do have three parents. Shrug. I should just be happy that we haven't faced any major opposition from any of our families over this.
Oh yeah, that reminds me -- remember when NT finally told his gran what was really going on, that AS was also part of the family? Well, AS got her own bday card from gran this year, and she signed it "Grandma." (She's a couple years older than my parents, so they have no excuse for not getting this!)
I guess that's all for now. No point to this post really, just babbling to run down the clock at work. Now I can fill out my timesheet and leave!
Birthday month is 3/4 over
March 6th, 2012 at 11:13 pm
March 7th, 2012 at 12:12 am 1331079166
March 7th, 2012 at 02:26 am 1331087180
March 7th, 2012 at 10:07 am 1331114844
March 7th, 2012 at 10:23 pm 1331158996
Mamasita, congrats on your parents "getting it" eventually! The funny thing is there's no hostility; they love everyone in my household. They knew about me and AS for nearly a decade before NT moved in. But once I married him they started acting a bit like just he and I were together. It's like their brains just can't quite comprehend 3 people in a relationship instead of 2.
March 9th, 2012 at 06:13 am 1331273612