On Marriage Equality

Day 27 of 31

Like everyone else in the country, I'm following the Supreme Court proceedings regarding Prop 8 and DOMA.  It's time that once and for all, the same rights, privileges and penalties are bestowed equally.  I happen to be heterosexual, but here's the part I just don't understand.   How does it affect me, I mean one iota, if two men or two women decide to get married?  Does it change my rights, my tax structure, my right to divorce?  Does having more married couples help the country?  It's not my area of expertise, but my guess is yes. Is having families with 2 parents beneficial to the community, absolutely.  Do gay families face challenges just as straight families do, absolutely as well. 

I am an A and a very close family member is a T in the LGBTAQ acryonym. It will be three years in May and you know what, it wasn't a walk in the park for me.  It's complicated and it takes a lot of time to make the emotional adjustments.  However, from day one there has been unconditional love and support.  So, if they are lucky enough to a find a person to spend the rest of their life with, who am I to deny that? 

A confession...I let my kids go to Easter Egg Hunts

I am Jewish, through and through.  I have gone through periods where I have been more observant, less observant, more involved, less involved.  But I can know say, especially as a mother, that my commitment to Judaism is stronger than ever, especially for the sake of my children.

So, I have a confession to make: I let my kids go to the local Easter Egg Hunt!  I went to Easter Egg Hunts growing up, I actually have memories of them from about 4 or 5 years old.  I even remember making some strange sort of Easter bonnet. 


So, why do I let my kids participate in this?  First of all, I really don't see any relationship to the holiday of Easter.  We're running through a meadow, searching for plastic eggs filled with candy.  Second, it's fun!  What's not to like about candy?  Third, (and I think this is really the reason why so many neighborhoods do this activity) after a long winter it's one of the first opportunities to get everyone out to see each other again. 

Today's Easter Egg Hunt was fun, but it was freezing cold and windy!  I was there without my husband, so it was a little hard to have both kids and take the adequate number of pictures!  Nevertheless, I think that both kids had a good time and no tears were shed (at least by my kids).  It is so nice to see my neighbors for a few minutes, too. 

Being a tourist close to home

Day 17 of 31

I go to Hershey's Chocolate World a few times a year.  It's close, it's free and my kids are still entertained by it, so why not?  Besides, you never know what else you'll happen to see.

Apparently, something new is being built at Chocolate World.  Who cares what it is, building something means heavy machinery.  I'm not really exaggerating, one of J's first words was machine.  Actually, it was "chine" for the longest time.   For many months at the library, he would only get machine books.  A book of any other genre had to be taken out by me, separately. 

Excavator

Very large jackhammer

Road roller and jackhammer

As far as machines go, I figure if you can't beat 'em, join 'em.  I encourage his love of machines and don't mind taking pictures and uploading them to the computer in his own folder "J's trucks"

Chocolate World itself never changes.  There is a short ride with singing cows and it tells the story about how chocolate is made, though I never pay that much attention.

Finally, I let the kids have some fun and we went to the dessert creation studio.  For $4.95, you get a cupcake, icing and two toppings to build your own cupcake.  The waitress also put edible paint "melted chocolate" on the table with paint brushes.  J had a great time adding the Reese's cups and sprinkles to his cupcake and painting on some color.  Not to my surprise, although he ate the candy, he didn't have one bite of cupcake or icing.  Also not to my surprise, the 11.5 month old did a pretty good job of eating what was left.

Wedding day

Day 11 of 31

Yesterday we went to a wedding of an extended family member on my husband's side.  It was a beautiful wedding, but also very emotional.  The mother of the groom passed away from breast cancer and the grandmother of the bride passed away from pancreatic cancer.  Both were given beautiful tributes during the ceremony and there was quite literally not a dry eye in the house.  Nearly 10 years into my own marriage, it is refreshing to go to weddings to remind myself of that different stage of life and reflect on the stage that I'm in now. 

The wedding was a "no child" wedding which did not really disappoint me in any way.  Even though I adore my children (of course), there is not much for them to do in a crowded reception hall full of fancy things.  Of course, the children were still one of the main points of conversation and I was happy to whip out my phone to share pictures.  I still have trouble leaving them for so long, but I'm thankful to have a babysitter who I trust without reservation.

The wedding was in Philadelphia (about 1.5 hours away) and we left with ample time, arriving in the city with about 50 minutes to spare.  But when we turned onto the Ben Franklin Parkway, there was suddenly gridlock traffic.  It was the St. Patrick's Day Parade, egads!!  We were following the detour and were literally 2 blocks from the hotel but we were stuck in this terrible traffic.  Luckily, I spotted a parking spot on the other side of the street, so we made a quick u-turn, parked, and walked the 2 blocks to the hotel.  It's been so long since I've lived in the city, I've forgotten about these types of problems!