Finally, after months of telling her she would like Glee, Brian finally just went ahead and played it for Stella.  After one episode she was wishy-washy.  "I don't know if I like it yet," she claimed, despite dancing on the couch during Journey.  After the second episode, she declared herself a Gleek.

My first episode was #3.  The Glee kids decide to do a sexy dance number instead of the 70's one their teacher chose in order to attract more kids to the Glee Club.

Me: But they couldn't have pulled off that whole routine in ONE DAY of practice.

Brian: You have to suspend reality for this show.


Ok, I understand, the learning of the routine is the boring part, no one wants to watch that.  I can suspend reality, it's a TV SHOW for goodness sake.

Next episode, the football team decides to do a dance before their last play.

Brian: Even if they take a timeout, the 35 second clock would start when the ref sets the ball.

Me: Suspend reality

Brian: But they would have rushed the kicker before he could have kicked the ball.

Me: Um, suspend reality?

Brian: Ugh!

Me: :)


Then towards the end of the episode, one of the Glee kids comes out to his dad as gay.  His dad says he's known since his son was three, when he wanted high heels for his birthday.

Stella: But he's gay?

Me: Yes, that means he's attracted to other boys.

Stella: Yeah, I know, but what does that have to do with shoes?

Nothing.  It has nothing to do with shoes.  A ten year old knows that, but still that's what we're putting out there.  The media still finds it easier to muddle up gender and sexuality than to face up and explain what it means.  Probably because most of them don't know the difference.  Don't care to know the difference.

Why is that? It's not difficult to explain.  Some people are attracted to the same gender, the opposite gender, both genders.  Some people like to dress like the opposite gender, either for fun or to pretend to be that gender or to explore that gender.  Some people believe they were born the wrong gender.  Some people are more than one of these things.  It's all ok.

It. is. all. ok.

If you don't think it's ok, keep it to yourself.  It is not your job to make someone else's life miserable, even a little bit, because you don't understand or don't agree with their life.  This is their life.  Who they are.  It is not ok to disagree with that.  Your religion disagrees? That's between you and your God, it has nothing to do with this other person.  Leave. them. alone.

It's not about you.

And you know what, kids understand and accept pretty easily, much more easily than a lot of adults.  Why not respect them enough to explain the range of sexuality and gender? This is not the hard part of parenting. Not even the hard part of the sex questions.  The hard questions are things like, "How do I know if I'm in love?" Yeah, answer that.

I know not everyone agrees with me.  Some may say they want to keep children innocent.  Some think it's difficult to introduce the idea of anything beyond a heterosexual couple. Some don't even want to mention the "sex" in heterosexual.

I just can't understand that. Knowledge is power. I don't think that my kids understanding there are different ways of loving have changed them in any inappropriate way.  They know that people are different, this just affirms that a little bit.  They aren't shocked or appalled or over-sexualized.  They are just open minded.

And I like that.

Stella: Was Grandma or Grandpa originally named Walter?
Me: Grandpa was, Grandma was Schmerbach and changed it to Walter when she got married.
Stella: Ok
Me: Like I changed my name to Walter when I got married.
Stella: Ooooh, ok.  Well, I'll never have to do that.
Me: Why? (expecting a "I'm keeping my name" or "I'm never getting married)
Stella: Because I'm already named Walter

I was ruminating on New Year's Resolutions.  Obviously, with the way my year went in 2013, I am planning no resolution, no specific word of guidance.  That was a flaming failure for 2013 that I am in no hurry to repeat.

Still, I think about things I'd like to change in my life on this day of resolutions.  I want a clean house.  To weigh less.  To be in shape again.  To finally get those family pictures on the wall.

Then I think, what if people decided instead of choosing a resolution of change, like weight loss or organization, they chose an area of their life to accept as is? What if instead of picking an space to fix, you pick a space to embrace? So you would choose instead to accept your body or your messy house.  I would love it if I could embrace my messy house!

At that point though, I wondered if that would be any easier? I mean, how difficult is it to love your faults?! I imagine those reverse-resolutions would be abandoned just as quickly, with just as much guilt.

So I'm going with my resolutions that I posted on FB yesterday, "...with the way last year went, I'm not willing to do anything too daring this year. Just going to take it as it comes and roll with it."  I imagine that will be difficult enough for me.

But I still want to get those photos up, dammit.