Suburban Butch Dad Report, 2/28/2010

The burbs have been busy lately.  Spring is springing out all over and people have sprouted up in their back yards whenever the wind and rain don’t interfere.  I’ve gotten a lot done over the past couple of weekends:  gutter cleaning, branch pickup, some trimming and the very important driveway cleanup.  I’m hoping to work in my garden beds next weekend.  Y’all want to see garden pictures as things develop?

Here are some SBD stories from the past couple of weeks.

A Lunch

On Valentine’s Day, our whole family went to have lunch with another family, a family looking very much like a mirror image of us:  2 mom’s, one of whom is butch, 2 daughters, one in 4th grade, one 7 months old.  In fact, their baby was born only 3 days before our Little Bit.   We didn’t find them through craigslist or a queer social organization, we found them through Girl Scouts.  My wife is very involved in the local GS council, having had great experiences with GS as a girl.  She’s been taking on more responsibilities and doing lots of networking.

Our new friends invited us to their house for lunch on Valentine’s Day, and when I say lunch, I mean, early dinner.  Grilled chicken, homemade macaroni and cheese, rolls, fruit and fresh cookies for dessert.  I had only met one of the moms before (K), so this was my first opportunity to chat with mom #2 (A), the butch one.  We found that we two have a lot in common, and not just because we both like dark beer.  She gave birth to their second daughter and we shared some laughs over how clueless the outside world is when it comes to butches giving birth.  My wife and I very often run up against the assumption that she gave birth to both our daughters, despite the fact that our eldest looks like a slightly paler mini-me.  A and K could relate, since people tend to assume that K (pretty, long haired, more femme) is the bio mom to their baby.  I know we’re not that rare, there are lots of butches who’ve wanted the experience of pregnancy and childbirth.  I find it funny in a sad kind of way, how people can ignore what’s right in front of them, in favor of bias and assumptions.

That visit was a lot of fun.  Our eldest girls had fun playing, our young ones were fascinated with each other.  It was fun to see the developmental differences between them, at only 3 days apart.  Their baby is longer and a little heavier than ours and started crawling the day after our visit.  Our baby is a champion at sitting up by herself, but theirs isn’t at all.  We all agreed that we should get together again, and again.  I’m going to take A down and introduce her to The Eastside Club, which features a long row of taps, and several dark beers at a time.  A and K are new to town and there are a lot of fun things we’ll get to introduce them to over time.

A Munch

Last Sunday, I went to a kinky munch for the first time.  For those of you who don’t know about munches, they are get-togethers for kinky people, usually at some public place where food and drink are available.   There’s a notion that it’s easier to get to know people in a casual setting, over food, than, for example, at a play party or dungeon.  I do find it easier to have a conversation over food than over a flogging.  I found out about this local munch through FetLife.  This particular one is held at a local pizza joint.

I was prepared to go to even if I didn’t know anyone else there, but I got lucky.  Two people I’ve known online for a while were also going to be there and were looking forward to meeting me.  Miss Becca and ButchlyBear are charming, smart and fun.. exactly what I’d expected.

As I said, the munch was held at a local pizza joint, one frequented by lots of vanilla folks and families.  I think I made things exciting for some of them when I strolled in with my collar on.  More than once, I glanced out of our glassed-in room to see a group of teenagers craning their necks trying to get a glimpse inside.  I knew the collar would be attention getting.  I wasn’t sure how it’d be received by the other munch goers, but knew I’d get some stares from the ‘nilla folks.  My decision to wear it wasn’t made until that day.  I said something to Roxy about maybe wanting to wear it and she was very encouraging.

I sat next to Becca and we spent dinner time chatting and getting to know each other better.   Once folks were done eating, MasterHawke started a round of introductions.  There was one other person new to the munch, I’d forgotten to speak up that this was my first time.  When I did, one person turned to me and chuckled, “With that collar on, we’d assumed it wasn’t your first time.”

I guess I looked the part.   As for the rest of the folks in attendance, except for a couple of others, I wouldn’t have picked them out of a line-up as kinky folks.

This discussion topic was body image and public play:  how it detracts, what you do to overcome negative body image in yourself and your partner.  An interesting topic that got almost everyone talking.  After the munch, I joined Becca, Bear and a friend of theirs over to Shari’s for coffee, pie and more conversation.  I enjoyed myself and will definitely go again.

The Spawn Report

The Little Bit continues to delight and inspire laughter even as the elderSpawn confuses and confounds us with her preteen ways.

Little bit is sitting up like a champ.  She gets excited and rocks back and forth while huffing and squealing and banging her fists on her thighs.  One of the things that gets her excited  is watching my laptop go into screen-saver mode.  She acts as though the Windows XP Pro logo is one of her very best friends as it dances around the screen playing peek-a-boo.  She waves, giggles and squeals with delight.  Yes, Bill would be pleased, we have another Microsoft geek baby in the house.

She’s also a budding shoe lover.  Often she’ll be sitting on my lap and almost do a nose dive in her attempt to get to my shoes.  And if she can get to some shoes, she immediately goes for the shoe laces, and the shoe laces go into the mouth…. just another part of our immune system strengthening program.

And finally, we’ve discovered a new law, or rather, given it a name:  The Law of Grabbity, the tendency of small people at a certain stage in their development to grab anything within reach and put it in their mouths, and/or drop it onto the floor.  And if they can’t reach it, or only partially reach it with their wee little scrabbling hands, they’ll sweep it to the floor dismissively and search out their next prey.  So it was with my mouse, which doesn’t do the right button click quite as well as it used to.   And the papers on my desk are routinely cleared off.   Grabbity, it’s the Law.

ElderSpawn is a study in contrasts.  One minute she’s responsible, mature and contributing to the household on a voluntary basis.  The next minute she may be a whiny, pathetic heap on the floor or, perhaps, a snot-nosed sass-mouth who makes you want to scream and lock her in a closet for a few years.  I’m seriously worried about whip-lash trying to keep up with her moods.

She’s also getting far too good at fibbing.  She’s got seizure disorder and is on medication to control her petit mal seizures.  Not long ago, it became apparent that she wasn’t taking her medication but she denied it at first, vehemently.  In response, we let her in on a little secret:  we can count.  Yep, with some simple pill counting arithmetic we were able to bust her.  But after we’d figured her out, my wife and I were faced with a challenge, discussing it with her in a way that didn’t arouse defensiveness and/or more deception, but communicated the seriousness of the situation.  My wife suggested I talk to her in the morning, when it was just the two of us.  I put it to my daughter like this, “You have beautiful brains, creative and clever and we don’t want them scrambled by seizures.  We know you aren’t usually aware when you’re having them, but we know that you do have them when you don’t take you medication. ”  I went on to tell her that the plan for a while would be to have one of us witness her taking her medication.  She quietly accepted it and tearfully agreed that she didn’t want her brains scrambled.

And this is how it is in the House of Kyle.  We have blessings and joy alongside challenges and frustration.  Pretty typical of most families, I’m sure.   Have a great week.

 

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