A Modern Family...

Otherwise known as… There are Worse Things Than…

I have just spent the past three days staying with Chris, Jes, and Ely, in the town of Westborough, outside of Boston.  They are a… modern family.  Chris and Jes met through Match.com several years ago.  Jes sent Chris an email… Chris renewed her membership just so she could reply.  They subsequently fell in love, and when Massachusetts declared it legal for same-sex couples to marry, they did so in front of family and friends in a lovely, celebratory ceremony.  

A few years later, along came Ely.  Jes’s pregnancy was, of course, planned.  Ely is now 2 ½ years old.  I met him the first time when he was an infant, two years ago.  (For the longest time, Ely’s first Christmas card, in his bear-bummed glory, graced my refrigerator—it’s a beautiful photo, and that bum is so cute!)  Like all two and a half year-olds, Ely is a bundle of energy.  His mothers are mindful of nutrition and severely limit his screen time (the television did not turn on the entire weekend I spent with the girls; it was not missed.)—as a result, Ely is healthy, and creative. 

The boy is obsessed with trains.  We spent a great deal of our free time putting together wooden train tracks, and pushing trains connected with little magnet balls around the track.  Truthfully, though we spent more time connecting track than actually using it.  In this case, the construction was more meaningful than the journey.  Ely is also taken with the ultimate train, Thomas the Tank Engine, much to Chris’s dismay.  Have you seen it, Jen?  It’s imperialistic brainwashing!

Well… ten years ago we took our kindergarteners on a field trip to see the movie at My Small Town Twin Theater.  

Chris continued her diatribe, It’s HORRIBLE.   

Chris is very passionate about many topics.  Apparently the evils of Thomas the Tank engine is one of them.  Ely has a Thomas the Tank Engine locomotive for his track set, which he gleefully puts into his backpack when he is cleaning up, so that he can have Thomas wherever he goes.  I found this endearing.

Ya know, Chris, there are worse things than Thomas the Tank Engine.  It could be He-Man, or some awful wrestler.  Chris and Jes both nodded, understanding.  In the grand scheme of things, Ely being preoccupied with Thomas the Tank Engine was not such a bad thing.  

It sounds silly, but… I really enjoyed that train track; it kind of made my heart hurt for a child of my own with which to play trains and put together track in whichever fashion we choose.  Yesterday evening Ely crawled into my lap with a book, and let me read to him.  It was… awesome.  

Maybe someday.  

If I’m lucky.

And I am okay with that.  

Every time I fly to Massachusetts to spend time with my favorite modern family I know that my dad is secretly terrified that I’m going to come home and announce to the family upon airport pickup that I am gay.  

I’m not gay.  I just happen to have two great friends who have what everybody wants:  A marriage that works, a happy, healthy child, and jobs that feed them.  (Jes is a pediatric nurse; Chris is a lawyer.  She doesn’t like her job as much, but she’s going to grad school—in addition to working mostly full time--  to improve that condition.)  I love them both.  In January they will be in Ft. Lauderdale, arriving the same weekend I am running in Disney’s half marathon.  They will be in the state for a week, so I told them I would take at least one day off to drive down and see them.  I am looking forward to it. 

I feel very fortunate to have had this weekend to connect with my two favorite lesbians and their gorgeous son.  I spent Friday exploring the best of Boston in exceedingly gorgeous weather, Saturday enjoying my favorite pastime on the Massachusetts North Shore (acquiring a monster cache of beach glass thanks to our tremendous teamwork), and Sunday conversing with Chris on their comfy couch, joined by three lovable cats, after Jes and Ely left for a birthday party, casually perusing Alicia Silverstone’s book, The Kind Diet, before we drove to Providence for my flight home.

I may not be gay… but I am considering a diet that is mostly vegan. 

Addendum:  Yesterday evening when Chris brought home Chinese takeout for our evening meal.  As the meal was readied for the table and each diner received her chopsticks, Ely declared, "I want my chopsticks!"  He has his own pair of kiddie chopsticks.  Of all the things that the author has thought she might possibly hear out of the mouth of a babe, "I want my chopsticks!" was never one of them.  Amazing.