Allies

This year Pesach/Passover, the holiday of liberation, comes on the heels of two amazing legislative victories: same-sex marriage is now legal in Iowa (with thanks to these ladies for their pride and bravery!) and Vermont (which means wedding bells for these ladies!).

On the two different days that Iowa's and Vermont's historic decisions were made, virtually all of my queer Face.book friends made reference to the victories in status updates. Then I noticed that a few of my straight friends also mentioned the news. And I found myself feeling a special pulse of warmth for those folks. It's another thought to add to my ever-expanding definition of "ally": to be able to participate and rejoice in a fight for justice that has no personal impact. Or perhaps the wisdom to understand that there is a personal impact: that none of us are free until all of us are.

The Streak

Perhaps one of the cutest things Jo loves to do is run down the hallway naked. He only learned to walk in the last month or so, but has quickly progressed to running. So he started out by wriggling away from the bath-giving-mom, and running down the hall, giggling maniacally, to visit the mom cleaning up from dinner in the kitchen (we trade off on these two roles). He loves it so much that now we always let him do his wild run, and even if he was crying and angry before (getting one's face wiped after dinner and taking iron drops can really cramp a toddler's style), naked running always makes him laugh and smile.

Co sings "The Streak" as he runs, a wacky song from one of her Dr. Dem.ento CDs. It's often my favorite moment of the day.

The Daily Cute

Here begins my attempt to blog more frequently, if less deeply. I want to try to record Jo's daily antics. I'll still be here contemplating my navel when I have time (ha ha ha).

Jo has developed a passion for bunny grahams. Last night, as Co offered them to him, she made them go "hop hop hop" on the table. Jo started not only to bounce the bunnies on the table, he echoed by saying "bop bop bop" -- his version of "hop hop hop."

Today he asked for one of his favorite books by name -- he calls it "Bobo," after the name of the monkey in the story. We were at the bank, and I had offered him a book from the diaper bag. He actually remembered a book from home and asked for it!

I'm on spring break now, so perhaps I'll even update daily. Stay tuned.

In closing, here is our snarky toddler in his rocking chair: