On Becoming A SAHM

So after three finals this week, attending graduation on Saturday and (lest I forget) grading those finals, I will embark, officially, on my next personal adventure (albeit one with a defined horizon): Stay At Home Momdom.

Aside: I'm still fairly uncomfortable with the "mom" label and was even regretting labelling this blog with that title. Maybe it should be Diary of a Lesbian Step-Father?

As in "Father Knows Best?"

Oh. . . . "Father" is even more problemmatic.

Dad?

As in "Whose your Daddy?" Okay that's just gross. Reserved for middled aged men in their fling-stage.

SAHM (pronounced "Sam")?

I've seen other lesbians each use a variante of "Mom", like "Mama" and "Mommy", but we're in the process of trying that and I just get confused.

"Mommy?"

No response.

"MOMMY"

No response.

"Oh, do you mean me?"

Or, "Let's go to the front door! Mama, I mean Mommy, I mean Mom is coming home!"

I've also seen other lesbian couples create really fun terms like "Baba."

I like this better on its face, but I can't help but giggle every time I try to get the SYO to call me something funny. I think its because I regularly introduce myself to her friends with really weird titles like "GooneyGooGoo" or something.

So far "Mamoo" is sticking. But again, I end up calling BioMom that as often as not.

Honestly, these are the first labels in my life with which I've had this much trouble.

We've got to come up with a new collective term for the Non-Biological Lesbian Partner-Parent. How about NBL-Double-P pronounced: "Enn-Be-ell-double P"? As in "NBL double P? CAN I HAVE SOME MORE ICE CREAM? . . . WHY NOT? WHEN?"

Somehow what they call me in this context seems of secondary importance.

Anyway, I am excited and terrified all at once. I am on FMLA in the fall and teaching part time at Macalester in the spring. A true break from working - if you call what I do "work" (I am a labor economist, so, because I receive such little disutility from the activities associated with my job, it's hard to really call it work -- certainly in the Marxian sense -- which, ironically nearly all Neoclassical economists have adopted(.

Of course, a break sounds lovely.

And I've got a reading list that's through the roof.

Oh, and those paper ideas to finish up.

And that book idea I've always had.

But what is wonderful and impossible about this particular break is that none of that is entirely possible.

Well, maybe if I were brilliantly efficient and could really accomplish something in the hour-ish chunks he gives us.

So its this strange place of just being. Taking care of the now five (!) month old, his sister and BioMom. Feeling itchy that I SHOULD be getting more done but unable to effectively jam in little chunks of time.

So yeah. I'm terrified.

But also thrilled.