Judge Not

Have you heard about Mike Penner? He’s a sports writer for the L.A. Times and recently came out as transgendered. After I read the article, I read most of the comments left by other readers. What struck me the most were the comments from Christians who either condemned him to Hell or vowed to pray for God to save him from this terrible affliction. Even amongst those comments, one, in particular, stayed with me. It was a woman who said (and I’m paraphrasing here) that she would pray that he’d come to his senses and be a man again as God intended him to be in the first place because God doesn’t make mistakes!

Before I delve into why this person’s comment bothered me, let me give you a little back-story. I’m a Christian. Morally and ethically, I’m very conservative, but I guess I’m what you’d call a liberal Christian. I believe there is such a thing as being born gay. I believe there are transgendered people. I believe that each and every one of us is entitled to, and receives, God’s perfect love. I believe He loves us exactly the way we are.

This begs the question, why did God create homosexuality or gender dysphoria? Why not? Who says we all have to be hetero and biological male or female? Who says God didn’t plan on there being a “third sex?” Are intersexed individuals an affront to God, too? Who are any of us to question the Creator’s grand design? I believe that He has a plan for each and every one of us. Some of us may need to transition from male to female. Some of us may love a member of the same sex. Some of us are color blind. Some of us are really very bad at math. We’re all different and yet some of these differences are acceptable to us and some are seen as abominations. Why? Who gets to make that call?

If the commenter is right, then God doesn’t make mistakes. Mike Penner was born a man, and is now becoming a woman. That was God’s plan for him. It wasn’t that God made a mistake and made Mike a man instead of a woman. Nor, is it a mistake for Mike to shed his maleness and embrace the female that he is. It just is.

Sometimes, I’m embarrassed to call myself a Christian. In my experience, Christians are the most insufferable, judgmental and venomous people I know. They are able to twist the context of any Bible passage to fit their agenda and then tell you that God is on their side of the argument. What happened to love? You know, charity? Peace? Acceptance? Tolerance? God sent his Son to teach us these things and what have we done? We’ve perverted the message and killed the messenger.

Hair Dilemma

Since I got pregnant, I’ve been growing out my hair. I thought I’d take advantage of the pregnancy hormone-induced-super-fast-growing hair. So far, it’s grown out to my shoulders and it’s shiny and pretty. Except, in the last couple of weeks, it’s falling out in clumps. All of the sudden, my hair is EVERYWHERE except on my freakin’ head. I read about postpartum hair loss, but jeezy creezy! This is ridiculous! Anyone know how long this lasts?

Now, onto intentional hair loss. My dad is getting married on Saturday afternoon, so I’ve got a hair appointment that day. I was originally planning to get a trim and have my stylist do something to it so that it looks vaguely attractive in the wedding photos. Bonus points if it makes me look 50 lbs thinner, too. Anyhow, now I’m not sure about a trim vs. a cut. So here are the pros and cons to each:

Trim – Pros
My hair is almost long enough for a ponytail. I’ve got a few shorter layers up front that require a clip, but it’s not too bad. Ponytails make weekend hair easier.
My hair is shiny and pretty. I don’t need any products in it, so it’s soft, too.

Trim -Cons
Maddie has started to grab my hair.
As soon as I get home, my hair goes into a ponytail. It’s hot and gets in my face.
My hair is very wavy and it’s a pain in the ass to blow dry it and smooth it out every morning. And no, I don’t know how to make it pretty when air-dried. It just looks like a wavy, frizzy mess.

Cut – Pros
My hair will be an actual style, not just hair.
Short hair takes waaaay less time to blow dry.
Maddie won’t be able to pull it.

Cut – Cons
Short hair has to be washed and styled every single freakin’ day.
No ponytail.
Products = stiff and not shiny and soft.

So, what do you think? Keep on growing or whack it all off? Help a sister out, wouldja?

Alleged Development

Maddie can do a mini push up now. While laying on her tummy, she can lift her head and chest up off of the floor. She tries her hardest to crawl while she’s down there, but she’s a long way away from actually going anywhere.

While on her tummy on Wednesday afternoon, she allegedly rolled over not once, but twice. Why allegedly? Because I was not in the room at the time of this alleged rolling over. Yeah, I was in the bathroom. I totally missed a milestone because I was peeing.

Therefore, I can neither confirm, nor deny, the alleged rolling over. Gerald swears in happened, but I’m pretty convinced he made it up. After all, my daughter would not roll over when I was in another room and not poised and waiting with the camera.

I do have empirical evidence of the push up. Check out that hair. It makes her look like she’s been exposed to radioactive waste. Maybe she’ll get super powers. I’d settle for hair, though.

Calling all couch potatos

Here’s this week’s TV Theme Song Quiz. Enjoy!

My greatest fear

Before Maddie was born, my greatest fear was a random act of violence that would hurt Gerald or me. Now, my greatest fear is something happening to Maddie. And when I say “greatest fear,” I mean GREATEST, MOST TERRIFYING, PARALYZING FEAR EVER KNOWN TO MAN. I love her so much that even the thought of losing her or someone hurting her makes me cry. Hell, I’m crying now just typing it.

I want to protect her from all the evil in this world. The bullies at school who knock her down and steal her lunch bag, the pedophile who tries to kidnap and molest her, the car accident we have on the way to her sitter’s house in the morning, drive-by shootings and drunk bus drivers. I’m terrified of SIDS. Of her choking to death on her bottle. Of dropping her and cracking her head open on the kitchen tile. Of her rolling off the bed and breaking an arm or a leg. These thoughts slither into my head and coil themselves around my common sense. They fill me with such dread that I have to force myself to breathe slowly to calm my heartbeat and lower my blood pressure.

I have lost a grandmother, a mother and a significant other all in the last five years. In fact, my mom died two years ago today. Each time, I lost someone dear to me, it seemed like the pain would never end and I would mourn for the rest of my life. But you know what? I didn’t. I still miss each of them very much, but I’m no longer debilitated by grief. I know, however, that if I lost Maddie, I would not survive it. Maddie is the portion of my heart that I carry on the outside of my body. If something were to ever happen to her, my heart would simply stop beating.

My mother wrote this in my baby book: “You will never know how much I love you until you have a baby of your own.” She was exactly right. I would give anything to have her here with me now so that I could tell her how much I love her right back.

Momma, I love you as big as the sky the last number of times. I hope I can be as good of a mom to Maddie as you were to me.

Excuses, excuses

I’d like to formally apologize to you, dear readers, for the disturbing lack of substance on this blog lately. It’s unforgivable, I know. BUT! I have excuses.

It’s crazy at work lately. It’s our busiest time of the year and there’s all that good ol’ drama going on that breeds so easily in workplaces all across the globe. I’m barely able to get home, get Maddie taken care of and then collapse into bed each night.

Also, there isn’t a whole lot going on other than the above. When I do get five freakin’ minutes to myself a chance to post, I can’t think of a damn thing to say.

If you’ll let me slide by with posting fluff for the next couple of weeks, I’ll try and come up with something interesting to say.

Deal?

To suck up a little bit, here’s another picture of my baby and her very pinchable smoochable cheeks:

Good Clean Fun

Take this quiz. You’ll need maybe five minutes and a computer with sound.

Enjoy!

The Witching Hour

I have a love/hate relationship with Maddie’s bedtime. On work days, I only get to see her for about two hours before she goes to bed. This time is spent feeding her, playing with her, bathing her, and trying to fit in some dinner. I alternately long for and dread her bedtime. I long for peace and quiet and a chance to wind down from my hectic day at work. I dread giving up my snuggly, smiley girl to dreamland.

I don’t have any problem at all when I drop Maddie off in the mornings. Her sitter is wonderful and takes fantastic care of her. I never worry about her. Bedtime is a whole other story. For some reason, I hate to leave her at night. I just want to hold her as she sleeps and sighs into my neck. She’s at her sweetest and most lovable when she’s sleepy. I want to hold on to that for as long as possible. All of the sudden, all the bullshit I’ve dealt with all day at work is gone. Poof!

The funny thing is that there are days when I cannot wait for bedtime. Days when she’s Grumplestiltskin or I’ve been super busy all day. I count down the hours until 7:00. Still, once it chimes, I want to hold on to her and never let go.

Ah, the irony of motherhood.

Gratuitous Baby

Look out! It’s crazy pants-head baby!

She’s Bumbolicious!

My Easter Chick : )