Tag Archives: New York

Jan 1 2013

2012, Our Moving Year

Just over a year ago, my family was homeless. Okay, so it wasn’t in the sleeping-outdoors, panhandling-for-change sense of the word, but technically, we were without a place to live. We’d packed up our West Hollywood condo, and everything we owned was traveling through parts of the country we ourselves had mostly never seen.

Other than our decision to have kids, it was the biggest, scariest choice we’d ever made, but it seemed like the right thing to do for our family.

We spent the holidays with Drew’s parents and siblings in upstate New York, then I came down to meet the movers and start unpacking our stuff. Each item was tagged with a number, so it was easy to see exactly how much junk Drew and I had jointly amassed in our years on the West Coast. The highest number was roughly equal to my score on the SAT verbal section. (Granted, math was my forte.) Three days later, with only about 3 or 4 boxes unpacked, I opened the door to Drew and the kids, all of whom were seeing our new home for the first time.

That was one year ago today, January 1, 2012.

It’s nice to ring in this year with some stability, because the last one started off so full of uncertainty. Would we like it here? Was this the right thing for the kids? Would we ever get unpacked?

I wish I could say I had definitive replies to those questions, but the only one I can answer for sure is the last one — no.

Earlier today, we sat down with the kids and looked through some pictures of our last days in California and our first days in New York. The differences kind of surprised us, as in this image of the moving truck:

movingtruckThey’re crawling! That may not shock you as much as it does me, but in my memory, the last time my kids crawled was a hundred years ago. In actuality, it was just one year, or, according to the Mayan calendar, a mere 355 days followed by a timeless void.

It took me a minute before I could remember the moment. They knew how to walk by then, but the rickety ramp was a little too unsteady for then. Just to be safe, they got down on all fours. As we got ready to leave our past behind, the kids gave us one last glimpse of their infancy.

Confidence in walking ability wasn’t the only thing our family gained in 2012. We made some amazing new friends, reconnected with some old friends and spent wonderful times with our East Coast family (by which I mean our actual families, not the loose network of Bell Biv DeVoe-affiliated artists popular in the early 90s). The kids also made new friends, they learned about 10,000 new words (only 1 or 2 of which we’d prefer they hadn’t), caught a dozen or two kiddie viruses and started school.

Sometimes, I’m overwhelmed at how happy I am in our new home. Other times, I’ve overcome with grief at the lives and the friends we left behind. I’ll ask my kids if they remember someone from our old life, and they’ll just stare back at me blankly. Los Angeles is a blur to them, and soon, it’ll be nothing but a series of pictures their dads show them when they’re in the mood to look back and reflect.

Browsing through at the photos, I admit, I got a bit choked up. As for Drew, he sobbed uncontrollably and had to leave the room. So the big question facing us now, at the start of 2013, is pretty obvious: did we make the right choice?

I’ve asked myself that at least once on each of the last 365 days, and I sat down to write this post determined to address it. Once again, though, I’m not sure it has an answer. There’s no way of knowing what this last year would’ve been like if we hadn’t moved. All I know for sure is that none of these things would’ve happened:

bennetttrain suttonrainbow grandcentral throwingleaves suttongardenWe would’ve made a completely different set of memories, some incredible, some undoubtedly sad. I wouldn’t have any of these pictures to treasure, but there would be a different set, one I probably would’ve loved just as much. And I’ll never know what they might’ve looked like.

That’s because changing the setting may change some things, but it doesn’t completely alter a story. Wherever we put ourselves, we’re headed forward on a similar trajectory through an uncertain future. Here or there, New York or LA, we’re still us. The same people and the same family.

We end one year tentatively crawling, and the next, it seems like we’ve been walking forever.

May 18 2012

My Son Wants To Wear a Dress

If you’re wondering whether gay parents are more likely to raise gay kids, you should know that my 2 1/2 year-old daughter has already announced that she wants to marry a boy when she grows up.  No particular boy, not at this point, just “a boy”.

Where did she get this crazy idea that you can marry, you know, people of the opposite sex?  I blame Disney movies.  Ariel and Eric, Tiana and Naveen, Beauty and the Beast.  Daddy and Daddy just can’t compete with love stories like those, especially without any Menken-penned showtunes of our own for her to dance along to.

I’ve even reminded her that girls can marry girls, at least here in New York.  No thanks, she’s marrying a boy.  And her brother is going to marry a girl.

So she says.

Like most boys his age, Bennett hasn’t shown much interest yet in marrying anyone, of either gender.  But he does want to wear a dress.  Badly.  Lately, he’s been asking me every day.

I read absolutely nothing into this, of course.  It’s not like either of his dads was ever into the drag thing, but he certainly hears about dresses an awful lot.  His twin sister is obsessed with them and gets a lot of attention for them, so I don’t blame him for thinking something magical will happen if he puts one on.  He’d definitely get a lot of attention.

Of course, that’s my fear.  I don’t care if the kid wears a dress, whether or not it ends up being something he wants to do when he gets older.  But I know if he wears a dress to the playground or the zoo, some schmuck kid (or, perhaps more likely, grown-up) will feed him that nonsense that “boys don’t wear dresses”.

If that happens, it might not be a big deal.  He might go, “Oh, really?  They don’t?  Why didn’t you tell me that, Daddy?”  Then again, he might cry.  I’m just not ready for the world to teach my kid shame.  I grew up in the closet myself, albeit a slightly different one, and I don’t want that to happen to him.  For now, I don’t even want him to know there is a closet.

So when he asks me to wear a dress, I don’t say no.  I tell him he can do it “later” (as in when we’re not going outside for a while).

“Later” also means when he’s old enough to understand how other people might react.  And if he wants to wear dresses anyway, then I’ll have his back — plunging, ruffled or otherwise.

I’ll also remind him that he can marry whomever he wants, no matter what society – or his sister – might tell him.

Jan 3 2012

Our Park

There’s a park two blocks from our condo in West Hollywood.  It’s not pretty like parks should be, it’s not very quiet and it’s not geared much toward kids.  The picnic tables are filled with old men smoking cigarettes and playing chess, and if you see a blanket spread out on the grass, it’s more likely a homeless person’s bed than a family’s picnic site.

But for a little over two years, it was our park.

When the kids were too young to walk, we pushed them up and down the park’s single pathway in the double stroller.  Heavyset Russian grandmas would see them and tap me on the shoulder.  They’d chatter in small groups for a moment until one of them came up with the word they were all searching for.

“Tvins?”

“Yes,” I’d say, and then they’d smile and gush with whatever other English words they knew.  “Happy!”  “Nice!”  “So… cute!”

As the kids got bigger, we checked out some of the fun things the park had to offer.

Before they could crawl, we’d let them roll around on the grass, stooping over to pick cigarette butts out of their path.

We had two rules at the park.  Don’t eat anything you pick up off the ground, and stay away from the filthy water spout.  There was a third rule, which usually went unspoken, which was that we always stayed in the toddler area.

The toddler area is about the size of a post office waiting room, only dumpier, with one double slide and a single bobbing motorcycle thing which the kids never really enjoyed. This park predated the invention of that spongy rubber stuff they put on the ground at playgrounds these days.  Instead, it was full of wood chips.  Rigid, jagged, unsteady wood chips.  When the kids fell down, it hurt.  I remember when they were just learning to walk, they would tumble over every 2 or 3 steps, their hands plunging into piles of splintery wood.  But they never complained, never cried, never stopped getting back up and stumbling forward once more.

“Someday, I’ll tell them about this,” I thought.  “When they’re feeling insecure or they don’t think they’re strong enough to make it through some challenge, I’ll tell them about the wood chips.  I’ll recount how they fell down 20, 30, 40 times and kept trying.  ‘I only wish I had your strength,'” I’ll confess.

I never let the kids out of that tiny playground.  I feared that the taste of freedom would change them forever and I’d never again be able to keep them contained.  Without that fence, they’d be loose in a world I couldn’t control, full of cars zooming past, dogs running loose and the ever-constant threat of predators, that handful of jerks in the world who’ve ruined childhood for absolutely everyone.

The day before the movers came to take us to New York, Drew came home from work early.  We were tired and overwhelmed by what was looming, but we wanted to spend the time with the kids.

We took them to the park.

“Do you realize this is the last time we’ll ever take them here?” Drew observed.

Out of habit, the kids headed for the toddler area, but it seemed silly to put any restrictions on them today.  They’d grown up at this lousy park.  Why not let their last visit here be special?  I turned to Drew.  “Let’s just let them go.”

We told the kids they were free to explore.  I don’t think they believed us at first, then Bennett took off in a flash, as if he feared we might change our minds.

He ran around corners, pushed empty swings, pressed every water fountain button and dove down onto an open field, where he rolled around in the leaves, with an expression on his face that registered something far beyond mere happiness.

Sutton padded around more methodically.  She studied her surroundings and snooped on strangers.  She rode the big kids’ slide, holding onto the sides the whole way down, because maybe it was still a bit too big.

Every few minutes, she’d realize she’d lost track of her brother, and she’d call out, “Bennett, where aaaaaaaare you?”

I felt guilty that we hadn’t done this before.  I wished I could’ve let them run free every time we went to the park.  I wished our day would never have to end, that there might be some way to hold onto this last trip to the park forever.  But as it got dark, Drew and I called out our usual warning.  “Five more minutes!”  We needed to go home and have dinner.  It was going to be our last dinner in the condo.

“Who’s coming tomorrow?” we asked the exhausted little boy and girl scurrying alongside us down Santa Monica Boulevard.

“Movers!” they shouted.

“That’s right.  And where are we moving to?”

“New Ork!”

We’d been having this conversation a lot over the previous few weeks.  We’d trained them well about what to expect in the days to come – a new house, maybe a new park, definitely heavy coats that we’d have to wear every time we went outside.  Lots of exciting new things to look forward to.

And they understood.  I really believe they did.  Even a two-year-old knows how to look ahead – to nap time, to dessert, to a visit from Grandma.  Looking ahead is easy.

There’s one thing they could never comprehend, though, not at their age, because it’s something I still struggle with myself… and that’s what it means to leave something behind.

Dec 2 2011

N.Y. F.A.Q.

If you ask the kids where we’re moving, they’ll say, “New Ork”, but I’m not sure they know what “moving” means.

I’ve told them we won’t live in our condo anymore.  We’re going to have a house with a backyard where they can play – but not right away, because it’ll be cold in New Ork. Daddy doesn’t like it when it’s cold, but it does mean we can go ice skating, like Snoopy does in the Charlie Brown Christmas special.

They talk a lot about the ice skating.

When they have questions, they’re usually about what’s coming with us on the move and what isn’t.

“Is Daddy coming to New Ork?”  “Of course.  We don’t go anywhere without Daddy.”

“What about Daddy?”  “Me, too.”

“Is Harper coming to New Ork?” “No, Harper’s going to stay here with her Mommy and Daddy.”

“Is the chair coming to New Ork?”  “Yes.”

“Are the balloons coming to New Ork?”  “No, but we’ll get new balloons.”

“Can we watch the Muppet Show in New Ork?”  “Yes, we can.”

“When we get there, can we eat Dunkin’ Donuts every day?”

OK, that last one was from me. I have my own priorities.

Nov 29 2011

Leaving Home

You could say I came to LA to get away from my family.  I was 22 and wanted to assert my independence.  Plus, it seemed like a much cooler place to live than New Jersey, the filthy, strip-mall saturated suburbia where I spent my requisite miserable childhood.

LA was exciting – and it was mine.  My family thought I was crazy to come here, and that was the best part.  But in spite of myself, I continued to call New Jersey “home”, as in “I’m going home for Christmas” or “I miss everyone back home.”

Still, I didn’t have to get anyone’s permission – for anything.  It wouldn’t be overstating it to say I finally became myself in LA.  I came out, fell in love and had my kids here, something Drew and I couldn’t have done without California’s liberal surrogacy laws.

Sometime over the last 17 years, I started calling LA “home”.  The East Coast was just a place I visited now.  My family was made up of a tight circle of friends I’d formed here.  I got used to pumping my own gas and grabbing a quick meal at Baja Fresh.  When I’d drive through old neighborhoods in New Jersey, I’d see Verizon stores where Roy Rogers used to be.  It was a foreign land.

Then, a few weeks ago, we were presented a chance to move back.  Drew got a very tempting job offer with a New York-based company.  They wanted him to start right away.  They’d pick up all our moving costs.  We wouldn’t even have to pack.  All we’d have to do… was leave.

We took the offer.

22-year-old me would never have believed I’d cave and go back.  But it wasn’t that hard a decision after all.  I don’t want to leave here or to lose touch with any of the people I’ve come to care so much about in California.  But the forces pulling us to New York were ultimately stronger than the forces tying us here.  It wasn’t about the job or the money.  What made me want to go back to the East Coast was exactly what made me leave in the first place.  Family.

I want my kids to know their cousins, and I want them to get spoiled by their grandparents.  I want to be there for my brother-in-law’s wedding and to stay out all night celebrating.  I want free babysitting from my sister, and I want to know that in an emergency, a lifeline is just a phone call away.

We found a house to rent in Westchester County.  A house, with a real backyard, rather than a hallway that we call a backyard.  Still, it doesn’t feel real.  I suspect it’ll take a while before New York feels like home.

My kids aren’t quite two and a half yet.  Assuming the move sticks, New York will be the only home they’re likely to remember.  It makes me sad to think that they’ll forget all their friends – all our friends, that when we come back to visit, these people who are so dear to us will just be strangers to them.

But maybe someday, when they’re grown up, they’ll want to move far away from me.  Maybe after growing up in the New York suburbs, Los Angeles will seem new and exciting.  I kind of hope it does.  It’s not that I think they’ll be any happier here than anywhere else.  Or that I romanticize my own journey out here when I was younger.

It’s just nice to know there are a lot of people here who’ll watch over them for me.

Nov 17 2011

Travel Tips for Families With Two Kids Or Less (Or More)

Nothing brings out the best in strangers like witnessing men try to take care of children.  They tend to think you need help – and even more, that you deserve it.  Like a dude with a baby is automatically in over his head and crying out for a lifeline.  You can take it as an insult, or, if you’re me, you can take the help, because hey, it’s free help, right?

Never does this mentality come in handy more than when you’re traveling.  If it takes a village to raise a child, it takes an entire airport terminal to get that child to Grandma’s for the holidays.  Soak it up, fellow gay dads, because this is where the new BFFs come out of the woodwork to assist you.  Not that you need them, of course.

Drew and I have made the LA to New York journey with the kids four times now.  That may not qualify me as an expert, but we haven’t lost a kid yet, so I’d say I’m good enough.

With the holidays coming up, I thought I’d share a few of my secrets.

Make a packing list.  It’s easier than it sounds.  Just write down everything you use in a 24-hour period.  Burp cloths, bibs, formula, your “Daddy’s not messin’ around” voice.  Figure out how many of each you’ll need during your flight and how many you’ll use for the rest of the trip.  Use this as your checklist before you leave – and again before you return home.  Next time you travel, it gets easier, because you can use your previous list as a jumping off point.  As your kids get older, you’ll need less stuff with every vacation.  And if this sounds too anal for you, hold on, because it’s about to get way more anal.

Ship, borrow and sacrifice.  Getting your kids through an airport is tough enough.  Don’t take the entire haul from your baby shower with you.  Ship diapers and food to your destination.  Borrow a pack-n-play from a relative or neighbor wherever you’re headed.  Do without the bottle warmers while you’re gone.  Do everything possible to minimize your haul.

Number your key items.  A key item is anything that’s not attached to your body that needs to arrive safely at your destination.  Why do you need to number them?  Because you’d be surprised how fast they add up.  Here’s our key item list from our first trip with the kids:

Carry-on items:

1. Bennett

2. Sutton

3. Bennett’s car seat

4. Sutton’s car seat

5. Drew’s carry-on bag

6. My carry-on bag

7. Diaper bag

Gate checked item:

8. Snap-n-go stroller

Checked items:

9. Drew’s checked bag

10. My checked bag

11. Babies’ checked bag

12. Bennett’s car seat base

13. Sutton’s car seat base

Start with the items you’ll be carrying on the plane, then gate checked items, then checked items.  Any time you make a transition, do a count off to make sure you have everything you should.

From the condo to the car and the car to the airport, we counted up to 13.

From the check-in desk through security, to the waiting area, to the gate, we counted up to 8.

Once on the plane, we counted up to 7.

Keep a list of what the numbers correspond to in case you can’t locate something.  And if you lose track of #1 or #2, it’s time to get on the airport intercom.

Pack food you can serve easily.  You know how hard it is to do something as simple as crossing your legs in a cramped airplane seat?  Well, don’t even think about slicing up strawberries and swirling them into little Joey’s oatmeal.  Keep things as simple as possible.  Chewy cereal bars.  Snacks in no-spill cups.  Those wonderful little squeezey pouch fruit purees.

And splurge on the pre-made formula in cans.  It’s much easier than mixing your own from the powder.  Don’t worry.  The TSA won’t make you taste it.  Just tell them you’re carrying it, and they’ll run it through the X-ray machine.

Get a greeter if you can.  Did you know that, for a couple hundred dollars, you can hire someone to meet you at the airport and help you all the way from the curb until you get on the plane?  These wonderful human beings will deal with skycaps, whisk you to the front of the security line, gain you access to the first-class lounge and come get you when it’s time to board.  They’ll push your bags on a luggage cart, help you gate-check your stroller and even sweet talk the gate agents into letting you pre-board.  Yes, traveling with your kids is already costing you a fortune, but why not make this your Christmas present to yourself?  I assure you, it’s worth it.

Let the kid watch TV.  Your day-to-day job as a parent is to raise a healthy, well-adjusted, intellectually curious child.  For many of us, that means keeping SpongeBob to a minimum.  But when you’re on a plane, your job is to get to your destination without you or the kid melting down.  So go ahead and rot their brain if it helps.

For space reasons, try to avoid bringing a laptop or portable DVD player.  Instead, load your iPhone with Yo Gabba Gabbas and bring your power cord so you can keep it charged.

And finally, the most important rule of all…

Don’t feel guilty if your kid cries.  There’s a crying baby on every plane.  There’s also a jerk who glares at the kid’s parents or sighs audibly to register their annoyance.  Admit it: You’ve been the jerk plenty of times.  Now you get to be the parent.  It’s the circle of life.

But look around.  While your baby is crying, you’re also getting lots of supportive looks from parents like you who’ve been there.  And from this point on, that’s who you’ll be.  When you’re getting off the plane, strangers will approach you to tell you how good your baby was (even if he wasn’t), because that’s what parents do for each other.

It’s really a beautiful thing – sniff, sniff.

Have any secret tips of your own?  Help a Daddy out, and leave me a comment!