Q and A, Take 3, 4, 5, and 6

My dear friend, Carla, whom I can't link to because she has a private blog, asked me:

~ So, what were the names you had picked out for each of your children if they had been the other gender?

Hmmm. Well, when I got pregnant with Kevin, I just knew in my heart and my gut that I was carrying a boy, so there was never really any serious consideration of girls' names. I vaguely recall being partial to the name "Tabitha" back then, though.

When I was pregnant with Joey, "Olivia" and "Amelia" were both contenders for girls' names.

When I was pregnant with the twins, I found out so early that they were both girls (12 weeks, no shit!), that we never considered any boys' names.

When I was pregnant with Lilah, I don't recall what boy names we considered, but Michael tells me (I just called him and bothered him at work for this) it was "Finn."

When I was pregnant with Finn, I had my heart set on "Ruby" if it was a girl. I am still bummed that I will never get to use that name.

Jen asked me:

~ What is your most prized possession? (and don't say your kids, either, even though we all know they're not posessions, blah, blah.) What's the one thing you'd grab if the house was burning down?

Sadly, the absolute first thing that came to my mind was my laptop :( I'd like to think that I would grab the strong box that holds all the disks containing our photos, but I think my knee jerk response would be to grab the laptop if I could only grab one thing.

My friend Sheryl, who doesn't have a blog but who reads mine, emailed me this question:

~ If you could pick any occupation (except for being a great mom), what would it be?

First of all, ha ha on being a "great mom." You apparently do not read my blog very closely, eh Sheryl?

Okay, really, I'd love to be a homebirth midwife. But I could never do it because I'd never be able to separate myself emotionally from the whole thing. I actually wanted to be a doula for a while, and I went through all the studies and training and I attended 2 births, and it was awesome to witness birth from that perspective and to be a support to the mom and dad, but both of experiences wrung me out, completely. I was so frustrated with the "system" and how the moms are herded in and out like cattle. After the first one, I cried for days because I just couldn't believe how the mom was treated by the attending OB - it was horrible. So, I have a really hard time distancing myself emotionally, and it would be even worse as a midwife, I'm sure. Plus, I know I wouldn't be able to handle bad outcomes, like still births, sick babies, sick mamas. So in short, I'd love to be a midwife, but only in a perfect world.

Anonymous sent me this:

~ I enjoy following your blog, I'm a SM (stepmom) and wonder if there are ever any issues for you/your family with Kevin having a different father, does he call Michael "Michael", or "dad"?

This is such a great question. You have to understand that our situation is a bit different than most step-family situations, in that Kevin's biological father died. If he were still alive and still a part of Kevin's life, then I'm sure things would be different than they are. As it is, Michael is really the only father Kevin has ever known. His bio dad died when Kevin was only 2. Michael has been a part of his life since he was 3, and we got married when Kevin was 4. We have always been very open with Kevin about his bio dad - despite all the anger and bad feelings I still have for that man, I would never take Kevin's heritage away from him, and I know that trying to eliminate the memory of someone only leaves a hole in someone's heart. So Kevin knows all about his bio dad. That said, when Michael and I got married, Michael not only made vows to me, but he also wrote and made vows to Kevin. That is the kind of man Michael is.

I'm sure that deep down, there must be some fundamental differences in how he feels about Kevin versus how he feels about his biological children, if only because he missed out on the first couple years of Kevin's life. But he has raised Kevin as his own and there is no doubt that he loves Kevin deeply and would do for him whatever a father would do for a son.

We never pushed Kevin to call Michael "Daddy" or "Dad." It was a natural evolution, and Kevin took the lead. I believe he started calling Michael "Daddy" shortly after we got married (and back then, Kevin assumed that all three of us got married; he would refer to it as "When we got married . . ." and not "When you got married . . ."

We've never referred to Michael as a "step" parent, just like we've never referred to any of his siblings as "half" siblings, although I think Kevin eventually figured it all out on his own. But we're all about unity.

I'm really enjoying the questions, ladies - keep them coming!