"lone hippy freak"...love it! i, too, am the lone hippy freak in my family. gets frustrating sometimes to feel like i am constantly defending what i do!

I think that it is truly amazing that you would get Jonas a dollhouse for Christmas! My significant other and I were just watching Discovery Health a little while ago (the episode with your family on it aired again) and we just kept joking around and saying over and over again that this is how our children will be treated when we're able to become parents. I myself am a transguy and my other half is genderqueer, kind of, sometimes :] lol..
It's such a relief to hear about other couples who feel the same way we do. Good luck, and we'll keep looking for updates as you and yours grow!

It's disappointing to see that so many families are unsupportive of our type of lifestyle or parenting choices, but it's nice to hear that so few people are deterred from their philosophy by the naysayers.

That is a very funny story....I'm not in a typing mood to tell my own but I like the new site and that Gravatar thingy is interesting

I've been blessed with a breastfeeding-supportive family (with a mom AND a mother-in-law who breastfed all of their children), so I haven't gotten to many idiotic comments in that respect.

Sometimes the toys and/or clothing the grandparents pick out for the kids (both boys) makes me cringe, but I figure that Tim and I have provided them with a broad enough array of toy and clothing options that the super-male-gendered toys won't give them an unhealthy conception of their own gender identifications.

Or at least I hope.

But as far as family-themed inappropriate-ness goes, I can add that my husband was christened the "Vibrator Fairy" by the end of Thanksgiving Dinner. (Far away from the ears of children...again, at least I hope.) His job was to don a pair of wings and place dildos and vibrators under people's pillows while they were sleeping.

For the life of me, I cannot even remember how my family got off on that tangent. Pun perhaps intended.

Oh ho ho! So glad you asked! My Grandma and your family would get along famously except if she found out you had four gay uncles she's say "well, what the heck was wrong with their parents?!" And then she's probably blame them all for AIDS. Oh I love her but often wonder how the hell we're related.
Have I ever mentioned she's anti-breastfeeding too? She actually told me I should be more like my cousin who tried breastfeeding, hated it and decided to quit at three weeks and formula feed instead. *That* was the way to go. No shaming her family in public like that ridiculous woman in that restaurant she went to who (gasp) didn't even use a cover! She has outright told me it's disgusting and dirty and has told my girls to their face (both at age two) that big girls don't nurse and that it's "not nice." I try not to nurse in front of her anymore. I just can't take the grief or put my kids through it. I admit I will miss her when she's gone (she's 88 and was a big part of my childhood and raising me) but it won't be for her narrow views of the world.

Hi, just came over from Cecily's blog. This post made me laugh! I so get both the gender/breastfeeding thing with family, though in my case it is my inlaws. I'm certain my 23 month old girl will be drowing in princess stuff at their house this year, (one reason I don't introduce too much "girly" stuff, figuring she will get to have it from everyone else) AND even though I am debating the wisdom of this decision, I have recently been trying to teach my daughter that we don't have milk at abuelitas house, only our house and grandmas house (my mom). No one has come out and said anything negative, but they are not comfortable with it, and that, in turn, makes me not too comfortable with it, even in another room. I think I would rather them just not know we still did it.

I just wanted to say I'm sorry you have to deal with negativity surrounding breastfeeding. No. Fun.

In my own family, I actually tended to nurse my daughter in another room. I just, honestly, did not want to deal with the grief of the whole thing. But then there was this Thanksgiving when I had my friend over to our dinner at my house with my family. And when her 2 1/2 year-old asked, she nursed her at the table. My daughter was the same age and also nursing at the time, although less frequently. Anyways, that seemed to break the breastfeeding ice a bit, and now I don't get the same sort of solicitous-yet-questioning stuff I used to.

I am a vegan. My mom was generous enough to tell me I could pick the bacon out of the green beans she made, or even just abandon my veganism for one day, since my aunt, who eats gluten free, isn't worrying about her diet, and my cousin, who does 'food combining' whatever the hell that is, and she was 'cheating' for just one day.

Also, half of my family is extremely religious and the other half is obviously not. My father (one of the extremely religious ones) harassed one of the not-religious uncles into saying a prayer for the food in front of the entire family.

No one bugged me about anything child related, as my little one is not even 6 months, so nursing & playing with non-gender-stereotyped toys aren't an issue...YET.