Pride in Life » One man living the big gay dream.

A plead

Update: with North Carolina becoming the 31st state to pass an amendment discriminating against the gay community by banning their right to marry, this video is more important than ever. Please share it.

If you never read another entry on Pride in Life, please read this and watch this video. If you never share a link or post from my site again, please share this video.

Marriage equality isn’t some abstract social issue. It isn’t a religious issue. This isn’t about indoctrinating children or redefining your marriage. The freedom to marry your partner, regardless of sex, is a basic human right. It’s protection. It’s something we deserve. And it’s something we don’t have. The world doesn’t continue turning as if everything is alright in the gay community; people are being impacted every day because they lack the legal protection of marriage. We have to stop this.

Please…please…support marriage equality. Shane and Tom deserved the right to wed. Jeremy and I deserve the right to be married in Oklahoma, and to have that marriage recognized.

This video is important. I will not be posting for the rest of the week hoping that more people will see this post and this video.

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RhiannonMay 8, 2012 - 6:50 pm

I can’t imagine, as a parent, ever wanting to remove someone that important from Ellie’s life or from the memory of her life. I felt helpless watching this, I can only imagine how Shane must’ve felt. I really hope the amendment here in NC doesn’t pass today. I’ve shared this on Facebook, hopefully it will encourage someone to vote.

GothchickMay 11, 2012 - 9:41 pm

I shared this on facebook from here, just thought I’d let you know…

First Zoo Trip

I mentioned over the weekend that we took the Bean to the Tulsa Zoo for the first time to celebrate his birthday.  Here’s how it all went down.

We got to the zoo as it opened, thinking we’d beat the rush of people.  Wrong.  It was some sort of unsupervised, mouthy kid day at the zoo, because it was filled with those little monsters.  Luckily, they were all in matching yellow shirts so I knew which kids to avoid (and which ones to “accidentally” bump into the pond).  We rented one of their wagons to make the rounds in.  Bean was in Heaven: it had a buckle!  Have I mentioned that my OCD toddler’s idea of a good time is buckling and unbuckling everything?

I loved the wagon too because it meant that I didn’t have to carry two bags all of the zoo – my camera bag and the diaper bag.  We didn’t think it through and we just started leisurely strolling through the zoo, going into the boring (and out of order) exhibits at a casual pace.  Well, after about 30 minutes, Bean was DONE.  He was ready to go.  He was over the zoo.  Even his beloved buckle had lost its shine.

At that point, I told Jer we needed to to the greatest hits tour of the zoo – no more exhibits or stuff like that.  We needed to focus on the things that would excite Bean.  We fast-tracked it to the Sea Lion/Seal habitat, where Bean spontaneously started barking (because all animals at the zoo were “puppies”).  Barking aside, he loved it.  We stayed in the little cave watching them swim by for probably 10 minutes and he loved every second of it.  Every time they’d swim by, he’d yell “HI PUPPY!”, even though, if you asked him, he’d tell you they were “schnee wions”.  I love this kid.  :)

After the puppies sea lions, we went straight to the petting zoo, where the goats and sheep run free and where your kids are encouraged to pet them, brush them and love on them.  Cue Jer the Germaphobe dying slowly inside.

This is when we knew Bean was officially over the zoo.  Our kid LOVES puppies animals.  He will hug anything and everything that comes into his range (he even ran from us in the hopes he’d get to hug a gigantic, scary bison last year).  We went into the petting zoo and he froze.  He wasn’t scared (my child doesn’t know fear) at all; he was just tired and immune to the huggable nature of all of the puppies goats and sheep around him.

We tried to get him to pet this especially lazy goat (I think it’s wearing false teeth) but he wasn’t interested.  He just sat there looking at his fingers.

Knowing he loves helping with chores, we got a brush and tried to get him to help Daddy brush the falsie-wearing goat.  Nada.  He just put the brush on the goat and closed his eyes.

At that point, we decided to call it a day.  It was almost miserably hot out, Bean wasn’t feeling it and the mob of yellow-teed-monsters had us surrounded.  So, we headed to the car and, as soon as we left the petting zoo, Bean lost it.  Total nuclear melt down.  And it continued until we made it to the zoo exit, out the entrance and into the car.  As soon as he got into air conditioning, he was happy as a clam.  He is my son.  :)

We had a great hour or so at the zoo.  We got a ton of really cute pictures – we even took his two-year portraits there (hence the outfit change above).  But I think that two is still a little young to understand and enjoy the zoo (at least for Bean).  He loved seeing the giraffes, tigers, flamingos and all of the other puppies animals, but he was done with seeing things he could touch or lick after about the third habitat.

Overall, it was a success.  One that I’m happy enough with that I don’t know that we’ll repeat it for many-a-year.  :)

 

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GothchickMay 8, 2012 - 1:22 am

Oh well; it lasted an hour but at least you guys got in. The last time we went to the zoo they started turning people away because the line had six hour wait time estimates!@_@ Hope you guys get to stay a little longer next time. :)

Buckle

We took Bean to the Zoo for the first time on Friday. He saw all sorts of animals, got to pet some and got to run around and go wild.

Know what he enjoyed the most? The buckle in his wagon. :)

Go figure.

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First Zoo Trip » Pride in LifeMay 7, 2012 - 5:29 pm

[...] mentioned over the weekend that we took the Bean to the Tulsa Zoo for the first time to celebrate his birthday.  Here’s [...]

Happy Beanday!

Two years ago today, we were welcoming our little Bean into the world.  We’ll be spending the next few days with our little man celebrating.  On the agenda: zoo, aquarium, mexican food (his fav), ice cream and lots of snuggles.


Have a great weekend, friends!

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