Monday, April 13, 2009

Been Busy

Our boys recently had another belt promotion in their martial arts class. They are now "High-Yellows".

Brian, he may not yell the loudest or punch the hardest but he's all about the discipline and much more concerned for the technique:
So serious about it, he eagerly memorizes the forms and is almost too into the "discipline and self-control, Sir!", "courtesy and respect, Sir!" aspect of it. Each morning he hurries to do his list of chores to get check marks, which then go to gaining him stripes for his belt (His parents like that part of karate the best ;-)).

But, Alan, on the other hand, is about the power. He throws wild punches and swings his nunchucks like a furious little blender. Look at that face:

These twin sons we orbit give off such different light. But light is light and I wouldn't have it any other way.

It's striking, when you think about it, how much revolves around your children. I'm sure every parent sees this. These boys practically own the hearts of many people beyond their parents. We were there at the belt promotion with the biggest cheering section of any student, from both sets of grandparents to a great aunt. It's unfortunate so many look at offering legal rights and responsibilities to our homes as just a gay issue, but that interdependence in so many lives makes defending what we have all the more important.

Then, of course, as anyone following this blog for years would know, Easter is a big holiday for our family. Rob and I are responsible for the activities. We hide hundreds of eggs:

Some of the eggs have prize tickets they can use on toys.
That stuffed animal dog Alan has there is named Pico Gwuasala, and he's Mexican, or so I'm told.

For the older kids I usually do some sort of word puzzle for the prized golden egg, but this year and after much complaining that my puzzles were too tough (e.g.), we did a survivor sort of thing, starting with a peep-elbow race:
They then played marbles with eggs (which is much more difficult than it sounds):
We also did a sudoku relay race (which was more fun than it sounds :-)), and in the final trial the three left standing were given a sack of materials to be built into protection for an egg dropped from the roof. Anyway, it was a great party.

Then, on Sunday, we had brunch with those closest to us:
It's funny, I know, for a gay man or any man for that matter, that I've been very lucky, blessed in the area of family, and weeks like this week really drive that point home. That's what makes the decisions that have to be made this summer so difficult, stressing. If only we were surrounded by homophobic jerks ;-).

5 comments:

Unknown said...

"We also did a sudoku relay race (which was more fun than it sounds :-))"
You're going to have to explain that one some time.. haha. I love reading these kind of updates. They always make me feel nice and warm inside.

"Then, of course, as anyone following this blog for years would know, Easter is a big holiday for our family."

After reading that, I realized I have been following your blog for over a year now. Wow! I'm glad I found it.

Ned said...

Such great photos and a fine narrative to go with them. Thanks, Scot, for sharing the warmth!

Scot said...

"You're going to have to explain that one some time.. "

Hey, I was just waiting for someone to ask :-).

I printed up two huge sudoku puzzles and then printed up and cut out the missing numbers. Each person in each team had to run to the puzzle and put up one number and run back to tag the next in line. Each person on the team had to take a turn but the others could yell directions if they were lost, which was fun because you get a lot of screaming stuff like "No! The 3 goes 2 above the other 5! The 5 in the bottom middle!"

One team lost early on and didn't know it because someone on their team put a number up on a guess. Never guess on sudoku :-).

And you bet Ned; I'm all about the Easter warmth. It has to be one of my favorite holidays.

Max Power said...

Scot,

I need to find you on facebook so that I can play Challenge Sudoku with you. None of my other friends like to play.

It's just regular sudoku, but you get points for how fast you get things done.

Scot said...

"I need to find you on facebook so that I can play Challenge Sudoku with you. "

Ah Max, that sounds fun, but I seem to be immune to facebook's addictive qualities and only show up there a couple times a week. If you're fb friends with many other mohos, though, find and friend me and maybe I'll be on at the same time sometime. I'd not put a full name up here, but my profile picture is a shot of my family, which may seem too general, but I think it'd be the only one in the list of friends with two men and two kids :-).