“She Got Me Pregnant”: Episode 70

Helen and I take to the great outdoors this week to bring you a home improvement edition. Lumber, power tools, rebar, and dirt—what could be better to create both a sandbox and a garden plot? We also discuss how the Prop 8 decision impacts children and invite viewers to participate in the upcoming Blogging for LGBT Families Day.

(If the embedded video above doesn’t work for you, try it here.)

Brought to you in partnership with After Ellen.

IKEA Proposal Leads to Connecticut Wedding for Lesbian Moms

Among the first same-sex couples to marry in Connecticut were lesbian moms Peg Oliveira and Jen Vickery. The New York Times reports “Ms. Oliveira proposed in the aisles of IKEA.” How lesbian is that?

The couple wed today outside City Hall in New Haven with their three-month-old daughter, Willow, and several friends. No word on whether they served lingonberry juice at the reception.

(Helen and I did a vlog back in May about why we love the Swedish furniture giant, and giving hints for IKEA-shopping parents. We’re not the only ones who feel this way; the gals at Lesbian Gamers think it’s oh-so-dykey too.)

“She Got Me Pregnant”: Episode 44

Helen and I take to the great outdoors this week. Helen talks about her love of compost and gets picky about her choice of pitchforks, I imitate an earthworm, and we bring you a green idea for the fall that gives your kids something to play in while it helps clean up your yard.

Online Videos by Veoh.com

If the Veoh video above does not work for you, try it at Dailymotion.

Brought to you in partnership with After Ellen.

“She Got Me Pregnant”: Episode 43

It’s lesbian home improvement this week! Helen and I show you how we reorganized our garage with a few simple pieces of hardware to make things more convenient for ourselves and safe for our son. We also update viewers on our son’s transition to kindergarten and recommend two classic books with positive messages for kids from all types of backgrounds.

Online Videos by Veoh.com

(If the Veoh video above doesn’t work for you, try it at Dailymotion.)

Brought to you in partnership with After Ellen.

“She Got Me Pregnant”: Episode 28

Helen and I bring you the first signs of what could be growing ultra-right opposition to Uncle Bobby’s Wedding, a new children’s book featuring gay guinea pigs. (Regular blog readers will know about this from my earlier post; since this video is crossposted at After Ellen, though, there’s sometimes a little overlap in order to inform viewers there.)

We then give you a parent’s-eye view of one of our favorite stores, IKEA. It’s not just good for parents in search of cheap furniture, we argue, but can be a whole day’s worth of activities for children as well. We also offer some suggestions to new parents looking for baby gear and anyone whose home hosts both small children and large pieces of furniture. We next recommend some additional tools to improve your furniture-assembling prowess and ensure that your bookshelves are straight, even if you aren’t.

Online Videos by Veoh.com

If the Veoh video above isn’t working (sometimes their server can be flaky), you can try it at Daily Motion.

Brought to you in partnership with After Ellen.

Kids’ Toys from the Hardware Store: PVC Hubble

As many of you know, my partner Helen and I have a fondness for making toys from PVC pipes. We’ve done a PVC pipe construction set, a rain stick and even a wild musical pipe set that at least one reader has copied to great success.

Today, I wanted to assure you that we’re not the only ones who share this weird obsession. The folks at NASA who run the Hubble Space Telescope have in fact provided instructions for making your very own PVC model of the famous orbiting spyglass. It requires a few pipes of various sizes, some end caps, and a few craft supplies, and looks like a great rainy-day project to do with your older kids. It requires some drilling and sawing, and thus an adult presence, but there are also various bits to glue and tape that would be suitable for younger folks. Have fun!

Considering Parenthood Group in San Francisco

Passing this announcement along by request—I have no affiliation or experience with the below group. (If you have similar announcements, please e-mail me directly as Cheryl did, rather than leave a comment on an unrelated post. If I get a lot of such requests, I may set up an online calendar.)

Considering Parenthood?

This may be the biggest decision of your life. Considering Parenthood is designed to help individuals, couples and co-parents to make the decision about whether they really want to parent or, if they have already decided to parent, what they can expect and what adjustments will have to be made. Participants discuss topics such as how we bring children into our lives, time, money, family, support systems, legal protections, the issues children with gay and lesbian parents face in our society and how to maintain healthy adult relationship while parenting.

The group size is limited to eight. The cost is $200 for the entire 6 weeks, or $35 a week. To register or for more information, contact Cheryl Deaner at 415-876-7006 or Cheryl@cheryldeaner.com.

Date: Saturdays, October 6 through November 9, 10:00-11:30am
Location: 842 Elizabeth St., San Francisco

Cheryl Deaner is a Marriage and Family Therapist, a parent, a founder of Our Family Coalition and the Alternative Family Project. Cheryl has facilitated Considering Parenthood classes and groups for the Lesbian Health Research Center, Lyon Martin Women’s Health Services, Parents Place and in her therapy practice.

Let Your Little Builder Create with Floorplanner

Yet another in what is becoming a series of online games for kids that aren’t mean to be kids’ games (see also Tiny Drum Machine and Blue Man Art):

Floorplanner is a Web-based application for room layout and design. You can click and drag furniture, plants, rugs, walls, and other objects to plan the home of your dreams or just a nursery for your new arrival. My four-year-old, however, took a shine to it. Budding Bob Vila that he is, he even chose to play with it last night in lieu of his usual evening DVD. The rooms ended up looking like a collaboration of Escher and Picasso, but he was very proud of his design. I figure it’s more educational and less annoyingly squeaky than a Bob the Builder video.

You can register for a free account (or pay for a Pro version that lets Realtors and other professionals save multiple projects), but if you don’t want to bother with either, the “Try-It” demo works fine for kids. (Demo projects can’t be saved, though.)

(Thanks to Lifehacker for suggesting it for us grownups.)

Reader Story: Musical Pipes Redux

Reader Erin was kind enough to send me some pictures of the musical PVC pipe set she made with her older daughter and her daughter’s friends, based on my Musical Pipes post. They gave the set to her younger daughter’s school—which is a great idea, since I admit it is a little large to keep in the living room. She writes:

Oh. My. Gosh. You would NOT believe how popular the instrument is! The kids are loving it. . . .

Thanks again for the fantastic idea. Sophie even used the chop saw by herself on one of the wood cuts. Talk about being proud of herself. . . .

I thought the kids would enjoy it, but had no idea that they’d love it as much as they do. The school will probably be permanently mounting it to a wall.

Erin was also the first interviewee in my Family Voices series. Thanks again, Erin, for sharing part of your life with us.

Kids’ Toys from the Hardware Store: PVC Rainstick

A PVC rainstick is the next in my series of Kids’ Toys from the Hardware Store. It’s a nice complement to a set of PVC musical pipes, and simpler to build. Again, credit goes to my partner the engineer for creating this; I’m just the journalist here.

Materials:

• About 2′ of 1 1/4″ PVC pipe (Shorten for a small child or lengthen for a taller one.)
• A dozen screws—this is the tricky part:
  #6 1″ round (pan) head wood screws with threads all the way up to the head (Round, not flat, head is necessary to avoid sharp edges. Full threading is needed because it is the top threads that will grip the pipe.) These can be hard to find. You may need to ask the staff at your hardware store.
• Two 1 1/4″ PVC endcaps
• Dried black beans

Tools needed:

• Drill
• Screwdriver
• Saw (if pipe isn’t already cut)
• Rubber mallet (optional; regular hammer will also do)

Instructions: Read the rest of this post »