Veronica Rhodes's Blog
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Apr.10.2012
“Thumb to thumb!” the old man shouted, holding up his hands in front of his chest. “Thumb to thumb – what does that mean???” His crooked finger panned slowly around the audience and stopped at…me. “You! You there, the lady! What does ‘thumb to thumb’ mean?”
“It’s the position a fielder’...
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Jan.28.2012
My daughter was on the floor, arms raised in self-defense, as the two boys stood over her with baseball bats.
Did your blood run cold just reading that scene? Mine certainly did when I walked in on it -- even though the bats were inflatable, the boys only 6 and 8, and all three kids were giggling...
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Aug.18.2011
In the wake of the horrifying murder of Leiby Kletzky last month, I asked just about every parent I know if they were talking to their kids about it. My older daughter and most of her friends are 8 years old, as Leiby was, and like Leiby they're starting to push for more independence. Should I...
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Aug.09.2011
If you're expecting a piece about half-naked women frolicking in the surf or making out with each other on the sand, you've come to the wrong place. Hot as they may be, those are not the kinds of destinations I'm looking for these days when I research my next lesbian vacation...for our family...
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Jul.20.2011
As hobbies go, genealogical research is not exactly on par with snowboarding -- it ranks right up there with stamp collecting in its total lack of "cool" factor. Does anything really say "geek" more than an obsession with family trees?
But that's me -- genealogy freak (and...
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Jul.06.2011
I think it was the dance recital portrait offer that put me over the edge. For a mere $70, a photographer would take a picture of my 5-year-old in her tap costume, providing makeup and styling services along with the snap of the shutter.
Total number of prints included in the package: zero....
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Jun.22.2011
"You have got to support me on this one," Em* told me in no uncertain terms. "She has to wear the dress."
Em doesn't put her foot down very often, so when she tells me something is important to her, I listen. Problem was, my other easy-going girl was putting her foot down, as...
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Jun.08.2011
I thought my nephew was a linguistic genius when he said he was "being have." His mother had admonished him about something, and she'd told him to "behave." His indignant response was, "I am being have."
Genius, I thought. Be good, be quiet, behave -- they all sound...
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May.25.2011
"I'm hungry. Can I have some pancakes? Will you help me go to the bathroom? Can I have a playdate after school today? I want to watch "Scooby-Doo" on TV later. Can you please come downstairs and make me breakfast now? I'm hungry!"
This is within the first 45 seconds of Mary'...
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May.12.2011
For most of this past year I had a very intense, life-consuming job that cost me a lot of the smaller moments in my children's lives. I still tried to be home for dinner (even if it meant the kids had a delayed bedtime) and I tried hard not to spend too many weekend hours catching up on work I...
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Apr.27.2011
The little girl tilted her head to one side and thought a minute.
"You do?" she asked.
"Nope," I replied. "Em does."
The girl shook her head sadly -- she wasn't very good at this game at all.
It had started a few minutes earlier, when our young neighbor stopped by...
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Apr.21.2011
Like thousands of other gay families did, Em and I submitted fraudulent tax returns this weekend. We didn't mean to, didn't want to, but we had to. We are legally married, but we each filed as single taxpayers - as required by the IRS, which isn't allowed to recognize our marriage.
It's one of the...
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Apr.12.2011
To be gay is to have a coming out story -- that day when we finally confided in a friend, confessed to a crush, told the family or found ourselves accidentally outed on Facebook.
Together, these transitional moments moved us from life before to life after, and they deliver us to our new...
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Apr.12.2011
(This is my first The Family Gaytriarchs column, published originally on Parentdish on March 9th, 2011.)
I was delighted when ParentDish asked me to be the mom half of this new column on gay parenting -- reveling at the thought of how mainstream we "alternative" families have become....
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Apr.11.2011
Baseball season is here, and, like millions of parents nationwide, I have Little League anxiety this week. But unlike most parents, my angst comes with a gay twist.
This is our fourth year of Little League -- and the fourth consecutive year Ann* is the only girl on the team. It's the first year on...
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About Veronica
Veronica Rhodes is my pen name, under which I write about gay parenting and my journey to adopt internationally. Under my real name I have written for such varied publications as Discover, This Old House, and HomeArts.
Veronica’s Favorite Books
Anything by Wallace Stegner, but mostly All the Little Live Things and Angle of Repose