In case you missed it we got kittens. This morning I didn’t have clients scheduled so I wanted to take my time and do a 9 AM yoga class. About 8:50 AM I was sipping my coffee enjoying the peace as the boys sat in the other room watching cartoons. I heard a growl. The growl of Ginsburg when she is guarding food. I turn around and there she is with a huge piece of chicken tender in her mouth that recently had been on one of my son’s plates. Yes. He wanted chicken tender for breakfast and I didn’t want to battle him on it. There are worse things for breakfast.

So her sister Scooby was sitting close by waiting for a stray piece of chicken and Ginsburg was trying to figure out how to eat the monstrous piece of chicken without dropping it from her mouth.

I sprang up and started yelling at her to put the damn chicken down. The next eight minutes are minutes of my life that I wish had been filmed by a secret camera simultaneously grateful there is no camera in our house. It involved me chasing a tiny kitten with a huge piece of chicken tender behind the couch, under the table, intermittently yelling at the boys to get away from her because she was now full on growling and I was afraid she would hurt one of them trying to guard her food.

The boys of course could not help but be completely in the way the entire time, now also yelling, about how they were scared and Ginsburg has my chicken…and so much more but I was just focused on getting to the damn cat.

I cornered her under the sink in the laundry room which was perfect for her, because she could just claw me when I tried reaching for her still yelling at her to drop the chicken and still with the boys yelling and literally running in circles in the background.

I have a lot of vacuums. Don’t judge me. I’m a clean freak and I love vacuums like I love psychiatry. (A lot). There was a long extender of one my vacuums handy (again don’t judge they are all over my house) and I grabbed it and found myself yelling at the cat while trying to get the chicken and the cat with the vacuum extender. Eventually a large portion of the chicken tender fell on the floor and I was able to get it with the vacuum arm. Ginsburg ate the rest of the piece. I was also pushing Scooby back this entire time as she wanted to get in the corner with the snarling Ginsburg and her chicken.

I got the chicken. I put it in the trash. The boys ran from Ginsburg screaming. I grabbed Ginsburg by the scruff and held her up and spoke to her about not growling at me. Ever. And not going on the table and not eating chicken…and everything else I could think of.

She was looking properly shamed as I threw out my yoga mat and connected via Zoom to my class.

I laughed to myself sitting there on my yoga mat. Because to anyone on Zoom they would see me sitting calmly on my mat with my mug of coffee. A kitten or two sitting close by. The boys intermittently walking by. No one knew the chaos of the chicken and the kitten only moments before I connected.

Gins eventually joined me on my mat for the class and has been much better behaved the rest of the day.

Later in the day I gave myself my monthly shot for my asthma and the boys watched and screamed and ran in and out of the room. I mean. I was overdue. I had to do it. Jackson eventually mustered a “Poor Mama”.

These are the moments though. These are those thirty second (or eight minute) moments that make the fabric of our family. I’ll always remember Ginsburg running around with the chicken hanging out of her mouth as the boys screamed and ran in circles. I’ll do many more shots. I usually time them after bedtime so the boys don’t see. But they have seen me struggle to breathe. They know what I deal with.

I was talking with a client recently about the time they came out to their parents as trans. There is about 5-10 seconds after some one comes out when we sit in complete terror of the reaction. It’s in the parents court. This parent in particular failed. Many do.

Mine didn’t. It’s one of my favorite memories of my parents. My Dad didn’t have Dementia. It was normal. He putzed around in the kitchen and my Mom and I sat on the couch and my Mom basically told me she had already done this with my sister so what’s the big deal. My dad asked me “So, does this mean you’re bisexual?” I cringed and laughed and said “Dad I’m not putting a label on it.” He did this thing with his hands like okay, okay, I’m just asking.

To this day I’m confident my Dad got a kick out of having two daughters married to two women and wouldn’t have wanted it any other way.

It was a quick visit that night. Just an in person coming out to my parents, then I went back home to my apartment at the time. Many of my patients, friends, and my own wife don’t have this same experience. There is violence. Hate. Failure. Failure on the parents end to provide unconditional love and acceptance. Even if in future years you come around and accept your kid, I promise you, they remember your first reaction to the first time they came out.

It’s probably the most important and defining thirty seconds of your relationship with your child.

So don’t fuck it up.

What’s the right reaction you ask? What’s the right moment that makes a family? It’s me bringing Ginsburg over to my sons for them to pet her so they aren’t scared of her after seeing her growl and act totally insane over a piece of chicken. It’s them watching me do my injection. It’s me dropping what I’m doing, no matter what, when they ask me for bedtime kisses. It’s one of my best friends telling me, “You know we are going to have cis-het kids and they will be wasted on us!” because she knows that if any of our kids ever come out as anything we would hug them and tell them we love them no matter what because that’s what you’re supposed to do.

***The pic is Ginsburg staring fixedly at my yoga instructor: the picture of innocence.