The DHX: The Doughtie Houses Exchange

Kathy’s Two Moms post last weekend just about made me cry.

I’ve always been careful about the word mom. I’ve always thought in our family it was important to respect and acknowledge Kathy’s unique relationship with the kids. She is the one who carried them inside her for nine months. She is the one who gave birth to them. She is the one who mothered them since infancy, and who still mothers them. She’s their mom.

In our family, I feel like a parent, but not like the mom. And I think with Chris and Jack, that’s the way things should be. I feel kind of like an assistant mom. Or an apprentice mom. And I like that. I like learning about and practicing parenting with two veteran parents.

I can’t tell you how much of a relief it was last week to have Kathy as my friend. I got a call from Jack’s school that they thought he might have broken his hand — they’d tried Kathy’s work, but hadn’t been able to get ahold of her. They’d called G, but he was an hour away, so he asked them to call me to take Jack to the doctor.

“I’ll be there,” I said. Blood was thumping hard in my ears. Where was the doctor? Where do I take him? Shoot. I used to have his number programmed into my phone, but that was my old phone. I didn’t program it into the new phone. Dang it. And I’ve never been there.

I called Kathy just in case she was back in her office and would rather take the lead. I got voicemail, too. “Call me back when you get this message,” I said. “I’ve never handled a medical emergency for a child before, but I’m sure I can figure it out.” Doctor’s contact information. What’s his name? Does G have his contact information at work? It’s here in the house somewhere. Wait. It’s on a summer camp form we filled out last year. I know where that is. I found it. I called them to make sure they were the right place to take a kid with a potentially broken hand. They were. I called Kathy back and left another message. “Okay, I know where to take him now — I’m off to go get him.”

A few minutes later, as I was almost at Jack’s school, she called me. She’d just gotten out of a meeting. She’d meet us at the doctor’s office. I wouldn’t have to do this by myself.

Jack talked to Kathy on the phone while I was driving him to the doctor, and to G while we were waiting for the doctor to come into the examination room.

Kathy got there just as the doctor walked in. I gave her the chair next to Jack, and she sat next to him and helped him relax. Jack’s hand had been under an ice pack the whole time, and when the doctor asked him to take it off, and we all looked at it, I felt like I was going to faint. It was so nice to have another grown up there with a strong stomach and a steady head doing the heavy-lifting comforting and talking to the doctor. The doctor told us to go have it x-rayed.

“Do you want some private mother-son time?” I asked.

“No, I don’t think so,” she said, mildly amused, so we all drove to the x-ray lab. She filled out all the forms, and when she came back she was going to sit on the other side of me, so that I was between her and Jack.

“No, here, I saved you the mom chair,” I said and moved. She laughed.

She told me that as she was running out of work with a bunch of folders in her arms, she yelled out, “I so love living in a family with two moms!”

Kathy is Chris and Jack’s real mom. Their Mom with a capital M. I know that. But that she would offer that word to me — it makes me tear up.

Here’s how I think of her: She’s the mother of my children. I don’t mean that my in a possessive way. Clearly Chris and Jack are hers and G’s — biologically, legally, emotionally. No contest. But I think of them as mine in a way, too. We’re in the same family. I love them. I parent them to the extent that I can and that feels right. And Kathy is their mom. She’s the mother of the children I love most. She’s the mother of my children.

And Jack’s hand was only badly bruised.