Following are highlights from our month on Instagram. Click here for all of the months’ pictures, thoughts and happenings. If you’re on Instagram, be sure to follow me.

“You’re a boy!”
“Baby!”
“Pink is for girls only!”
“Loser!”
“You suck!”
“You’re not a girl!”
“You can’t be my son if you’re gay!”

I’m spending the day cleaning and came across a “Drag Book” that CJ made. This page was it. People are saying all of those things to the drag queen.

My heart sank when I read the page. It continues to sink. CJ is such a happy and totally loved kid. But he knows exactly what some people think of and say to drag queens. And to gender expansive people. I wish he didn’t know. I wish that wasn’t a page in his book. But it is.

Matt: It’s a passport, not a look book.

“Shall we make a new rule of life…always to try to be a little kinder than is necessary?…It’s not enough to be kind. One should be kinder than needed…we carry with us, as human beings, not just the capacity to be kind, but the very choice of kindness…if every single person made it a rule that wherever you are, whenever you can, you will try to act a little kinder than is necessary – the world really would be a better place.” – Wonder, by RJ Palacio. (CJ and I are going on a date tonight to see the movie Wonder.)

The sister in the book Wonder says this about her parents and her brother. When I read it I immediately thought “I bet that’s how Chase feels about CJ.” I wouldn’t blame him. I mean, It’s true. We don’t tell CJ he’s normal or average. But I guess we do try to make him believe it as much as possible. We are stuck in this strange place of not wanting our kids to feel different…but not wanting them to feel normal/average either. Maybe it’s us. Maybe “normal” and “average” have negative connotations to us. And “different” has a negative connotation for everyone else.

Me: Can I have your lashes, please?
My son: Nope.

He’s been on a baking kick lately and doesn’t want my help. He wants to do it all by himself. I told him that maybe he shouldn’t use my oven mitts that contain obscenities. He says that the oven mitt applies to the things he cooks just as much as to what I cook. Who’s going to argue with that kind of confidence in the kitchen? (Oven mitt creds: @blue_q)

Killing Crazy Hair Day since 2010.

CJ hustled people into buying custom rainbow loom bracelets at Thanksgiving yesterday. He pocketed $10 and donated $20 to the LA Food Bank.
“I hope those hungry people don’t starve to death before my $20 gets there to buy them food!” — CJ, age 10, Thanksgiving 2017.

There’s no better example of how different my sons are. Or of how I use threatening as a parenting technique.