Didn't I Feed You Yesterday__ A Mother's Guide to Sanity in Stilettos - Laura Bennett [20]
“I’m a professional dancer and I teach dance at a school uptown.”
I liked how strong Blake looked, and how calm, and he obviously had quite a bit of experience taking care of boys. I could easily see him keeping my pack well entertained. He got the job without even knowing he was being interviewed. We had found our manny.
“Oh, and I’m gay,” he said, as we shook hands on the deal.
“Perfect,” I replied. “So’s my husband.”
Blake is just as likely to teach the boys how to build a tree-house as how to sing an aria or how to execute a perfect pirouette—a versatility that has earned him the handle Butch Ballerina. He will drive the boys off to Rye Playland on a Saturday, and be right back at it on Sunday morning to set up soccer pitches and kick a damn ball up and down the field with them. He will then come inside, don an apron, and whip up a meal. Most of his recipes rely on some flavor of Campbell’s Cream of Something Soup, from the classic tuna noodle hot dish to the more exotic Broccoli Cheese chicken casserole. Whatever the dish, Blake presents it with a flourish, as though he hadn’t just opened a can of glop and poured it over a dead bird. He is undoubtedly more David than Amy Sedaris, but any meal he cooks is one less meal I have to deal with.
While for most of the weekend his butch side dominates, the ballerina side of Blake sometimes rears its precious head. He often complains about the temperature in the car and can be fussy about his clothes. Often before he leaves for the ski slope with the boys he will run back into the house from the car to change his coat.
“This coat is ugly; I can’t be seen in it,” he’ll whine.
“Really? Because at least that one didn’t make your butt look big,” I tease. Five minutes later, he’ll back for a second change of coat.
Blake’s gayness fascinates my boys. If he mentions that he thinks the new girl serving burgers at the Red Rooster is pretty, they will tell him, “You’re not really gay, you like girls.” They’re always asking him when he “turned gay” and why he “decided to be gay.” But their all-time favorite method of Blake torture is to sing a small clip from a song in the Family Guy episode where the family inherits a mansion in Newport, Rhode Island, from Lois’s rich aunt. Petah is singing “This House Is Freakin’ Sweet” which includes the line “One hundred bucks, Blake is gay.” They sing it over and over, laughing hysterically, proud that Seth McFarlane wrote it just for them. Blake always handles these incidents with patience and understanding.
Blake will do practically anything a child will do, and with the kind of enthusiasm that makes you think he’s enjoying it. He takes them to man movies I don’t want to see, builds fire pits in the woods, and makes them bows and arrows out of tree branches. He is a walking Dangerous Book for Boys.
I once came upon him with Pierson and Peik out behind the house. Truman was standing a good distance away.
“Hey, Blake,” I said, “what are you guys doing with my hairspray?”
“Building a potato launcher.”
“We’re trying to hit Truman,” Peik said, holding a length of PVC pipe and a Bic lighter. Pierson had a bowl of potatoes.
“Won’t that hurt?” I asked.
“Oh, no,” Blake said. “We’re using baked potatoes.”
“Well, carry on, girls,” I said, rolling my eyes, and went off in search of some well-paid-for peace and quiet.
“Being on Project Runway was a lot like childbirth. When you are in the middle of it, it’s painful, but when it’s all over, you’re glad you did it.”
LAURA’S GOT A GUNN
ABOUT SIX YEARS AGO, BETWEEN KIDS NUMBER four and five, I stumbled upon a new obsession: reality television. And not just any reality television. On Project Runway, a mixed assortment of completely crazy fashion designers is given little time and less money to craft a runway-worthy garment good enough to get them past the even crazier judges and on to the next week’s challenge. It had me at Auf Wiedersehen. I loved the characters, the obstacles, and the creativity—and no one had