New addition to the LaPlante family

For years, I have wanted a family. I am not just talking about having a wife and in-laws. I first got married at age 26, back in 1994. I really wanted children, but my then wife was resistant to the idea like an Army mule. At one time she was receptive to the concept prior to marriage, but then she went right back to the disdainful attitude she once had towards children.

I have always loved children. Little kids often cling to me and climb on me like a jungle gym. I have always loved having little cousins, nephews, and children of friends to play with. I have enjoyed having cats and dogs over the years, as well. However, it was never the same as having your own. I languished and literally wept for years over being childless. I was the only one of the five LaPlante brothers to not have children.

Almost a year and a half ago, my now ex-wife was caught in adultery and she left to live with the man with whom she was cheating. I went through Hell with that situation for various reasons I have already blogged. Three months after she left, I met and dated one woman that I really liked for about 3 weeks, but she turned out not to be as she appeared on the surface. It was a crushing blow to have just gone through a betrayal, false legal accusations, and separation; then to go through a fast moving but very odd relationship that ended abruptly. I can say with all sincerity that I was wronged in that relationship and I was hurt by this woman.

One week after that relationship suddenly ended, I met Sharon. December 3, 2007 was a day that changed my whole life. That was one year ago today. God brought an intelligent, attractive, affectionate, loyal, caring woman into my life and we clicked immediately. After knowing each other just one week, we knew in what direction we were headed with the relationship. We both wanted a family together. She wanted another child (she already had a wonderful five year old son, who was four when we met) and I wanted my first. On October 12th of this year, we married. We has prayed, talked about, and shared about wanting to start a family together as soon as we got married.

I remember when the two of us were traveling for a day trip to the beach and I asked Sharon if she was happy. She said she was very happy. I asked her what would make her happier. She answered, "Marry me." I told her that as soon as I could legally do so, I would. We still had some legal matters to which I needed to attend, such as getting my divorce finalized. I asked her, "What else?" to which she replied, "Impregnate me." I thought that was an amazing response, being most unexpected in verbiage but not sentiment. I wanted to do that very thing with all my heart.

After our wedding day, we got away for our week long honeymoon in Duck, North Carolina on the Outer Banks. We both love the OBX (as it called). I had been there more often than she had and knew the area more so than she. If memory serves correctly, she said she had only been there once previously. We had a wonderful time on our honeymoon. It was a great time of intimacy, of relaxation, of reflection, and joy. It was also apparently a productive time...or reproductive time, as the case was.

My men's group had prayed about us having a family quickly. I had shared with my pastor about wanting this very thing. I had cried out to God about wanting children. I am now 40 years old and had been feeling gypped out of having kids and having wasted 14 years of my life for a long time. I have enjoyed loving on my new niece and nephew (Sharon's sister's children) whenever I have been able to do so and had been pretty much already a step daddy to Sharon's son for months before our wedding day. I have been his daily daddy, supporting him, playing with him, teaching him, and doing all the things daddies do for their children even if though he is not my biological son. I have endeavored to treat him as my own son as much as I can within the circumstances I find myself. But those circumstances are for another discussion for another day.

On Sunday afternoon (I am writing on Wednesday night), Sharon was not feeling well. She was extremely sick on Monday, stayed home from work, and went to see a doctor. She was advised to take a pregnancy test as a precaution. On Tuesday, my mother-in-law got on Sharon's case about taking a pregnancy test, since she was certain that she was pregnant and did not just have the flu. Her grandmother thought the same thing and just this weekend swore she was pregnant. To placate her mother, Sharon took a test and it was positive. She took another later on in the day with the same result. I bought a different brand as a control test and she took that one a few hours later. All three tests were positive. After just 51 days of marriage, we may had just found out that we are pregnant.

With that knowledge in hand, we called a local OBGYN practice for an appointment today. The last time I had called seeking information months ago, they said that there was about a one month wait to get an appointment since they were so booked. They got us in this afternoon. Sharon had been sick often during the day and had not been able to keep any food down. Another test in the office proved positive. We were not going to get an ultrasound done, we were told, since they were booked for the whole day. However, just before leaving, they squeezed us in just before the contract ultrasound technician left for the day.

We got to see our baby on the live results screen. He or she is just a tiny little thing, estimated to be 7 weeks, 2 days old according to the size. We have an estimated due date of July 20 of 2009. The incredible thing is that the estimate of 7 weeks or so puts the date of conception right in the first few days of our honeymoon. Our prayers were answered.

I am so very grateful and joyful that I am finally going to have a baby with a wonderful woman that I am proud to call my wife. Thank you, Lord God, for your abundant blessings.

Possible the best animated movie ever

I have already been part of an online message board argument over the premise of the animated movie, "WALL-E", by Pixar/Disney. The premise is that humans made Earth uninhabitable by polluting the world. All people left on a space ship, allegedly for five years, for a clean up operation by automated robots. The robots were to clean up the trash by compacting it into cubes and building piles as high as sky scrapers. Only one such robot remained operational, 700 years later. I simply disagree that we are making the Earth uninhabitable, whereas some others think we have been doing so.

That premise aside, I took my soon to be step-son, John, to see "WALL-E". It was just him and me time and we had a blast. The animated short called "Presto" that opened the movie was just hilarious. It was about a stage magician who failed to feed the rabbit he was supposed to pull out of his hat and the rabbit ruining his act as a result. It was reminiscent of the old Warner Brothers cartoons and I loved it. John and I laughed the whole way through the short.

"WALL-E" itself was perhaps simply the best animated movie I have ever seen. It was witty, cute, charming, and just a lot of fun. The movie had the most imagination used in animation since "Fantasia", I think. I loved "WALL-E" as a family friendly movie that all ages can enjoy. The animation and action was wonderful. I was very impressed.

I am also happy to see that Hollywood has started to get the message that family friendly, clean movies are where the money is. Family type movies almost always make more money than rated R movies do, with few exceptions. There have been several good ones to come along in the past few years, even the past seven months, since I have been in John's life. I have been able to go see "Alvin and the Chipmunks", "Horton Hears a Who", and "Kung Fu Panda" with him and Sharon. "Kung Fu Panda" was great, but Horton sucked. There are several others coming out this fall. We saw previews for others animated movies and saw posters on the theater walls.

Money talks. Parents spend money to take children to the theater. They buy the incredibly expensive snack foods. Parents nowadays seem more willing to lavish such extras on their children than in times past. Me? I just love seeing a good movie with my boy. Movies like "WALL-E" can be enjoyed just as much by adults as by children. I am loving becoming a dad.

Wow, Obama actually nails it.

It is about time that someone, regardless of political affiliation, sees and comments upon the truth. This time, it is actually Barack Obama.

Barack Obama celebrated Father's Day by calling on black fathers, who he said are "missing from too many lives and too many homes," to become active in raising their children.

"They have abandoned their responsibilities, acting like boys instead of men. And the foundations of our families are weaker because of it."

Read more at this link. Some truths just transcend politics, and I am glad to see this commentary.

Two invitations for Thanksgiving

I am writing this out of gratitude. Thanksgiving and Christmas have often been lonely times for me, but not necessarily sad ones. I know that single people can get lonely at the holidays and often depressed. I hear that suicide rates are higher around the holidays.

When I was a bachelor, I used to be the one who always worked the holidays since I had no family to be with. Since being in North Carolina, I have been able to go back to New England to be with family for Christmas, but Thanksgiving is often the one holiday where I find myself alone. One year I was invited to the home of a friend of mine with his family, many of whom I had never met. A few years, I ended up having dinner with a ministry group that would put on a dinner at their thrift store facility. A few times I have been invited to spend the day with friends. A few years I have gone to Ryan's Steakhouse, since they are open and serve a Thanksgiving feast for a price.

This year is my first Thanksgiving as a single man after 13 of them as a married man. As a matter of fact, this Sunday will be my 13th wedding anniversary, and my last anniversary. I am not celebrating it, since I have been separated from the psycho bitch from Hell for over three months now.

I was planning on going to Ryan's again this year and being available to work, since it was going to be just me. Two different friends have invited me for dinner on Thanksgiving, and for that I am grateful. One friend was the first to invite me over to her home, along with all of her family. She has siblings coming down from New England and up from Florida for a gathering, and since we are good friends, she invited me there, too. Another dear friend of mine whom I have known for a decade and a half (and had Thanksgiving at his home at least once, maybe twice so far) also invited me for dinner. Unfortunately, I am not able to clone myself and be at both locations.

I am grateful for the invitations. To both friends, you have my sincere gratitude. I give thanks for the invitations to feast at Thanksgiving with you. Both people are very kind to me and I do not want to overlook the opportunity to express publicly my thanks. I do so publicly in the hopes that others will do the same for people who may also be alone, have nowhere to go, and nobody to share the sacred time with. At Ryan's, I see all too many people who are there alone or just a couple together. I know what that is like. Been there, done that.

Civil unions, so called

I still read three New Hampshire newspapers online each morning (ok, most mornings) and I follow major news stories there. That is where most of my family still resides and where I grew up. Occasionally, I find news stories that gain my attention. One is the New Hampshire House of Representatives passing a "civil unions" bill. Basically, it is a bill that grants equal status to homosexual couples as married heterosexual couples.

Contrary to the article's opening, I do not find at all that the creation of "civil unions" are "a victory for fairness and equality". Homosexuals are just as equal in the eyes of the law as I am. We are not talking about a race or sex. We are talking about choice. People CHOOSE to be homosexual or not. People do not choose to be born male or female; Negro, Caucasian, or Asian or [insert your own ethnic group here].

Homosexuals have the exact same rights to marriage as I do. They have the same right to co-habitate that I do. They can vote, own property, have free speech, freedom of association, freedom of religion, and the right to keep and bear arms just like I do. What they want in addition to that, however, is for me and the rest of society to acknowledge their choice as equal and grant equal status to their choice as my own.

This is where I shall certainly diverge from their so called rights paradigm. It has been said that "you can not legislate morality", and yet we do it all the time. There are laws regarding alcohol consumption, the use of drugs, regulations on operating an automobile, the purchase of firearms, the purchase of tobacco, the access to abortion mills, sexual predators, homicide, libel, rape, handicapped access laws, and anti-discrimination laws. All in one form or another are about morality.

Is it moral for me to be able to operate my automobile in any manner I see fit, to the exclusion of consideration of safety of others? If we don't legislate morality, then why is it unjust for me to take the life of another? Why can't I force myself on someone else sexually and it be fine in the eyes of the law? Because these are moral issues. Morality is necessary for an orderly society.

The homosexual agenda is to legislate morality, as well. They wish to use either the judiciary or the legislative branches of government to push their choice of lifestyle as acceptable, thereby violating the moral code of many other citizens.

Is it proper to force employers to offer health benefits to a man's boyfriend, simply because they are lovers? How about legal status equal to marriage? If two men or two women can do that, why not unmarried heterosexual couples? Is it fair to grant equal rights status to homosexuals who are adhering to their own moral code and yet not do so to unmarried heterosexuals who adhere to theirs? Is it fair to those who have gone through the proper channels of legality to form a marriage to grant such status to either of the other two groups?

Homosexuals are a small minority of the population. I do not for one minute believe the statistics that 10% of the population are homosexual (note that I do not and will not refer to them as "gay". That is one term that has been hijacked to mean something that it was never meant to be, is often an inaccurate descriptor, and is offensive to the actual meaning of the original word. Rainbows have also been hijacked in the same way). That is a grossly inflated statistic for propagation of a lie for justification of immorality.

I have yet to even touch upon religious connotations and violations of homosexuality. I am simply talking about logical, secular reasonings at this point. Obviously, I am not in favor of granting divergant sexual behavior the status of a civil right. We have laws against bestiality, which is merely a matter of morality. It, too, is divergant sexual behavior. Yet, nobody is clammoring for legitimizing their choice of behavior, much less offering protected legal status to those who practice it.

Can you imagine the problems we will have in such simple things as college admissions, civic groups, and the like? To offer civil union status, thereby legitimizing abhorrent behavior as just another minority group, would necessitate preferential treatment for jobs, college admissions, and even status in organizations such as The Boy Scouts of America.

Even if all that is legitimized is the equalized status of homosexual couples to married heterosexual couples, we still would have many issues to address. Should my employer be forced to shell out for health coverage for partners of sexual deviants? Why should I subsidize that behavior with my tax dollars as regarding government employees? Should my insurance rates go up to placate a group with a shared, chosen behavior? I own a dog by choice. Should not my employer be forced to give me health coverage for my Pekingese, too?

I personally do not feel it is appropriate to discriminate against people based upon sex or race. I do, however, believe it to be the right of anyone to do so. I will go so far as to say that any employer should have the right to NOT hire anyone they do not want to hire, even if that employer is stupid enough to exclude anyone of a particular sex or race. It is their business and they should be able to run it as they see fit, however stupidly that may be. If someone wants to overlook a huge portion of the work force and all qualified workers that just happen to be of a different race or sex, so be it.

I believe even more strongly that someone should be able to discriminate against people based upon their chosen moral code. If I do not want to hire a Muslim because I disagree with their code of moral conduct, I should be able to do so. If I don't want to hire a Mormon, a Jew, a Christian, a Catholic (not to be necessarily mistaken as Christian), or a Flying Spaghetti Monster adherent, it is my business. If I find homosexuality morally abominable, then I should be able to discriminate against a CHOSEN code of morality at my discretion. Someone who claims sin as a civil right tells me a lot about one's moral character. I would not choose to hire someone with that moral fiber, since I don't know what other moral equivalents that person may draw, such as graft and truthfulness (or lack thereof).

I have heard many arguments that civil unions or homosexual marriage would not attribute to deterioration of traditional family values. Personally, since I have a moral compass on this matter, it would not undermine my values. However, legitimacy by force of law does certainly have an influence on others. Here is where the undermining of such values is a legitimate claim. Parents who choose to take a moral stand against homosexuality and teach their children such would be in direct conflict with the law that would legitimize that behavior. We see the same effect in the abortion issue. The right to life has been dismissed and certainly minimized in favor of immoral behavior. This has directly affected the amount of life being terminated in this nation and families harmed by the promotion of promiscuous behavior.

Schools would also be forced to recognize homosexual lovers as legitimate parents. This is in direct conflict with the laws of nature, since two men or two women can not naturally become parents. There is a reason for the current design. School children would be forced to recognize homosexuals and their illegitimate children, adopted or otherwise, as legitimate family units.

The whole idea of having a protected class of people is based upon the concept of being otherwise powerless politically. Again, homosexuals have the same right to vote as I do. They are not devoid of the right to either citizenship or the vote, as Negroes were until the 13th and 15th Amendments to the U.S. Constitution.

For a protected class of people based upon behavior, homosexuals would enjoy the ability to claim a "hate crime" or "hate speech" when those of moral character teach contrarian to their own moral code. When a church or member of a religious group preaches that homosexuality is an abomination according to the Christian Bible, will that group or person be guilty of a "hate crime"? How about when three of the world's major religions all teach the same thing? How about when a religious group refuses to perform the same civil ceremony that is employed for heterosexual couples?

Dare I even get into the public health issues? The fact is that many homosexual couples are not monogomous. Many are, but the facts are that many more are not, and at a higher percentage rate. Sexual transmitted diseases are also higher. Hepatitis A and B are also higher amongst homosexual couples, since the method of transmission (hand to mouth) is more prevalent in that behavior.

There are no Constitutionally protected rights to sexual deviance. There is a reason for that.

As to the concept of not sanctioning "same sex marriage" but rather a "civil union" instead, it is like buying ketchup instead of catsup. Same thing, different name.