Sarah & Ian Hoffman

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Review & Giveaway: Real Boys Wear Pink!

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real boys wear pink close-up

Please note: while comments on this post continue to be welcome, the giveaway is now over.

I got all happy when designer Kris Garst contacted me last week about the new Real Boys Wear Pink clothing & accessory line from her company, Squishylicious. Kris created the line of clothing and other cool stuff in response to the color stereotypes she encountered after her twin sons were born. “My boys love pink and purple, so I hate to see them stuck with traditional ‘boy’ colors,” she told me. Kris found a broader color palate for boys in Germany, where she lives with her family, than she did in the US, and wanted to make more color and design options available for kids and grownups all over the world.

real boys wear pink montageCourtesy of Kris, the lucky giveaway winner will receive an item of their choice from the Real Boys Wear Pink line. (To enter to win something Squishylicious, you’ll need to leave a comment at the end of this post. The winner will be randomly selected and notified by email—so please either friend me on facebook or include your email address in your comment so I will be able to find you if you win.) If you don’t need a t-shirt, you can choose a onesie or a sweatshirt (there are grown-up sizes too…don’t miss the the pink hoodie and the Squishylicious boxers). And if clothes aren’t your thing, check out the water bottles, tote bags, BBQ aprons, mugs, and more. My favorite is the black cap.

I also like her Tees for Tutus line, which would work oh-so-well on the little pink boys you know.

And if you don’t win this giveaway (or you do, but you HAVE to have more), visit Squishylicious. You can support a mama-owned business, take care of your holiday shopping, and subvert gender stereotypes all in one swoop.

The contest ends this Sunday at midnight. Post your comments and spread the word!

The Tide

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Lately, requests have been coming in from religious organizations for me to address their members. I’ve been asked to write a blog for a national group of Christian clergy, to speak at a Unitarian church, and to give a sermon at a Jewish synagogue. I haven’t sought these opportunities out; they’ve just fallen in my lap.

The synagogue where I’ll be speaking this Friday night, Sha’ar Zahav, was founded as a space for LGBT people and their families; as they’ve grown, their membership has broadened to include many straight families. Increasingly, synagogues, churches, and other places of worship in our country are opening their doors and their liturgies to include gay, lesbian, transgender, and gender-nonconforming people. In response to a culture that is starting to accept its LGBT citizens, religion is changing, too. Not everywhere, certainly. But as the unexpected invitations float in, I can feel the strong current that brings them to me.

Sha’ar Zahav invited me to help them commemorate International Transgender Day of Remembrance, a memorial to those who have died from anti-trans violence. Names will be read of all the people who have died in the past year, and the kaddish, the Jewish prayer for the dead, will be said. The Day of Remembrance is a deeply sad and wrenching day. But I have been asked to talk about my son and the work being done to make the world a safer place for children like him. I’ve been asked to speak about hope. Even as we speak of violence and hate and loss and all that is wrong in the world, this congregation also wants to talk about hope.

Dip your toe in the water; you can feel the tide changing.

Mompetition’s Interview with Sarah Hoffman

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I’ve really been needing some humor lately. I think that maybe we all have. And so I called up one of the funniest women on the web, Valerie Stone Hawthorne of Mompetition. And because she is awesome, she agreed to put me in one of her xtranormal videos—an experience which stark. raving. mad. mommy has called “the mommy blogger equivalent of being on The Simpsons.” And she is right. I am beyond excited to present to you Mompetition’s Interview with Sarah Hoffman:

Let me know what you think.

And don’t forget to “like” Mompetition on facebook!