Lucas Camilo

Today marks Lucas’s first tax day, and the other night he got to watch his parents struggle through their inaugural episode of “filing separately on the same return.”  That’s what you have to do in DC when you’re registered domestic partners, and needless to say it took us a while to figure out what the heck that phrase even means.  We probably should have pulled out our book “Unmarried to Each Other,” the guide for people like us who live together but are not married (either by choice in our case or by law in most states for same-sex couples) because none of the instructions or tax help experts could explain what to do.  The occasion also marked the first time that Lucas was listed as a dependent, a milestone that appeared to be lost on the little guy; on this particular evening he was so intent on vigorously sucking his thumb – a new skill he’s recently acquired – that he completely ignored the whole rigmarole around taxes.

Our new tax status is just one of the changes going on at the so-called Hanson home. (Incidentally, you may remember that we joked last year about how everyone at Children’s called Burke “Mr. Hanson.”  We’re happy to report that the tradition has continued now that we’re home, and our relationship status is complicated enough that we rarely bother to explain that he has a different last name from Krista and Lucas.)  One of the big shifts that’s happened is that we now have some nursing support during the day.  Two days a week Florence, a new nurse that started with Lucas a few weeks ago, comes to our home in the early afternoon and stays for about eight hours.  This allows us both be out of the house during the day and in the evening, such as when Krista has her class and Burke has a meeting.   We’ve also been able to go out to dinner with friends twice over the last few weeks which is a nice treat.

Part of the reason we got the extra nursing is that Burke has been preparing to go back to work on a more regular basis (he’s been doing part-time work with CISPES since Lucas was born).  He applied for a job with the Center for Community Change a few weeks ago and on Friday he was offered the job!  Burke will be coordinating a media campaign involving the production and dissemination of short videos related to the fight for immigration reform in the US.  It’s exciting news, and although it was negotiated into the contract that he’ll spend only 3-4 days a week in the office, it’s still a big change for us.  Today is Burke’s first day at CCC and rumor has it people wear collared shirts and often tuck them in to their pants – which is to say its a bit more formal, one of many things that will be distinct from the organizing gigs both of us are used to being involved in.