Smidzik, the family is called.

Smidzik? What's that, Croatian?

"No, it's a combination of 'Smith' and 'Idzik," Laura Smidzik said. "I convinced Linda to do it while Son No. 1 was in the womb. I said, 'Let's all have the same name. That is symbolic in our society of a family, that you all have the same last name."

Jessie and Stacie WareJoncas simply taped their two last names together. Now it's also the last name of their three kids.

As the landmark Massachusetts court decision authorizing gay marriages sends shock waves across the nation, gay and lesbian couples by the thousands in Minnesota are forming families with children and figuring out all sorts of new ways to handle the resulting challenges, newly available data from the 2000 U.S. Census reveals.

Just about all of them seem to agree that all they'd really like to be is married.

"People are very excited about what happened in Massachusetts, but people who have children are even more excited," said Deborah Talen, executive director of Rainbow Families, an organization serving Upper Midwest gays and lesbians with kids.

"Right now we have to stand on our heads to get the kinds of protections for our kids that come automatically when a man and woman marry," she said. "We're not building families as a political statement. We do it for the same reasons anyone else does: we want to watch children grow, we want to have what we always considered to be a 'family,' and when we do, our families are pretty much like anyone else's. It's always a bit astounding to us that others find us so threatening, because we think we're pretty conservative."

Last week, conservative Republicans in the U.S. Senate introduced a constitutional amendment that would permanently bar gay marriages. One had already been introduced in the House. In Minnesota, some legislators have promised to push for a similar amendment to the state Constitution when the Legislature reconvenes in February. Minnesota law has banned same-sex marriage since 1997.

The sheer number of kids in gay and lesbian households in the region will surprise some folks.

The Census 2000 found that about 6,500 same-sex couples in the seven-county Twin Cities area reported themselves as domestic partners. Newly available analyses of the census are finding that about 1,400 of those households include children.

Many couples simply bring children from previous marriages. Even today, the majority of domestic partner relationships in Minnesota include at least one previously married person. Nearly 20 percent reported that both partners were divorced from spouses of the opposite sex.

Talen's surveys of her members, which may not represent the wider population, find that in such partnerships, 30 percent of children are from divorce and another 30 percent are adopted. The rest are born as part of the partnership.

"It used to be that more woman than men intentionally started families," said Tim Reardon, of Golden Valley, whose daughter just celebrated her first birthday. "Now a lot more men are looking at the different options: adoption, either domestic or international, or surrogacy," the latter being the path that he and Eric Mann chose.

Reardon, now in his 40s, remembers a counselor in high school asking him whether he wanted to be a father some day. "I said, 'Oh, yeah, I'd love to be!' And he said, 'Well, you're probably not gay.' And I said, 'No, I do want to be gay and I do want to be a father.' I am so thrilled that these days it's no big deal."

But the growth in numbers also raises new questions for the families and makes the question of marriage more urgent.

"We did have a commitment ceremony and called it a wedding," said Laura Smidzik, of St. Paul. "But when we go to a friend's heterosexual wedding and see the judge show up with a marriage certificate, we feel a huge knot because we realize the implications that has for that family vs. what we never had.

"We were legally savvy and had wills and power of attorney and all these documents to protect our relationship even before children, but now with children the stress is so great. I dropped to 15 hours a week to do the field trips and dental visits and all the family things parents have to do and yet we have all these questions."

Many of the questions are financial and legal, she said.

"What if Linda dies? I can't inherit her retirement. It would be a legal quagmire with so much to tackle that automatically falls into place if you're married," Laura Smidzik said. "I think about kids going to college and what happens with financial aid, about doctors' office forms and school forms that have no language that includes us. Day to day you're constantly trying to make yourself fit in to a system that on so many levels doesn't acknowledge us."

Others share that concern.

"Families can function emotionally as valid families on their own," said Abigail Garner, who runs the Web site "Families Like Mine" (http://www.familieslikemine.com) and will soon publish a book with the same title. "What they need is legal protection. Often the legal issues don't come up till emergencies arise, and suddenly you are faced with the question of how, for instance, to get access to someone in a hospital if you're not legally recognized as 'kin'.

The kids, many agree, have as tricky a time as any. In a lesbian relationship, who's Mom?

"In our house," WareJoncas said, "it's 'Mommy' and 'Mama.' The generic is 'Moms.' A cry of "Mom!" is generic and anyone can respond."

Some of it is humorous, some is more unsettling. If the child is not the same sex as the partners, for instance, who will be his or her role model?

"But so many kids live with one parent due to divorce or death," Reardon said. "We have a circle of friends with wonderful women in our lives and a nanny who is there five days a week with a wonderful bond. We have an amazing network of women who have all talked about the fact that at those times in Tess's life they will be there for her."

For the gay and lesbian couples, the Massachusetts ruling comes as a thrilling moment of recognition, though many worry about renewed efforts to enforce marriage as only between a man and a woman. For Laura Smidzik, in particular, it led to a sweet moment with her father.

"He lives in Massachusetts," she said, "and he called me and said, 'Come back East, Laura, it's going to happen any time now!"