LAUREL, Mont. (AP) – Morrgan Avery Gibson-Boettcher, age 4, knows a thing or two about timeouts – and how to avoid them.

Chatting merrily away as he bounces from couch to chair, nearly squashing the family dog in the process, Morrgan approaches the known limit of parental tolerance and retreats, wielding his irresistible grin like a shield. But the threat hangs precariously in the air, and a visitor asks, “How often are you in timeout?”

“Every day,” he answers with a giggle.

Both his moms, Kellie Gibson and Denise Boettcher, burst out laughing. Morrgan flashes a broad “how cute am I?” smile and jumps down to resume rolling around the floor with his dachshund, Sam Gibson.

“I’m the one that’s more strict,” Gibson said, explaining how the family dynamic has established itself.

“I’m the one who likes to roughhouse with him,” Boettcher said, chuckling.

Morrgan is big for his age and solid as a rock.

“You’re going to be a football player, aren’t you?” Boettcher said, giving him the hug of a proud parent.

Their bouncing, happy boy – now stacking pillows in hopes of launching himself from new altitudes – is a stark contrast to the troubled 3-year-old who came to live in their Laurel home in July 2008. He arrived with an array of behavioral problems that have been tamed with love and consistency. He’s learning the boundaries and clearly thriving within them.

“He’d spent a lot of his life in chaos. He was kept mostly in his bedroom,” Gibson said.

“When we got him, he was afraid to get off his bed,” Boettcher said.

Sometimes the shadows of emotional and physical neglect by his biological parents still flit around the corners of his new, stable, close-knit family.

“He remembers a lot and he saw a lot,” Gibson said.

Gibson and Boettcher never want him to doubt that his life is now on solid ground, and that while his family may not be traditional, his place is in it is secure.

“We’re raising him to understand we’re his forever family,” said Gibson, nodding to Boettcher, her life partner.

On Nov. 10, Gibson and Boettcher made sure he was legally bound to them forever, too. In what may be the first proceeding of its kind in Montana, the two women jointly adopted Morrgan – both names were on the petition, not one or the other as is the usual procedure when gay couples want to adopt. It never occurred to them to do otherwise.

“When we got close to the adoption, all of a sudden it’s ‘You both can’t adopt. Only one can adopt,’” Gibson said. “That didn’t feel right to me. We got into this together.”

“We filled out the forms and the state wouldn’t accept them. They’re all set up for a mother and a father, not two mothers,” Boettcher said. “When our case was transferred from Cascade to Yellowstone County, we were assigned a Family Resources officer. He was supportive and helped set us up to both be adoptive parents.”

But when the affidavit arrived for them to sign, only one name was on it.

“We said that wasn’t going to work,” Gibson recalled.

Then in October, the Montana Supreme Court ruled in a Missoula case, Kulstad v. Maniaci, giving a lesbian the same rights as any other parent in a child custody case. That helped bolster Gibson and Boettcher’s arguments.

District Judge G. Todd Baugh signed the adoption order in a courtroom packed with friends and family. Later that day, about 100 people jammed into the couple’s house to celebrate.

Joint same-sex adoption is a gray area of the law, but Gibson and Boettcher want to spread the word that it can be done.

“We know there are lots of kids out there that need homes and lots of families like us who don’t believe they both can adopt,” Gibson said. “I want them to understand you don’t have to be afraid to adopt. If you are safe and loving and have a big heart, go for it.”

The two women met in Great Falls on Martin Luther King Day in 2000 and solidified their relationship March 10, 2001, in a commitment ceremony. Gibson had two small children from a previous marriage and the two women raised them together. The youngest is in high school now, and teenagers are a constant presence in the couple’s home on the west edge of town.

Morrgan has been in their lives almost since he was born. Technically, he’s Gibson’s great-nephew; her sister was Morrgan’s grandmother. Her parents are Morrgan’s great-grandparents. Since the adoption, the grandmother has become an aunt.

It’s complicated.

Their attachment to Morrgan began when as an infant his parents left him in the care of Gibson’s elderly parents. Morrgan was three months old when the boy’s father asked Gibson to take him.

“That was a real struggle for us,” Gibson said. “We knew how the state system works. We knew we’d get attached to him and then he could be taken from us.”

And sure enough, he was removed from their care after just a couple of weeks. It seemed the biological parents had a change of heart when they realized they could not collect benefits for him any more, she said.

But things went from bad to worse for the biological parents, who are now in state custody, Gibson said, and their parental rights were ended.

“For whatever reason, he was tossed into our path and we were waiting with open arms,” Gibson said.

Gibson, who is disabled, works as a substitute in the Laurel school district, where Boettcher is an eighth-grade physical-science teacher and coach. They’ve been in Laurel since 2003 and have felt welcome from the start. Some residents who had doubts before seemed to have had an attitude adjustment since Morrgan was added to the family circle, Gibson said.

“People here are glad there is someone who is willing to give kids a home,” she said.

The couple tries to make sure Morrgan has good male role models and many friends. He has been welcomed into their church, Our Savior Lutheran, where Gibson is on the church council and Boettcher is the organist. Gibson’s parents have moved from Great Falls to Laurel to help raise Morrgan.

He loves his day care and ticks off the names of half a dozen friends there.

“We’re like any other family,” Gibson said. “We have the same trials and tribulations as any family has. We struggle with things – how are we going to get the lawn mowed; what are we going to have for supper? We’re just a family.”

More than a family really, since they’ve chosen to expand the term to include all those close to them, blood ties or no.