Tag Archives: family

April 1, 2016 · 1:31 pm

Five.

Attention King Soopers’ Shoppers – I apologize profusely if you were subjected to my shameless display of nostalgia and longing in the baby product isle this week.

It’s just this – my kid turned 5 on Sunday.

FIVE.

How the actual eff was the kid in this picture, which CLEARLY happened just a blink ago, now 5 full years old?
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I have been a damn mess pretty much my whole life the past week or so – reminders of his completed babyhood have been everywhere.

As I cleaned out some toy bins to prepare for the onslaught of superhero crap birthday gifts that would need storage, I stumbled on this old friend:
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This is Pocket Bert.  Toddler Jr loved Bert so much that we had Bert in varying sizes – Pocket Bert got his name because he resided in the pocket of the diaper bag, there to comfort and amuse Jr at a moment’s notice.  Oh how he loved Pocket Bert so.

:::pause to make Pocket Bert do a dance while humming  “Doin’ the Pidgeon.” :::

Sniffle.  Whimper.

Andplusalso, stop what you are doing and behold this picture of his tiny baby cuteness that TimeHop threw at me this week.  (Well, don’t stop what you are doing – keep right on reading the awesomeness of Reluctantly Suburban, but pause to take in that smoosh.)
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I can’t even so much that I can’t even EVEN with that one.  All of them, actually.  I can’t open TimeHop without a box of Kleenex stationed next to me.

So it was inevitable, I guess, that as I was grabbing some groceries this week, I found myself at the end of the isle of baby products:
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I knew I shouldn’t – but I ventured in.

There it all was – tubes of diaper cream both awesome (Purple Desitin) and pointless (Butt Paste,) and gas drops and washes for tiny people with sensitive skin.  Jars of liquid fruit and veggies, delicious little “puffs,” and the Baby Mum Mums that I used to order by the case from Amazon since the stores weren’t carrying them then (oh sure NOW you have them, King Soopers.)

Bottle parts and teething rings and liquid gold Jr’s expensive special formula…. Itty bitty, teeny tiny diapers that used to be too big for him in his first few weeks of life.

It was that last thought that got me – that was in the first few weeks of him and I…  we were together in his nursery, high above the busy city below, figuring out all of those crazy products and what we needed to do…  now there has been 5 years of him – and of me as his mom.

BOOM – grocery store ugly cry. Waterfall of tears.  I could almost hear the PA announcement  “Wet (and sloppy, and crazy) clean up, isle 16!!”

I walked the length of the isle slowly, taking it all in and having a good cry (if there is a “good cry” to be had in public, FFS, Keri.)

Then I went and got him a new Super Friends straw cup and a box of the shortbread cookies shaped like doggies that he loves so much and collected myself (kinda) before checking out.

Then, for some reason, the Catalina coupon dispenser shot this puppy out at me after I paid.
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Diaper coupon.

But my son is 5.

FIVE.

“Wet clean up near the crazy crying lady at the U-scan.  Bring Tissues.”

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March 1, 2016 · 1:51 pm

Maybe Reality Really DOES Bite.

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Ya know what, Troy?   Cram it.  (Credit: http://www.spot.ph)

40 is coming. Or rather, I am currently rolling downhill like a snowball headed for hell toward my 40th birthday in June. If you smash my twin sister and I together, that is 80 years of twinny “us-ness” on this planet. Scary stuff.

I didn’t think 40 was going to bug me. After all, 40 is the new 30, right? We are a FAR CRY away from the 40th birthday I remember my mom having, complete with coworkers stringing black streamers everywhere and outfitting her with a cane and veiled black hat to go with her “over the hill” cake.

That just isn’t what 40 means today. Think about who else is turning 40 this year. Reece Witherspoon. Ryan Reynolds. Melissa Joan Hart – Sabrina the teenage witch, yo! Keri Russell – awesome first name to match her awesome looks! 40 ain’t nothin’ at this point, right?    I remember thinking when Jennifer Aniston turned 40 (7 years ago, people,) that 40 was spectacular. That all you had to be by 40 was a grown-ass version of you. (With apologies to Troy from Reality Bites, because none of us knew ANYTHING at 23, really dude.)

But therein lies the rub. 7 years ago, 33 year old Keri was, if I remember correctly, putting some fairly substantial pressure on herself regarding her Jesus year, and thinking that “way far off into the future” of Keri-ness, at the ripe old age of 40, she would finally have gotten it together as a grown up.

Guess what? NOPE.

I am a warmed over mess. Don’t get me wrong, it is my warmed over mess… this is my 40 year old bed, I made it and I can lay in it, blah blah blah… It isn’t the whole “I’m so damn old, woe is my aged self” thing that has me reeling, although I do confess feeling kind of old of late. It’s the nagging “shouldn’t I feel like a dang grown up by now?” question. I am like, way far into this dog-and-pony show, right? At what point, exactly, am I going to stop feeling like I should be calling my mom to come and pick me up from this charade, because it MUST be way past my curfew? The ghosts of Keri-ages past would be pretty disturbed to know that at 40 it was all still going to be feeling like a total crap shoot. That sucks, yo.

I briefly considered diving into a good old-fashioned midlife crisis- but dipping my toe in those waters by taking an ill-advised shopping trip in the Juniors’ section for clothes that look ridiculous on me, drinking like a 23 year old at the neighbors’ house, taking on a bunch of contract work in all my free time so I can “do what I love,” and otherwise generally acting “un-Keri” just left me feeling embarrassed and desperate and old.

Man, I miss just feeling old.

So the midlife crisis is off the table, as I don’t have time for self-destruct just now since I can’t get even my adult shit together without that added BS.  There’s really no spare time to blow everything up when you are just hoping to get your kid and yourself out the door with lunch packed and pants on both of you, can I get an amen?

But what then? Or what now, I mean. Here I am being all old (but not,) coming to terms with the idea that maybe, JUST maybe, this is all there is.

I am not destined to change the world, or even my little corner of it. There is no cosmic line to cross or switch I have to find and flip to make things “the way they are supposed to be.” No fairy godmother is going to come donk me on the head and pronounce that I am now fully qualified for adulting and open a door to some wonderland of grown-up-edness.

I always pictured myself as the girl humming the Mary Tyler Moore theme song and whipping my hat off to toss as I spun around knowing I was “gonna make it after allllllll.”

But staring down the barrel of the very adult age of 40, all I seem to be able to muster is a half-hearted bit of the theme from “One Day at a Time.”   Then I realize that BOTH of those shows are so ancient, I can’t even come up-to-speed on TV references. AND I LOVE TV!

Again I find myself back at Reality Bites, and Troy; the-once-and-now-again voice of my generation…  Now it seems, is “the winter of my discontent.”  But Troy remains forever frozen in fresh-college-grad smuggery as he utters that line through his 90s facial hair.

Here in 2016 and MANY years away from my English lit degree, borrowing lines from Shakespeare seems awfully grand a way of phrasing the realization that I’ve been on the planet for 40 years and still cope with stressful situations primarily through nacho consumption and magical thinking.

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February 4, 2016 · 12:36 pm

Legos and longing -second thoughts on working mom-dom.

I am sharing this piece which I first posted on Spirit of Power early this week, because the response has been so overwhelmingly supportive, and because the topic has consumed my thoughts since the spark was lit in my little mind.  I have joked that I seem to have triggered my midlife crisis (which it very well might be,) but I hope that I can channel the upheaval into something mildly more practical than buying a sports car.  (ha)

Original Post Here

mommy and me

Late this morning over a quick lunch break, I was diving down the rabbit hole of Instagram to let my mind wander from a project I was a bit stuck on for work. I stumbled on a simple post of an ADORABLE baby sitting in the sun in a chair, giggling at his mom off camera. SO CUTE! I clicked to read the caption of this cuteness.

Two minutes later I was broken, sobbing and groping for tissues in a haze of envy and guilt and sadness.

The cutie-patootie’s mom posted the smushy picture of him to celebrate her first day as a stay at home mom. It is a simple thing, upon first thought. It was the second wave of my mind’s wandering that kind of ripped me in two.

It was her first day of being with that smiling boy at home, completely on purpose. Not because she was on vacation and trying not to think about the email that must be piling up and the fires that will need putting out when she returns.

Not because the baby was sick, or because plans for his care fell through, or because she was working from home with him there as well due to a heavy snow storm. (The latter of which never truly works, resulting in guilt about sticking in a video and begging the kiddo to please be quiet for that conference call, followed by work guilt because productivity drops when you have one eye on the laptop and one eye on your offspring.)

It was her first day without division in her mind, her heart, and her time. No internal war to be everything to everyone. For the first time, she was all his. Concentrating on him, and his surroundings, and nothing else, is ok for her now.

Years ago, before Junior came along, I would daydream about that being my reality…

It wasn’t in the cards, and I adored the lovely Christ-centered daycare Junior attended during his first year of life. I am so proud of all he learns and of the way he has found his place in his little community at the academic center he attends now, truly I am.

In our neighborhood, there are many moms who stay home with their children, and I think it has accentuated some of the things I fear Junior misses as a “day care kid.”

He misses the flexibility of schedule to try new activities, or have a play date with neighbors, or even stay in pajamas all day “just because.” There’s no chance to abandon an activity to head outside for a bike ride or snowman building or kite-flying, regardless of perfect weather conditions.

Days are full of hurrying out the door late, off to day care as mom worries over email and deadlines and trying to cram it all in, while also figuring out when doctor appointments and dentist visits and haircuts might fit in to the picture. Of course, always keeping fingers crossed that Junior doesn’t get sick and bring the whole precarious mess to a screeching halt.

It’s a tough realization to find that I am resentful of my child for getting sick, when he does, because it throws off the tightrope walk that I am barely pulling off with him healthy.

Evenings are a blur of pick-ups and meal prep and rushing toward bedtime routine to (hopefully) get him in bed before “tired” turns to “overtired meltdown madness.” Usually I am thinking of the To Do list I need to get started on once he is asleep and praying that he will drift off quickly. Then in a few short hours the whole scene plays out again.

It feels like our family, and especially Junior and I, are running and running to get to some place or goal or SOMETHING, but never getting there.

Suddenly today, while inhaling my lunch and trying to distract myself from the reality of my truth, it smacked me square in the face.

Today is the first day of a really great new normal for that mom and her sweet smiling son.

Today for Junior is just another day where his mom bustled him off to “school” early because she was stressed about looming deadlines and semi-dreading what the impending snowstorm would mean for her ability to work tomorrow (while trying to squeeze in some “one eye on each” activity with him, if possible.)

You know what? That sucks.

My proudest accomplishments lie not within deadlines met and task lists checked off. They are measured in the way he pulls my ear down close to his mouth and whispers “I love you mommy,” and in the joy on his face as we build a new incarnation of a superhero hideout out of legos.

I do imagine what it would be like to focus just on him.

I don’t know what a next step would be – Instagram mom’s new SAHM path can’t be mine right now.

Parents who do stay at home with their children have challenges and feel conflicted too, I am sure. I don’t mean to discount the mountains each person must climb each day.

But I think that the search for a new normal has begun today…. in my heart, and I pray also in my actions.

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December 31, 2015 · 10:50 am

HOORAY for 2015

2015.  What a ride it has been. Join me in a walk down memory lane in some of my favorite and most popular posts, linked throughout the post.

I started the year with bacon and nostalgic weeping over Fisher Price Little People and tiny underpants, and we are indeed, now in the land of big boy beds and button up jammies, and coloring in the lines (he is better than me at this point.)   BUT, 2015 has been so much more than just that.

It was the year I got trapped in a car wash, the year my hair grew a mind of its own, and the year I got slightly less nostalgic about our former life in The Treehouse.

It was the final au revoir to a touchstone of my younger years, and the year I discovered that some hurt leaves holes in the heart that no amount of roast chicken can ever fill.

2015 gave me my most treasured and proudly worn laugh line.

 

For Jr it ushered in The Age of the Questionable Decision, and gave him ample opportunity to shake his preschooler head at his nutty mom’s behavior, (and occasionally pay her back for it. Just Sayin’.)

 

For The Mr, it was a year of deep, important questions…

Questions like “How’d she end up sick?” and “What the hell is that giant pear for, anyway?”

 

It was the year I mortified the barbecue man.  (Seriously though dude, you have LOTS of company in that, I promise.)

2015 was the year that I clarified my stance on the all-important and extremely divisive issue of leggings usage. (Not Pants. NOT.)

 

It has been a great year, and fantastic to share the ups and downs, ins and outs, and highs and lows with all of you!

I appreciate you taking the time to read – I look forward to trying some new things here on Reluctantly Suburban in 2016, and I hope that each of you will join in with me.

Happy new year!

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December 11, 2015 · 2:23 pm

The Shop

I am officially no longer the plumbing princess of the Northern Suburbs.
I didn’t bestow that title on myself, it was actually a (clearly misguided) guidance counselor in our youth that called Dr Sissy and myself that, once upon a time.
I digress.
This morning, after 20 years of business ownership, my parents signed the papers selling their plumbing and HVAC company to a new owner and officially started the retired portion of their life together. I am so proud of them, and SO EXCITED for them – they have worked so hard and deserve this next phase so richly.
(Here comes Keri’s big ol’ but)
BUT…
But, it is bittersweet. I was at “the shop” (how we have always referred to the building the business is in) two days ago helping pull personal files off of computers and phones, and the new manager came in with his wife and 2 year old daughter. She was an adorable ball of energy running all over checking everything out. Then mom and daughter drove off in their car and the new manager drove off in one of the company vans. I was overwhelmed with memories. That was us. They were the new us.
You see, for 19 years before buying the business, my dad worked his way up to from entry level to Master Plumber with full HVAC certification and foreman/manager/VP. My mom would bring my sister and I to the old location of “the shop,” and it was us who would run around checking everything out, bugging the guys for gum and sitting with my dad while he ate his lunch out of a cooler and drank coffee from his old metal thermos. It had always been us growing up in those spaces. I stood there, watching them all drive out from behind the fence, and I breathed in the familiar smell of oil and earth and sheet metal that equals the shop in my mind. I remembered everything.
I remember standing in our bedroom window, waving goodbye to dad every morning when we were little as he drove off to work in the company van each day, and being so excited when he came home at night. Sometimes it was so late we wouldn’t see him before we went to bed, other times he would be home very early in the afternoon and he would challenge us to long jump contests in the back yard. When we got older I would learn that those early days actually meant that there wasn’t enough work for everyone that day, but my parents never let it show back then.
I’d hear the van start in the middle of a cold snowy night, and peer outside my window to see my dad putting chains on the tires to go fix a furnace or frozen pipe. In the morning he would be home again and up at 5 to go open the shop and get the guys out for the day.
There were company picnics that we got to attend as children, as well as Christmas parties that meant Tamera the cool babysitter would come and stay with us while my dad (who ran in just in time to change out of his work shirt and steel-toes) and mom went off to celebrate.
As we grew older there was the year that we took the sides off the old dump truck and used it to carry the first prize homecoming float around the track surrounding the field during halftime. What was our float you ask? Why, a giant toilet with a replica of our opponents’ mascot swirling down the bowl, of course. (If you put the plumber’s daughters in charge, you get a chicken wire toilet covered in white napkins. Duh.)
It was in that same dump truck, borrowed from the shop, that my dad would tell me that him and mom were buying the business at the end of our senior year in HS. We were transporting a garage sale sofa that I wanted for my freshman college apartment and had my dear friend Matt in the truck with us. I screamed so loud in excitement, I probably caused the poor kid hearing loss or emotional trauma or something.
In between educational endeavors, (re: after dropping out of college the first time, or culinary school, or something,) I joined my mom in the office answering phones and entering invoices into the system. Actually, I joined my mom in the office and proceeded to fall asleep on the keyboard and enter pages of “hhhhhhhhhhh” where my nose rested on the key board every day, and soon we would discover that it was M.S. robbing me of my energy, making me dizzy and weak. I would drag myself from the doctor’s office where I had my steroid treatments back to the shop where I would eat a ginormous bag of some sort of fast food (look out, steroid Keri will rip your arm off for a Big Mac. Two would be better.) Then I would fall asleep in a heap on the floor of my dad’s office, exhausted and angry and not wanting to go back to my apartment in the city alone.
As the fog of M.S. started to lift and I found my strength again, I knew a bad day could always be cured with a drop in at the family business. It was a touchstone, a safety net, a resource, a homebase from which I could reach out into the world.
When Potter was a brand new member of my newly formed “just married” little family, he would spend days there because I was still (finally) finishing my degree and he was too barky to stay in our first little condo alone. Later when we moved back to the old hometown it would be Jr who would spend days at the shop, teetering around his playpen and hanging out with my mom and her sister as they ran the day-to-day in the office. (Aunt Carol is a MUCH less snoozy 2nd chair than I ever was!)
My dad and his guys have gone from seeing our friends running around playing barbies or ball in the basement while the family water heater was being fixed, to fixing the water heaters of those former kids while their own children run around like crazy.
It feels engrained in my soul. It is the heart of our family, and that heart has shown in the way that they have done business all of these years.
You can take the plumber’s daughter out of the shop, but I don’t think you can ever take the shop out of the plumber’s daughter. I am very proud of that part of myself – as I am very proud of it in both of my parents.
Congratulations, Maude and Daddy. You raised two (pretty damn awesome,) kids, as well as a business to be proud of. Dr Sissy and I have been proud to be the owners’ daughters and share the story of our “family business” with those we know.
We love you – and we can’t wait to see what you do next.

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