The Jackie Blog

Image by "Gillian". Click to check out her Flickr Photostream.

I’ve become a bit of a hypocrite.

A double-standard-haver, if you will.  A taker-backer.  A jk-loler.

My entire life I’ve looked down on those folks with the fold-out wallet featuring their child, mother, pet, what-have-you, in a variety of different environments and moods.  I’ve glazed over as I’m shown picture after picture of someone I will never know or care to meet.  I’ve slept standing still, drool fresh falling out the corner of my mouth as I’m forced to view a baby in a bumble bee suit followed by a baby in overalls followed by a baby in a bathtub.

For the record, I have never felt comfortable being shown a baby in a bathtub.  I prefer them dressed as bumblebees.

But alas, this past weekend I was crowned with aunthood.   My brother texted a picture to me of the freshly born peanut and I giggled with excitement to meet him.   A few moments later, my phone buzzed again.  Another picture – but his mouth was open in this one.

Adorable.

And as I was finally let in to the room to hold the little booger in my arms myself, I cooed over his ability to contort his face into so many expressions in so little time.   I think that was the turning point.  I felt myself  fully transform into a hypocrite. If it were possible to put a baby in a bumblebee suit moments after their delivery without causing them great stress, I might have.  Heck, I’d even put him in a bathtub.  There’s no doubt that putting him in a variety of situations and costumes is endless fun for everyone.

The next day at work, I attached a picture of my new nephew to an email that I forwarded to our entire department.  That night I went to the bar and showed everyone on my side of the room, including the bartender.  I’ve shared him on Facebook, I’ve checked and rechecked the picture on my phone to be reassured of his existence and cuteness, and it’s taken everything in me to not throw rocks at passersby just to have enough time to have the phone ready with his picture when they come to.

Is it assault if they agree he’s adorable?

I’m trying to get a handle on this.  I’m trying to remember what it’s like to be on the outside, staring at a picture of someone I have not and may never meet as sleep drool drips from the corner of my mouth.   I will get a handle on this.  I will stop being an obnoxiously proud aunt.

It’s just hard because I keep getting distracted by thoughts of putting him in a turtle outfit I bought. ♣

Tags: 365 Project, family, Humor, life, musings, postaday2011

Photo by Jessica Diamond. Click to check out her Flickr Photostream.

It’s my birthday!

About ten years ago on this day, I would celebrate by promptly puking by guts out. 

I did that about every year for several years in a row.    Not just once or twice – several years in a row. There was just something about my birthday I found so darn exciting that I couldn’t contain the contents of my insides.  I literally became so excited that I hurled.  I think it had a lot to do with the fact that I didn’t get out much.

It was a pretty inconvenient tradition.  The first year it happened my parents assumed  I had taken ill and any plans to see friends, eat cake, or go to McDonald’s PlayPlace were postponed.   After a few years in a row they started to see a trend and my mother was enlisted to help me through the puking each morning.    As long as I got all the anxiety out in the AM, I was usually good to go by after-school celebrations.

I remember one year my older brother approached me in the couch to wish me a happy birthday and before he could close in for a hug, I spewed my guts into a large bowl my mother brought me from the kitchen specifically for the occasion.  It didn’t matter that he was family; any allusion to the importance of the day was enough to send anxiety through the acid in  my quivering stomach.  Like the exorcism of some violent hell demon, my head began to rotate as I expelled everything within me at the mere mention of birthday shenanigans.  Cats, brothers, furniture – nothing was spared the wrath of my innards.    Poor mom wanted to comfort me because she knew how hard the day was for me but when I hurled, she went running.

Her offspring or not, that woman has always hated throw-up.

And so I’m off to commence birthday shenanigans.  After all, I’m 25 today.  I’m a fully-fledged mid-twenties adult and I’ve got walking around and feeling responsible to do.  Heck, I might even renew my driver’s license today just to celebrate.

Here’s hoping I don’t spew on the DMV clerk. ♣

Tags: 365 Project, family, Humor, life, musings, postaday2011

These are not my parents. But this is what you might expect of them. Photo by David Chartier. Click the image to check out his Flickr PhotoStream.

I think my favorite part of growing up so far  is watching my parents grow up.

You know, watching them morph from parents into people.  Real people.  People who occasionally cuss, share with me their ridiculous dreams and hopes, and frivolously spend on silly things, not just food and clothes and education for their kids.   It’s a grand old time.

I was the last of three kids and so I was the last to work through the trenches of their tyrannical parenting.  And when I passed the finish line, they let loose.

I knew I’d get to reverse roles with them someday, but I didn’t know it’d happen like this.  I thought I’d be changing diapers and trying to stop my dad from eating nothing but Pepsi and chips and driving his nurse to suicide.  And I’m sure that someday I’ll live out that dream. But I’m kind of surprised that there’s a sort of pre-old people stage, where I have  to tell my mom to put on some clothes and tell my dad to stop staying up all night and playing video games.  I didn’t see that comin’.

One of my favorite recollections of their middle-aged hilarity is when I asked my mom if she had a pair of shoes I could borrow and all she could offer that matched my dress were her … um…her…*cough*-me pumps.

I immediately declined.  She thought it was hysterical.

But there really is something pretty awesome about the transition of my parents from folks to friends.  I find my mother absolutely hilarious and often ridiculous.  All the time, I’m seeing more and more clearly that I’m basically her, but with a big fat dose of crazy on top.  And I find my father incredibly charming.  He’s such a kooky little hermit of a man and the ways he goes about things never cease to amuse me.  I remember one night when I was growing up, he had decided for some reason or another that a tree branch in our backyard needed to be removed.  He promptly went to the kitchen, grabbed my mother’s biggest, best steak knife, and hacked the branch to little tiny bits until 4 in the morning. It’s memories like this that I look back and treasure, realizing that they were really this crazy all along and I was just blinded by my youth.

When I think about how I pieces of both these people in my genetic makeup, I’m genuinely frightened.  And honored.

Sometimes when I go home to visit and I’m out with them for an evening, I listen in on their front-seats-of-the-car conversations and am genuinely amused that they raised me.  It’s a wonder I have any wits about me at all.

Then again, I’m still a relatively young lass.  I’ve got all sorts of years over which to pace my steady decline. ♣

Tags: 365 Project, family, Humor, life, musings, postaday2011

One of the best parts about being home at mom and dad’s in central PA is sitting around the table with my brothers and reminiscing about the days of yore.  Specifically, the days when my family struggled with money just a bit.

I have a multitude of favorite poor kid stories, but last night we reflected on one of my favorites: Collect Calls.

In case this doesn’t automatically spring to your memory, Collect Calls were a beautiful nugget in commercialism in the 90’s that, when properly taken advantage of, let you transmit speedy messages to your loved ones for free.  All you had to do was dial 1-800-COLLECT.  An automated operator would ask for your first and last name and the number of the party you were trying to reach.   When the other party picked up the phone, COLLECT would say “You have a collect call from ______________.  Would you like to accept charges?”  and they had the choice to pay for the call or hang up.

Photo of ancient relic courtesy of Kichigai Mentats Flickr. Arrow is mine 🙂

The beauty of this lied in the fact that you didn’t have to pay to dial someone’s number from a pay phone.    So my parents instructed us to make the collect call but fit our message into the space that was reserved for our first and last names.  As a result, we would collect call them after events and they would pick up the phone to hear “You have a collect call from ‘Mom-I’m-done-with-soccer-practice-can-you-come-pick-me-up?’ ” And instead of accepting charges, they’d hang up and come get us. It was a pretty awesome system until messages got far more complicated and we couldn’t fit them in the small amount of space.

We all became speed talkers at a very young age.

There are a myriad of favorite recollections like this from my childhood, most of which revolve around lack of funds.  I feel like I don’t ever as ya’ll about yourselves enough so feel free to chime in.  What are your favorite poor kid stories? Or if you were fortunate enough to not have to do things like Collect Calls, what are some of your favorite family quirks? ♣

Tags: 365 Project, family, Humor, life, musings, postaday2011

I spent last night in the thick atmosphere of farts and laughter.

That’s usually the case when I visit home at the same time as my two older brothers.   Dad and I will prop ourselves up at the table and throw down a healthy challenge for a game of Five Hundred, and they instantly answer the call with fangs out, ready to kill.  It starts out as a respectable game between adults and inevitably spirals downward into a vicious competition and a good, healthy dose of bathroom humor.

I love those moments gathered around the table.  I have brief glimpses back into my childhood as I’m caught up in laughter with the people who know how to make me smile most easily.   Sometimes I look beside me and see my 31-year-old brother morph into his 15-year-old self.  We all follow suit over the course of the evening and before we know it, we’re all back in our childhoods, giggling, fighting, and doing our best to annoy each other.   Usually about halfway into the game, my brothers begin to communicate with each other with flatulence.   Though dad and I are always grossed out, we are also always very, very amused.

Dad heads the table.  Never a true adult himself, he easily keeps up with us while still managing to keep his eye on the game and serve a good helping of whoop-ass.   Luckily, I’m always on his team.

Though we’re all grown and out of the house now, we never fail to raid mom and dad’s refrigerator before we go.   It always feels like we’re getting away with something, though mom knows very well that we’ll pillage everything we possibly can before we depart and cooks much more than she needs to just for the occasion.

Sometimes when I make the long journey back home and open the door to my apartment, I feel so incredibly empty knowing I couldn’t bring my family with me.  But I know that if I did we would all drive each other batty and go our separate ways after only a few short days.    After all, when we were all forced to live together, there were epic battles involving swords, Windex, kitchen knives, and fists.  Everything was a weapon, and every day there was a new duel to be had.

Looking back, I’m so glad we survived those battles because I can look back on them fondly, knowing they brought us closer together in the end.   And though my apartment feels empty without their immature jokes and laughter, I can always look forward to the next time I will be huddled around mom and dad’s table with them.

…alternating between holding my nose, and gasping for air from the laughter. ♣

Tags: 365 Project, family, Humor, life, musings, postaday2011