Our Beautiful Twisted Fantasy Week

Though it may sound silly on the glorious day known as Friday, I am kind of wishing that I could have an extra Monday this week. The Flanagan family has had a week full of adventures, and only today am I feeling like I will have time to do responsible things like laundry and child-rearing.

But despite the lack of grown-up activities, we have all had an enormous amount of fun these last few days. Here are some snapshots of our whirlwind life.

On Monday, we escaped the insane heat of our home (no cooling system means yucky interiors) by going to our local thrift store (check out that mail holder!), eating our meals at restaurants, and wandering around Target. Our whole day was spent in preparation for the next day—Caleb's 29th birthday!

Monday night, it was so warm in our townhome (86 degrees at 2 am!) that we all relocated to our basement; makeshift beds and floor fans made sleeping possible, as well as creating our first family sleepover. After a call to the manager confirming that our air conditioning would be installed on Wednesday, we booked a hotel room for Tuesday night.

Caleb's birthday was a great excuse to have this unusual family excursion. I chose the Airport Inn Hotel because it is conveniently close to our home and off the beaten hotel chain path; the website promised comfy beds, made-to-order breakfasts, and a swimming pool. I packed up the necessities (including the birthday cake!) and the kids, and off we went.

When we arrived, I was exceptionally pleased; we had walked right into the most pristine 80s cheesiness that I had ever witnessed. Everything was dark wood and ivy, all squished together in economical architecture. As you can see in the picture above and the picture below, the pool was not only indoors, it was IN THE LOBBY. No walls separated the areas, though the short railings demarcated the lobby from the swimming pool. Any raucousness from a pool party would be heard and seen from the leather couches thirty feet away.

But also, there was only railing separating the pool from the restaurant. The chlorinated smell of the pool readily wafted into the restaurant, meaning that our breakfast eggs and toast felt like a pre-watersliding delight. I was pleased as punch at all of these happenings. The kids, not so much, because Caleb and I felt extremely uncomfortable taking us all swimming in these conditions. Jacko has yet to forgive us of this slight.

Our hotel adventure ended, and the kids and I were tasked with spending all Wednesday (and surprisingly, all Thursday) out of the house. We did not want to get in the repairman's way, so that he could get our air conditioning in as quickly as possible. Plus, Jacko has a tendency to be a vocal taskmaster to hired help.

We utilized our Kids Bowl Free coupons two days in a row, plus visited several playgrounds and fast food playlands; we even made a stop-off at Caleb's office, so that I could drop the kids off and get a new permanent crown in the dental office in the building. Wednesday and Thursday all blended together into a Go-Go-Go chaos machine.

But most shockingly of all, Jacko and Caleb went to get a haircut this week. Jacko had been growing his hair out to "wear a ponytail," but the summer heat doesn't go well with his thick hair. Since he has gotten this clean-cut look, I feel like I am dealing with a much more adult version of Jacko than before. I'll admit, I miss the devil-may-care look. But as you can see, I still have one child who is still into that kind of image (see: Lucy Goosey.)

Let Us Oft Speak Kind Words to Each Other

My therapist was surprised when I told her I wouldn't change one thing about my childhood.

She said it doesn't happen too often.

The evidence supports my claim, however, because my parents and my sisters and I form the closest-knit family I have ever known. We are in constant contact, we support each other in every endeavor and trial, and we are incredibly open about what is going on in our lives. I purport that our relationship wouldn't be as healthy if my childhood and that of my sisters was not idyllic.

In trying to create this kinship in my own little family, I examined the actions of my parents and tried to mimic them. Jacko was a tiny baby when I had an "Aha" moment that I have since followed:

My childhood home was filled with kind and loving speech.

The list of no-no words was long, including "suck" and "stupid," and there was more than one occurrence of an impassioned "BE QUIET!" since "shut up" was also verboten. But the house rules weren't solely keeping the negative words out; my sisters and I were encouraged, both directly and by my parents' example, to say positive things about each other and our surroundings. That kind of talk let us learn to express our feelings and be proud of who we are.

If I wanted those things for my children, I knew I had to work hard to instill kind and loving speech in our home. My first decision was to say "yes" to my children instead of "yeah"; the latter could be construed as sarcastic or dismissive, and I wanted to let my kids know that they were being heard and respected. When Jacko became mobile, I decided to tell him "no, thank you" instead of simply "no" (though "NO!" would often come in times of danger). From there, my personal positive-speech practice has grown into hundreds of rules—kindly explaining my reasoning when making decisions, saying "I love you" enough to smother them, vocally admiring the beauty of the earth, pointing out their generous and unprompted service. My whole day is filled with split-second decisions to keep a happy tone of voice and to engage my children in intellectual, positive conversation.

It can be exhausting.

But it's worth it.

Yesterday, at Target, I asked Jacko if he would like to get an Amazing Hulk t-shirt. He responded, "No, I'd prefer something more stylish." A lady in her fifties was on the other side of the rack; she tittered and we exchanged that knowing, adult glance of Aren't Kids Funny. I put the Hulk shirt back and searched for another option. The woman lingered. She looked again at me, caught my eye, and said, "I have been listening to you. It has been refreshing to hear you speak so nicely to your children; I don't often hear that when I am shopping. Many parents are so mean and rude to their kids. You're not. You have restored some of my faith in today's parents."

Between her statements, I was inserting platitudes like, "Look at these kids, how could I not be nice?" and "They're smart kids, so it's fun to talk with them"; however, she chugged along, trying to let me see how appreciative she was. I finally thanked her and asked the kids to wish her a happy day. My mind turned over what she had said, searching for an appropriate feeling to affix to it all.

I decided to be proud.

When Jack Attacks (Verbally)

 When my son Jacko meets people for the first time, he often introduces himself: "I am Jack O. Flanagan. JACKOFLANAGAN." His middle name is actually Hansen. Here are some of his greatest, latest quotations.

1. My son just yelled at me for "making [him] wobble." The Force must be strong with me today, as I never touched him.
2. My son just told me to "save [my] last words." What a funny menace to society.
3. Jacko told me, "Mommy, California misses me."
4. My son just asked me if we could have a conversation about the ideology of Breaking It Down in another room. The living room was not enough.
5. Jacko: "Mom, can you help me?" Me: "With what?" Jacko: "Help me...even the odds."
6. My son just informed me that he doesn't know what a toaster is. This is how bored he is today—making wildly untrue, mundane statements.
7. My kids have that Flanagan drive, seeing as Jacko wants to be a professional Happy Face and Lucy wants to be a professional Baby. Can't nothing hold them down.
8. You know your day will be filled with mystery when your four-year-old says, "Mommy, you know what I want to say to you, to your face? .............Steak."
9. Jacko, upon playing fairy world: "Would you like to eat this smurf chef, Mom? He died in 1987, but he's freshly burned!"
10. When asking himself the question, "What is a blow-out," Jacko responded the only way he knew how: "A blow-out is when something is really great and blows out your mind."
11. I kept a straight face when Jacko told me, with tears in his eyes, "Mommy, you not letting me sit on your lap broke my heart. Come back to me, Mommy."
12. As Jacko reminded the Target cashier who said that he didn't have anyone to celebrate Valentine's day with: "Valentine's day is a day for people you care about. I hope that there's SOMEONE you care about in the world!"
13. Upon meeting a cute girl at the McDonald's playplace today and introducing himself, Jacko continually asked her, "Have we met?" He told me in the car afterward that he was certain he remembered her from a previous meeting because "she was really beautiful."

Holly's Secret Secret

There are probably more.

But I know of only one specific, life-changing moment in my life that I have never shared with another person before.

There is no descriptor, no time frame, no setting that I have ever revealed about this frozen piece of my history. The moment is not secret, and it is not sordid. There is no formal cause for my unusual privacy. The memory is so intimate that I fear someone may crush it, even as they are delicately examining it once told.

I once considered putting it into a fictional story I was writing, but I felt it was glaringly obvious that the event was ripped from the headlines of my life. The option to put it on a Postsecret postcard felt too reductive. To appreciate this memory, one would have to know me, but if you know me, I am never telling you this memory.

This non-unveiling may seem like I am waggling a treasure in front of you. I may seem to be passively begging you to ask what this crystallized scene in my head is, but that is only as it seems. I am not. I am simply examining that even the most Open Bookish among us still has a few postscripts written in invisible ink.

And no, it's not Star Wars-related.

A Different Kind of Science Class Volcano

In eighth grade science class, I once made a disparaging comment about the company 3M. For the life of me, I cannot recall what the comment was or why I was such a corporate expert. It's possible that 13-year-old me was a know-it-all. More like, it's probable I was.

After class, my dear friend Mark got up in a huff and left the room at light speed. I chased him down, asking if he was okay and why he seemed so rattled. Yes, our teacher was pretty strung out and of course, the rotating schedule made our young lives difficult. But what was the problem?

He whirled around to face me, all six feet of him, and said, "3M is a great company because my dad had a heart attack, and they helped him out. I can't believe you said that about something so important to my family."

The remark I made did not cause a permanent rift in our friendship. I barely remember if it made a dent in our general congeniality towards one another. But the brief few minutes of this exchange is ground into my brain. Saying something so seemingly benign and having it affect someone on such a personal level taught me an insanely important lesson: Words can mean everything.

No particular event caused me to share this story, not even a particular person. We actually bought some Scotch tape today for Jacko's Star Wars Angry Birds character list; 3M's logo is etched on the back of the package. Today's remarks were brought to you by the fact that I read the packaging on the items I purchase.

Gifts of a Meaningful Nature

Macaroni and Cheese BFF necklaces by ArtbyAshLigon

Starting in a few days, I am hitting my Spring wall of gift-worthy events: many birthdays, Mother's day, graduations. As usual, I have been approaching the shopping for these gifts with a hellbent focus on being thoughtful. What has this person mentioned to me within the last year? Which gift is something they would never buy for themselves? Who is creating something that my loved one doesn't even know exists, but would love?

And even though I want to put all my mental energy into the people I most care about, lately, I can't.

My mind has been clouded and my heart heavy for the last month or so. Without too much detail, my feelings have been deeply hurt and my expectations have not been met. Because of those ever-increasing troubles, I have been putting off the most basic activities and exerting myself beyond my presupposed limits.

And yet, I desire to show friends and family in my life that I wouldn't have even come this far without having them around.

So, yes, I sent out my entire collection of postcards to people around the country. I insisted that my children mail letters to their friends in order to foster the love of sharing feelings and appreciation. You better believe I pondered my dad's insistence that he misses "[his] friend Mark," so I bought him this linocut-printed pillow for his birthday.

Some of those envelopes may have been tear-stained, and I was interrupted writing those postcards by having to call 911 for my sick husband. But no matter what is going on in my personal life, my loved ones deserve to feel my love. 

An Ode to High School English Teachers (with a Bonus Life Lesson)

Walk down memory lane with me, and there will be some treasure at the end of the road.

Pat Sertic was an exuberant, gifted teacher. I recall the entire reading list of my ninth grade year, because I can pinpoint his dramatic readings of each text—leaping, shouting, and sinister whispering were par for the course. He had a stutter that paused the madness, at points. His aged, small frame could sometimes be found hunched outside to his classroom, smoking a cigarette discreetly. During typically quiet times of writing or test taking, Mr. Sertic would turn on the local university's classical music radio station; there was one particular song, Bolero by Maurice Ravel, that he would quiz us on every time it rhythmically started. I had more than one essay that was marred by a pencil scratch due to a yell of "Who can name this piece? Who is it by?!"

I just turned on Bolero to play in the background while I write this, actually.

Mr. Sertic fueled my passion for academic writing and reading. When before I had just considered reading as a pathway to general knowledge, I began to appreciate the journey of wading through a text and observing the storytelling methods of syntax and pacing. If I had felt that writing for a class was previously a slog, he twisted each writing assignment into an exploration of the treasures in a novel. Each essay was required to have an illustrated cover and a whimsical title—my sweepingly epic Gone with the Wind essay cover is still imprinted in my mind. Pat Sertic taught me editing tricks that have helped me impress professors and employers alike (start from the last word, so your brain will focus on punctuation instead of the words!). If he were alive today, I would be yearning to give him a high five right this very moment—that is how pumped I am feeling after recounting our journey together.

For my next two years in high school, I was in the capable hands of Jody Bradberry. If Mr. Sertic had ignited a fire under me, Mrs. Bradberry adjusted the knobs until I was at the perfect temperature. Tall, fierce, bawdy, and undoubtedly sharp, Jody Bradberry did not suffer fools. She probably still doesn't. In my tenth grade English class and my eleventh grade AP composition class, she challenged my writing and my text interpreting until I had no choice but to give my best one hundred percent of the time. She scared the living daylights out of me, at first; now, she is my ever-loving teacher hero.

My mid-grade effort usually matched the near-best of my fellow English classmates, so I often underutilized my talents. All of those shenanigans stopped once I began to repeatedly receive 8 out of 9 points for each essay I turned in; many of the others around me were achieving perfect scores or even were ecstatic about reaching an 8. I can't recall if I finally approached her or if she decided to shake me into awareness, but Mrs. Bradberry revealed to me that she was purposely giving me a lower grade so that I would actually try my best. She knew that my aggravation would cause me to ramp up my skills and focus on hitting a home run every time. Jody Bradberry drilled vocabulary, sentence structure, and academic seriousness into my head. But then she'd go and spend a whole class period helping my classmates create a list of Must-See Movies for me when they discovered I hadn't seen any PG-13 or R movies up to that point. I still remember her starring a few particular movies, scribbling "Hard Watch" next to gory or titillating ones.

This woman came to my wedding reception. That is how wonderful she is and how much I value her time in my life.

My senior year English class was not as joyous or as intense as the previous high school years had been. My teacher, who shall remain nameless, decided that I was the bane of her existence and treated me as such. The AP Literature class that she taught had been her longtime gig, along with teaching at the local university. After being celebrated in my other classes, this teacher consistently smacked down my thoughts during class discussions and pulled me aside to speak with me about my "inappropriate" behaviors. For some reason, my brain tricks my memory into believing that the lights were always off in the room. Together, this teacher and I trudged through two semesters of bickering and mutual hatred. I had the highest grade in the class, nonetheless.

Reviewing these formative years, I realized an important truth about the people one has in his or her life. There are individuals one has around simply to amp them up; it's typically a friend who constantly invites you to crazy activities or calls you to exclaim over even the most minute thing. One can also pinpoint the intense, intelligent pal who is available to constructively critique or pull you along to a make-up counter or nutritionist because it's for your own good. And there are always people in your life who live to knock you down, no matter what your actions are; the common vernacular label for these people is "haterz."

And each of these types are necessary. You must have them in your life. To build character and earn respect, these three personalities must envelope and entice you, enrage you and engage you. To be the best you, you need:

• A cheerleader
• A guru
• A critic 

I don't have contact with any of these three teachers anymore, but I have filled their positions with others. The "cheerleader" and "guru" titles are strewn around prodigiously; the "critic" ones come and go. But I am acutely aware that there is a place for all of them in my life, because I am absolutely set on becoming the best Me I can be.