Category Archives: Family Stories

February 12, 2012

The Lovely Miss Chicken

Because what world isn’t better when you have a rooster in glittery drag smiling back upon you? The Lovelies sent me Miss Chicken!

1998: Slightly uncertain teenagers, Auntie Beeca and I meet as roomates. Maureen co-opts our room as the honorary third roommate (tutoring calculus). Ivy lives next door. Our little Hawaiian, Julia, rounds out our 11th floor penthouse dorm. Beeca’s mom (Mom2) dubs us “The Lovelies.”

2003: A beautiful bouquet of flowers arrives at my office. And a small shipping box – containing Miss Chicken, a sparkling bedazzled drag rooster in fabulous purple leopard print heels. Continue reading →

6 Comments

February 3, 2012

The Bell Curve of Development (or Mitch’s Bitches)

I got home late for dinner. “Hang on a sec – you’re impugning one of the bitches…” Uncle Mark was saying as I plopped into my seat.

Hey – I’m not one to judge. Who’s a bitch?

“My bitches,” said my 16-year-old cousin Mitch. Continue reading →

5 Comments

January 25, 2012

Putting the F-U-N in Funeral

Well. We’re all home for the funeral. The service. The gathering. To mourn our dearly departed. I’m not sure what I expected. This wasn’t it.

To begin with, the women in my gene pool aren’t exactly what you’d call “night owls.” AuntJ looked like she’d just spent a month with colicky infants when we met at the airport – at the midnight witching hour of 10 p.m. (Granted, that is my bedtime too.) Continue reading →

4 Comments

January 23, 2012

A Grateful Granddaughter

Winifred Anne Welker Ahern
July 27, 1925 – January 22, 2012

As the Year of the Dragon commences, Grandma Winnie has left our world – turning control of our family to her own Dragon daughter. Continue reading →

12 Comments

January 20, 2012

No.

Disney Wicki

Me: Can I have a hug?

Search: No. <Eye roll. Puts nose back in book.>

Me: Want me to read you a story?

Search: No. <Eye roll. Puts nose back in book.>

Me: <Using my mom voice.> Destroy Anthony! Get off of that table. We do not scale coffee tables. Get down. <Destroy begins wailing.>

Search: Uh oh…<Cackle.>

Me: Can you show brother how to go down the slide?

Search: No. <Runs over to slide. Dives down slide head first.> NOOO!

Me: Are you ready for bed? Do you want to go night night?

Search: No. <Scampers over to stairs and starts climbing.>

Me: I thought you said “No.”

Search: No ni ni! <Sticks thumb confidently in mouth. Curls up into little ball.>

Jon: Wow. He really is COMPLETELY your child.

Search: <Sly smirk. Giggle. Cackle.> EhhhhhhOliana dodoh bababah mo mymo MIKEWAZOWSKI!

Me: He totally said Mike Wazowski!

Jon: I really don’t understand you…

6 Comments

January 15, 2012

Losing My Religion

I am angry.

So this is me. Using this blog as my spotlight. As I’m losing my religion.

It started the weekend of the muppets’ baptism. Baptism: the first of the Church’s seven sacraments – meant to signify purity and cleansing from sin as a devotion to God. The welcoming of the new generation into the faith. Continue reading →

15 Comments

January 14, 2012

North is Up (and Other Directional Observations)

Never. Eat. Shredded. Wheat.

Those four words sum up my directional abilities in their entirety. They represent the four pointed options on a compass.

Easy enough. But here’s where it gets tricky: the above is a static stationary image. If I move, there is no guarantee it will move. Then we end up going in varying directions. Continue reading →

10 Comments

November 29, 2011

Musical Risk

Today I pointed someone to this blog as the written account of my journey through motherhood.

(Given my geographic ineptitude, it comes as no surprise that my particular journey happens to take the road less traveled.)

Motherhood is an exercise in letting go and clinging to control – an enigma wrapped in a mystery. You have absolutely no idea what you’re getting yourself into. But (cliché alert) no risk, no reward. Continue reading →

3 Comments

November 8, 2011

Back to Basics

 Clarity of thought.

That crisp, concise understanding that you know precisely what you’re doing. (Or at least what you should be doing.) I used to think I had that once…

Enter toddlers, stage right. Continue reading →

5 Comments

October 14, 2011

Oh Brother

Tomorrow my baby brother is getting married.

A year and a half ago he called me; I answered from my hospital bed. “Don’t freak out. But I have something to share.” (For those interested, never a good idea to request a bedridden, hospitalized, highly hormonal pregnant mother of multiples to not “freak out.” It’s not going to go your way.) Continue reading →

Comments Off on Oh Brother