Meet My Family …. Sort Of

Work has been ruling my life for the last couple of weeks, and I’ve not spent much time in the kitchen lately. I’m ashamed to say I actually fed my family take out food twice in the last two weeks.  Truthfully, my hubby suspected I would be tired and surprised me by bring the food home, so technically I didn’t do it.  Yep, that’s my story and I’m sticking to it.  Anyway, the backlog of projects on my camera is quickly disappearing, so I’d better get busy, or this blog is going to experience a dry spell. In lieu of a recipe, I though you might like to meet my family.  The only catch is that my 19 year old son will be making the introductions. I found this highly entertaining portrait of my family on my refrigerator white board.

The youngest member of my Heathen Tribe is my 15 year old son.  He’s almost 6 foot tall, thin, and ripped. He conditions for wrestling almost year ’round, and during the wrestling season sports 8-pack abdominal muscles. He’s also a bit artistic, and was recently chosen as one of the 25 students from all grades in his high school to be included in the art teacher’s advanced art program. I know it might not sound like much, but it’s a pretty big deal. He’ll be allowed to work independently, and many of these students compete in local and regional art competitions. I’m proud of him! Another quality I love about my baby is his wicked funny, super quick, highly intelligent sense of humor. He’s one of those people who can dish out zingers on the spot.  I’d have to think for a month, and still not be able to think up some of the stuff he spits out. Apparently, this is how he’s viewed by his big brother …. a skeleton with biceps.

Now let me introduce you to my eldest son. I could write a book about this boy and all he’s put my husband and I through! Every parent has to have a difficult child.  His kindergarten teacher was convinced he was ADHD (he’s not, by the way), and his first grade teacher told me he marched to his own drummer. He had the same teacher for 3rd and 4th grades, and she gave me hope. She introduced me to a gifted child who operated outside the box the rest of us live in. He’s currently a Computer Networking major on a scholarship at a local college. I won’t bore you with the laundry list of his many talents, but I will say that I wouldn’t be surprised if he went back to school some day to pick up an engineering degree. In exchange for many difficult years of parenting, he’s saved my business a LOT of money by lending me his computer expertise. This is how he views himself. Does anyone know what a Super-FPS 9001 is?

This is my future daughter-in-law, my 19 year old son’s fiance. I love this young lady as if she were one of my own.  She’s my salvation from testosterone. At 21 years of age, she’s perfect for my son …. I could not have chosen better for him.  He had better not screw this up. She’s an English major at a local college, heading for a master’s degree in library science. She has a beautiful clear ivory complexion, and good-naturedly endures lots and lots of albino jokes. For some reason my son has focused on the fact that she loved the Twilight series of books. She and I both hate the movie Edward.

Moving on to my brother-in-law, my husband’s identical twin. I recently introduced you to him in my rant about art. He’s an artist and a one-of-a-kind art teacher. He lives a couple of miles down the road from us, and spends quite a bit of time at my house. Although he and my husband are identical twins, they are a unique type known as mirror twins. They are identical, but instead of sharing the same dominant traits, one has some dominant genetics while the other received recessive genetics. My hubster is left handed, his twin is right handed …. stuff like that. My brother-in-law is a very different type of thinker than my husband, and I enjoy lots of esoteric philosophical conversations with him.  I think that may be what my son was poking fun at when he drew this representation of the “other” twin.

Meet my husband.  One of his greatest joys in life is hunting. I’m not quite sure why my son decided to draw him like Rambo with a machine gun. I think the chain saw must have something to do with the amount of time my husband spends putting in the supply of wood that heats our home in winter. My mom has always said the my husband is the only man on this planet who can tolerate me.  She’s probably right.  I’m a real piece of work to live with sometimes. My husband is one of those laid back, easy going, really likable people. It’s disgusting how easily he makes friends … I say that because I’m jealous.  I’m very high strung, and my husband has a stabilizing, grounding effect on me. Without him I would probably end up institutionalized.

I’m a little disturbed seeing myself through my sons’ eyes.  I told you I’ve been working a lot. He chose to depict me as this faceless, personality-less “It” behind a stack of boxes. He pictured me at the shop with a pile of orders.  One of two things is going on here. Either he’s trying to send me a message, or he is deliberately trying to push my buttons. You have to understand that he’s the child of my heart. We are cut from the same cloth. I understand the way he thinks because he’s a lot like me. My youngest boy is an enigma to me. I’ve never been able to crawl into his head the way I can with my oldest son. I think he was listening in on a conversation his fiance and I were having.  We were discussing what it’s like for a young adult to discover that parents are human. I was challenging her to try to get to know her own mother as a real person …. someone with a personality and a life that had nothing to do with being a mother. I’m choosing to believe my son was trying to push my buttons with this picture.

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