The Perfect Family

Though I haven't taken time to write about it, Nate and my transition from couple to family has been weighing on my mind a lot. Specifically, how we will transition from a rather quirky duo to a family unit. This is particularly paralyzing when I consider the family I come from. We had our moments, but we were darn near picture perfect most of the time. My dad worked hard and came home each night to a meal homecooked by my mom. My sister and I were neatly groomed and often dressed in my mom's sewing creations. We were generally polite and well-behaved and knew when to be quiet.

Well crap. I don't think I can do almost any of that. Firstly, Nate is staying home, and I'm working. It just makes sense. I'm not going to try to squeeze us into the box of the typical one income family. My cooking? It sucks. I can make crockpot meals like a boss, but that doesn't mean that when a recipe calls for wine in it (which we don't have) that I don't look up a substitute (orange juice - which we also don't have), and then finally just throw some Hawaiian Punch in there because ya know what, that's close enough for our unrefined palettes. I do feel passionately about clean children with brushed hair, but if I had to make their clothes, they would be about six pieces of Scotch tape from naked. And I'm pretty sure that my husband thinks the difference between casual and dressy is whether or not a superhero is included in the ensemble.

I started to think about our transition from duo to family again last night. Nate was teasing me about something before bed as I was digging through our linen closet trying to find my Tums. When he had irritated me thoroughly, I took advantage of the fact that he was just wearing shorts and that the tweezers found my hand before the Tums. When I was tired of listening to him, I wielded the tweezers Zorro style and swiftly plucked a few of his exposed chest hairs, causing him to cry out in pain. Ya, we're going to be that family. His retaliation involved farting on me. When I think about this, I'm mildly horrified for the family we'll become. But I think recognizing that we'll never be the family I grew up in has given me freedom. Freedom to reimagine what a family looks like and what it means to truly be a perfect family.

And a secret that everyone seems to forget is that some family is always doing it "better" than you. Even the family I grew up in had it's moments. We actually were reminiscing (and laughing very hard) about one the other day.

When I was about seven and MacKenzie was five, one of Dad's co-workers invited our family to their Family Christmas Concert. Ya, they had a family Christmas concert. They were a really nice conservative religious family who homeschooled, which involved all of them playing their instruments like Yoyo Ma. Just knowing that, you could already tell they were "winning" this perfect family contest.

Anyway, we come in to their home/concert hall and listen to some lovely Christmas carols by the children's string quartet, led by the Patriarch's hammer dulcimer and their mother on piano. Oh, and they were all wearing matching dressy Christmas garb. Now, we could have quietly taken a loss on that perfect family contest, but MacKenzie had something else in mind, as per usual. As the adults enjoyed appetizers prepared by the Mrs., MacKenzie and I went to play with their daughters who were our age. I remember the daughter my age and I were playing with dolls, but I was also glancing back at MacKenzie and the younger daughter. Now only MacKenzie knows EXACTLY what happened that night. I believe it started with some innocent bouncing on the bed. But everyone at that party/concert knew how it ended. MacKenzie's knee to her nose, a screaming wail from the tiny violinist, and blood gushing all over her Sound of Music VonTrap Christmas apparel as MacKenzie looked on in shock, along with the rest of the invitees as people ran to see what had happened.



I still remember when we left, the family's dad said, "You might want to make sure MacKenzie is okay... she saw a lot of blood tonight..." Ya, because she broke your daughter's nose.

It's moments like that in my family's life that gives me confidence for my own family. I will do everything in my power to give my family hope, structure, faith, and instill values and responsibility. But being the perfect family? I'll just disqualify us now.