Snippets from Suburbia: Saturday Soccer & The Jesus Mug

**The second entry in the suburban snippets series, the factional (combination of fact and fiction) story of raising kids, marriage, suburbia, and parenthood. The series where we are reduced down to broad generalities--mother, father, eldest, youngest, cat and dog because that is, after all, what we become, at least to some extent. Isn’t it? 

Oh shit, the mother jumps out of bed. Maybe jumps is too strong a word, stumbles may be more accurate. “Let’s go,” she yells at the kids huddled together on the couch in various levels of dress as she enters the living room.The dog looks up at her for a moment, disinterested, and goes back to licking herself.

Snapshots from Suburbia: Images from the Underbelly

This one simply called, "Soccer," is a tale of a mother who has taken too many pictures, attended too many practices, made too much small talk. The introverted mother cannot understand why five-year-olds need so many stations and why for the love of Jesus and all the saints in Heaven, the practice ran for 1 hour and 45 minutes, when it should have been 45 minutes. The kids are hungry and cold. The grass, burnt and yellowing from a lack of care and water, seems a metaphor for the mother, and for all mothers and fathers. And parenting is hard and soccer is stupid.

Incarceration & Childhood: 5 Alarming Similarities

Recently I watched an old episode of Scared Straight. On the show parents send their out of control children to live amongst prisoners so they will get their shit straight before they actually end up in real prison. While watching I realized three things:

5 Types of Families you Meet in Suburbia

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Suburbia can be an enjoyable place to raise a family with safe neighborhoods and idyllic tree-lined streets. It is a place to teach your kids to ride bikes, make friends and figure out who they want to be when they grow up. In the suburbs, you’ll find all sorts of people and many of them will be parents. They will join you at cookouts, block parties and even milestone events like kids’ birthdays and holidays. You will raise your children in unison. They will become friends. They will become family. And just like family, you can’t choose your neighbors. There are five types of families you may run into as you navigate the suburban jungle.

suburbia 5 a.m.

Suggested listening while reading this post: 
Once in a Lifetime
Little Boxes
Psycho Killer

suburban bedroom, early a.m.

A mother sleeps soundly, well as soundly as a mother can sleep. She is 40 and not content with her age, more because it means that certain parts of her life are now behind her than for reasons of vanity--though those don't sit well with her either.

1,354 Things You Find in the Guts of a Mother Purse

With Halloween fast approaching I am all about gross and scary, and there is nothing more disgusting and frightening than the innards of a mother purse. If you are like me, you won't change out purses for occasions (as our grandmothers used to).