When I was a young child, my father’s job was up for relocation, and he had his choice between Minnesota or Florida. This was nearly a no-brainer for a family ready to escape into a tropical paradise where we often spent family vacations on the beach or in the theme parks. So, we packed our moving truck and off we went to sunny Florida! Except I hated the decision. I sulked. I cried. I was furious. I was sad. I spent a lot of time outdoors and had etched words underneath my wooden deck so the next set of kids who would ultimately invade my perfect home could read to learn more about the little girl who loved her first home, the great outdoors, the horses that lived in the house behind theirs, and her friends next door. I’m not even sure what I wrote (probably something snarky like ‘Ghosts live here’ just to cause a little panic and sleepless nights), but I wanted to leave my mark. My brother on the other hand with his adventurous spirit, couldn’t wait to escape our small town and live somewhere new and exciting. No part of me wanted to leave the comfort of my world in which I had grown up, all 10 years of my life thus far.

But moving to Florida meant more changes I wasn’t prepared for. My mother, who had been a stay-at-home mom my entire life, decided to go back to work. Universal Studios had just opened, and she was going to start in the ticket sales department. Her schedule changed weekly and that meant my brother, father, and myself, would have to figure out how to make dinner on our own. She would leave food with notes attached as to what was on the menu for the night, and we were left to our own devices to make it happen.

My mother was an amazing cook and feeding people or throwing amazing dinner parties serving her home-made deliciousness, was something she relished doing and exceled at. One evening I came home from school and my mom had left a note to put the meat dish in the oven, make the mashed potatoes, and heat up the vegetable side dish. This was new territory for all of us as she was always the star chef in the house and taking over the reins would definitely involve a learning curve.

Especially since her mashed potatoes were the bomb.

In fact, if Guy Fieri had a show in the 90s, he would have stopped at the ‘Mother Martin House’ just to feature my mom’s mashed potatoes in his next episode of Diners, Drive-Ins and Dives. I firmly believed that I only had friends in middle school and high school purely on the fact that they would come over for my mom’s cooking; but more specifically, her famous ‘Mother Martin Mashed Potatoes.’ In high school, my friends and now-husband, opted to come to our house for prom dinner, so they could eat her mashed potatoes and later dubbed ‘Prom Chicken’, rather than go out to a restaurant because her cooking was that good. It’s true, her mashed potatoes were the perfect amount of creaminess mixed with divine levels of salt, milk and butter.

The pressure was on.  

I began peeling the potatoes and chopped them into bite size pieces and placed them in a bowl, as I had seen my mother do so many times before. My father was a smart man, an electrical engineer, who was detail-oriented and methodical, and for as long as he had been married to my mom, had never needed to make his own food as that was her wheelhouse. He stayed in his lane as the official taste-tester and subsequent, eater. He arrived home not long after I had started our mashed potato masterpiece and nodded in approval at my potato peeling and chopping skills.

My 12-year-old self was doing great.

I pulled out the electric mixer and began the process of mashing the potatoes. But they wouldn’t smash. Hmm. Weird. I struggled. Called my dad over. We decided together that we needed more milk. Maybe more butter? Always add more butter according to dad. Another stick went in. Did I add the salt? No, I hadn’t, but would that help with the consistency? Well, let’s give that a whirl. But how much? A cup of salt? Sure, dad said. In it went.

I gave it a little taste. Wow, lumpy. Salty. Not creamy. I mean, we knew our creation wouldn’t stack up to my mom’s legendary work, but surely, we would get an A for effort! We put our creation into the serving bowl and waited as my mom arrived home for our family dinner.

Judging from my mom’s immediate reaction, we knew we had messed up. It was as if Gordan Ramsey was in our kitchen looking at my dad and I with a look of disgust saying:  

“Did you boil the potatoes?” she asked innocently.

What? We had to boil…the potatoes??

Indeed, we had missed the second step after the first step of peeling and chop.

Second step: Boil.

My mom was crying and howling with laughter even before she learned how much salt we had added as if to rub more metaphorical salt into our wounds! Lesson learned the hard way as my dad and I became the butt of every family dinner joke for decades thereafter.

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As parents, we must fill in and teach our children the life lessons not taught in school. Now that I’m older with kids around the same age as my mashed potato story, I often wonder what else I haven’t taught my children that would be necessary to know. Recently I attended a field trip with my daughter’s fifth-grade class. The sheer fact that teachers deal with the insanity a group of curious, energetic small children who can only be described as a pack of feral squirrels, ANDthey inject knowledge into their brains all day long, is 100% mind blowing. I honestly do not know how they do it, but I am so thankful that our teachers have the talent and skills teaching our children takes. I can barely keep up with my two daughters, never mind a classroom full of them.

I talked to other parents at this time, and we discussed how time keeps slipping by. It honestly just goes by so fast. And as I sit here and type and scroll through another year where I felt like we just blinked, and we are here again! End-of-year festivities, graduations, honors nights, family photos, caps, gowns, parties, college announcements – It just hits us parents in the gut, and the heart. Because even if our kiddo isn’t graduating yet, we know it’s coming full steam ahead.

Another year is gone. And we are heartbroken and sad. Darn it, I’m not crying, really…just have something in my eye…

I spoke to another mom recently who said she wanted to be the one to take her oldest child, who is a senior in high school getting ready to head off to college, to the grocery store and show him how to buy food so he can prepare a meal. A real meal. Not DoorDash. Not a frozen pizza. Not a microwave meal. But a nice, healthy meal (I mean, my 12-year-old self certainly needed some work in this department!) because this is a skill he will need. And she is worried he won’t know how to do it. It keeps her up at night.

As a parent, I think it’s a common feeling. We haven’t done enough. And now…NOW. It’s almost too late. So, we yell out into the world: “We haven’t taught them all the things they need to know. They can’t go yet!” And the world yells back, “Buckle up, Buttercup!”

It’s true. They are going off into the real world and we aren’t ready. And even though we are so, so happy for them, we can secretly hate the decisions they make to leave. We can sulk. We can cry (oh, we will cry). We can get angry. We can get sad. We don’t want them to leave our comfort zone.

We will never be ready.

But here’s something we parents need to hear:

It will be ok. Our parents surely felt the same way. But here we are. We survived. The good, the bad. We still don’t know it all, but we are still learning. Everyday. We are embracing another season of change. Because it’s coming whether we like it or not.

And these kids?

These kids are going to be alright.

Listen, these kids survived a pandemic. Remote learning. Isolation from their friends. Masks. Social distancing. And so much more. They are going to be well equipped for the world of rolling with the punches. I have been around these kids. I have read scholarship applications of seniors who have done amazing things and who are off to do even more amazing things! They have goals. They have passions. They have dreams. They are astoundingly mature and they are going to do so many great things. Parents, I know you are proud, but I am also proud of your kids. And, I’m proud of you. They will leave a mark on the world.

These kids? They are going to be more than ok because you got them to where they are going.

Oh sure, this isn’t going to stop me from planning our support group for the next year when our kiddos go off to Middle School…

But to those of you with children who are leaving the nest, perhaps write down three things you want to tell your kids. Something they may not already know. It could be something simple like, don’t microwave Styrofoam (no, really, I know you are going to tell me you do this all the time, but you really shouldn’t…). Or it could be: Always try your hardest. Be yourself. Take the high road. Be a good person. Trust your gut.

And of course, don’t be afraid to call and ask mom for the mashed potato recipe.

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About Life with Jess & Friends

Jessica Whitehouse, aka Jess, is a lifestyle writer and creator of Life with Jess & Friends. Her mission is to bring lighthearted humor to life situations including family, parenting, relationships, career, and all things in between. For more information, email info@lifewithjessandfriends.com or follow her on Facebook and Instagram at @lifewithjessandfriends.

The post Life With Jess and Friends: The Kids Are Alright appeared first on South Lake Tablet.

 Congrats, everyone. We made it—yet again—through another one of the weirdest years in history! Just when we thought 2020 felt like we were watching a gang of sloths doing a 5K, we all sat back and rang in 2021 – the year that was here to save us all. In it rolled as we all cheered, but by January 6^th, we realized 2021 was really 2020 on the fast-track to hell in a handbasket. Holy moly… nothing had really changed, and, in fact, it got worse. Way worse. But for whatever reason, this year flew by in the blink of an eye. And here we are, scratching our heads at the end of the year, wondering how we arrived at the holiday season once again.

But as the world reopened, I felt the rush of “old normal” creeping back in. And I have to say, it feels weird. Really weird. Can we really forget that we lost nearly two years and just go back to the way things once were? I don’t think we can – yet. What things should stay, and what should go? We were pushed out of our comfort zone in so many ways and have learned so much… Do we really need to go back to the way it was?

Let’s reflect.

Should Stay: Appreciating the little things.

Last year, I spent some time with my best friend’s two little girls, ages 6 and 7. During our quick trip to Publix, they mentioned that one of the worst things about the pandemic (to them) was that Publix stopped handing out cookies. No cookies??? Wow, this had not even occurred to me! And while the rest of the world is worrying about sickness, unemployment, and making ends meet, our kids are sad because they were no longer allowed to have a cookie while shopping. Although the business side of my brain is also calculating how much money Publix saved by eliminating the cookies as a line item in its annual budget, but I digress. Reflecting on this, I would also venture to say that it isn’t really the cookie itself so much as the ‘experience’ of being gifted a cookie. A lovable act of giving and receiving. Maybe—just maybe—we should think about that for a second and appreciate what little things in our life bring us happiness.

Should Stay: Virtual reality. You. No, not you. YOU. The one who still does not know how to use Zoom and aimlessly points your video half on your face and half the ceiling… you can go. To those of us who do know how to use a mute button on Zoom, if you want to keep Zooming into meetings, you can stay.

At the end of the 2020 school year, we watched my kid’s honor night ceremonies virtually through YouTube. Normally this event involves rushing home from work, getting the kids dinner, dressed, and back to school on time and then sitting through 2-3 hours of names being read off for various awards and poking my husband several times as he starts to nod off. But last year, we were able to sit on the couch, in jammies, and only had to pay attention when our kid’s classes/names were being called. It was great! We turned the TV off and announced, “THIS SHOULD STAY!” But alas, the honors night program returned to normal in-person this year, and the familiar routine flooded in with the hustle and bustle as we hurried to make it to the event on time.

Now, I know these events make our kids excited and I know they take a lot of time for staff and teachers to put together. But maybe we should look into striking a better balance between in-person events and virtual events. Maybe we don’t need to show up for every event and should be given the chance to participate remotely. This year we all realized how much of our prior lives had revolved around going to seminars, conferences, and meetings (that could have been an email) and the pandemic proved that we can do all of these things from the comfort of our home (and pants optional so long as you can indeed operate your camera correctly!).

The pandemic was a dream come true for many introverts, but I saw plenty of extroverts who adapted and embraced the virtual life and, therefore, it should stay. But if you find yourself on a Zoom call saying to yourself, “We are 21 months into the pandemic and you still don’t know how to mute your microphone?!” then you are not alone. And if you aren’t saying that, then I’m here to tell you, YOU are the problem, and you can go.

Should Stay: The Village

Three years ago, my daughter nearly died, and her diagnosis was lifechanging for all of us. It took a village of medical experts to save her. My husband and I reflected on those weeks of her hospital stay when we just went into autopilot mode and how that time was an absolute blur. While that life chapter has improved, things got really hard for a lot of good people around me. I watched friends deal with death (some Covid-related), homelessness, losing jobs, health challenges, relationships dissolving, and more. No one was immune to hard times or the uncertainly of life, self-included. While I always try to find the humor in life situation, there were a few months when it felt like humor would be out of place and finding the funny moments were few and far between. This year I had to ask for help with my kids, my father, my job, and more. I changed the parts of me and my life I didn’t like. Accepted the parts I couldn’t change. I learned patience. I learned struggle. I learned to sit with my own feelings, as hard as they were. I leaned on friends and in turn they leaned on me.

We all have different villages of support and I hope you find yours. Thank you to my village people.

Should Go: Jerks

I have a cat named S’mores. If you know me, then you know I’m a huge animal lover, have spent most my life working in animal welfare, and most of my friends (and immediate family) consider me a “crazy animal lady.” So, hear me out when I tell you this… S’mores is an absolute jerk. She’s the worst cat I’ve ever had. I believe she is a result of inbred feral genetics mixed with an inferior cattitude and, therefore, I just shake my head every day and say, “There is something not right about you, S’mores…”.

The thing about S’mores is she doesn’t try to hide the fact that she’s a jerk. She will smack the other cats while they sleep. She will sit on my recliner while I try to work, pull back the blinds to look at birds out the window, then proceed to smack me in the face aggressively with her tail as she watches them.  She doesn’t like to be told, “No, you cannot get on the counter” or “No, you cannot bring that lizard inside” and so on. She naps only on clean laundry piles and runs overtop my head at top speeds when I’m napping.

S’mores is rather proud of the fact that she’s a jerk.

And so are some of you.

It has become abundantly clear, that the world is not short on jerks. People are not short on their opinions and social media exasperates these people into thinking the world cares about their opinion and, therefore, they need to be heard. But truth is, and I’m here to tell you, we don’t need to hear them. So how do we strike a balance between, ‘Everyone is special in this world’ and ‘Please be quiet, we’ve heard enough’? Do you get what I mean though? It is not that someone isn’t important and shouldn’t exercise their freedom of speech… It’s just that not every thought you have is important and needs an announcement. At the end of the day, there are very few people who will change your mind from a post on social media. So get back to focusing on the good in your life. Post photos of your dog. Your kids. Scroll on. Focus not on being heard but being a better listener. Better yet, get out and actually do something to make the world a better place.

Year in Review: In between the bad parts of 2021, such as: My dad falling and breaking his neck and landing in the hospital; My daughter twisting her ankle and also falling and dislocating her knee, not once, but twice; and, the same daughter contracting Covid. There was plenty of good sprinkled in such as: My dad getting hearing aids (hallelujah); Catching a spot on my face early and having skin cancer removed; Both kids finding hobbies and sports they enjoyed and thrived in; My brother getting married; My daughter concluding PT on her knee last week; and I continued running and signed up for my first half marathon next month.

Looking back, I would give 2021 a 2.5-star Google review. Like every year, we have to take the good with the bad. I wish everyone a happy holiday season. May we be better humans to one another and may 2022 be a better year for everyone.

And for the love of Pete, don’t be like S’mores. She’s a cat and won’t change. But you can.

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About Life with Jess & Friends

Jessica Whitehouse, aka Jess, is a lifestyle writer and creator of Life with Jess & Friends. Her mission is to bring lighthearted humor to life situations including family, parenting, relationships, career, and all things in between. Find her on Facebook at @lifewithjessandfriends or email info@lifewithjessandfriends.com.

The post Life With Jess And Friends – 2021: A Year in Review appeared first on South Lake Tablet.