Peeling out of the Driveway

Zero to sixty in under five seconds.  That pretty much sums up my parenting life these days. I close my eyes, grip the wheel, say a prayer, and hope for the best.  Hackie in the (mother)Hood was conceived (much like my children) without much forethought. Eight years into a "breakfast reading" freelancing gig with the Burlington Free Press, the call came.  My column was to be the next casualty of Gannett's belt-tightening measures. Having spent the better part of my parenting years publicly waxing poetic about the journey from toddlers to teens, I couldn't quite imagine an abrupt end to this long, strange trip that has seen my own life evolve from happily married mother-of-three to divorced mom flying by the seat of her pants. Hackie in the (mother)Hood is my effort to make sure that the rest of the story gets recorded.  The real fun is just beginning.

For those of you with a Vermont connection, I’m a huge Jernigan Pontiac fan, the original story-telling "Hackie" from BTV who writes regularly for Seven Days. Jernigan recounts tales from the driver's side of his cab - sometimes as voyeur and sometimes as active participant. Although I would not be so ridiculous as to pretend that I'm always in the driver's seat in this parenting game, I do have a pretty good view of the chaos (and occasionally contribute to it). While Jernigan's cast of characters is ever-evolving and frequently inebriated,  my cast of characters is stagnant, and my goal is to keep them sober. My passengers would likely get kicked out of most cabs. They are often loud and can't stop touching each other.  They're always eating and spilling food.  Sometimes they smell awful (and their friends do too), and they always have more junk than you can stuff into the trunk. They never pay me, rarely thank me, and regularly annoy me with their endless antics and atrocious actions. I'm confident that the storyline unfolding on any given day in my kitchen provides more fodder for entertainment than you can squeeze into a taxi cab any day. It only seems logical to begin with a story from the road...