Meet the Parents

I've just recently gone through my last meet the parent experience with my kids. I've done it 4 times, 2 with Tim, 2 without. He didn't scare anyone off, and neither did I: a marriage resulted 3 out of those 4 times, and the 4th one is still on, fingers crossed knock on wood.

When Tim met my parents we were barely 19. We swooped in for a quick meet and greet, because something told me that would be best. I only remember a couple of things about it. First, I was nervous to the point of being compromised. I was certain Tim would end up running away, with his arms up in the air, doing jazz hands, screaming, with legs whirring so fast that when you looked at him you saw a wheel made out of feet rotating instead of legs. (I watched a lot of Saturday Morning Cartoons as a kid.)

I remember on the Meeting Day, walking hand in hand into the house, the TV being on, and thinking: YES! There will be no stories about me telling the home teachers that my mom was making beer under my bed. (it was root beer, I was 4, and you're right, it's not that good of a story but my mom loves to tell it to anyone who will listen. If she were here right now and you were here right now she'd tell you the beer under the bed story.)

Things were going OK and I hear my dad come in from working outside in the yard. I hear him splashing around in the bathroom and hear his closet door open and shut, and I assume he's changing out of his gardening duds. Pretty soon he comes charging out of his bedroom in this:

Dad, are you kidding me? Out of your whole closet you choose the jumpsuit? Was it because this happened to be dirty?

Or was it because you wore this already that week?

Did you even consider perhaps coming out to meet my soul mate in this Dad?

Or perhaps you could have found this in that closet of yours:

I looked over at Tim and I swear, I SWEAR I saw him take a little swallow and suck in a little more air.

I look back on it now, and I just love thinking about my dad in that gold jumpsuit, meeting my man for the first time. I wish Dad still had that jumpsuit, and wore it to watch the news at 12, 6, and 10 every day. I wish he wore it while sitting in his lazy boy reading his beloved Deseret News and I wish that whenever I visited him, I would see him bound out of his bedroom zipping that thing up to his chin just like he did that day. Why is it that when something happens that we perceive to be embarrassing, with time it just becomes endearing? Especially with our parents? I just love those two men, those two most important men in my life. The Jumpsuit, the Swallowing, all of it.

And to my kids, if I embarrassed you at all on meet the parents day, and I'm sure that I did, please know that I'm sorry and just remember, that someday, with time, all wounds will most likely dissipate and become a friend.