Flying Solo

Due to events that are beyond my control, I'm flying solo to My Little Brother's wedding.

He and his Fantastic Fiancé have decided to get married in a church.

Not just any church. Like, if it was A Little White Chapel, in Vegas, my family would be more likely to make more of an effort swing that...maybe.

Alas, My Little Brother and his Fantastic Fiancé are getting married on Saturday in Phoenix, in the Coptic Orthodox Church of Alexandria. My future sister-in-law is an Egyptian immigrant. She and her family moved to America when she was about five years old.

And the ceremony is gonna be at least an hour.

By way of comparison, Vegas weddings are like 5-15 minutes, depending on the Chapel. When I worked at the Treasure Island Hotel and Casino's Wedding Chapel, the longer versions of the ceremonies were 15 minutes.

Yes. Yes, I was a professional Wedding Coordinator on the Strip. It was before grad school. I can tell you that not everyone is happy on their wedding day. So, being a Wedding Coordinator is actually part of the reason I went to grad school. My 9-month stint in Corporate America enhanced my record-keeping skills, and as a mom of a child with special needs, those skills are employed frequently.

My children are not church trained.

Circus trained? Yes.

Church trained? No.

And neither my husband or I have any desire to church train our children.

I certainly planned on taking them...My Little Brother's wedding...after all this is a once in lifetime event...and my kids worship their Uncle...and #JesusKnows in my family, with the myriad health issues that plague us, we certainly need to party and celebrate whenever we are given the opportunity.

Well-meaning friends who attend various church services said that most churches have a family room...? Like I could take my kids if they started acting like the monkeys that they are...?

Nope. Not happening. But thank you, well-meaning friends, for the suggestion.

When people who are autistic are taken out of their comfort zone, and expected to be on their best behavior inside of a place where they've never been in...a church for a minimum of an hour...and let's face it, it'll be more like several hours because pictures...there will be no chilling.

I hate to think of the discomfort and stress my older son would have...the increased case of the giggles...the increased chance of him wetting his pants. Not to mention the different shades of red my husband's beautifully bald head will turn trying to manage his own frustration and subsequent anger with the entire situation...no, thank you.

As parents, our primary job is to set our kids up for successful experiences. Yes, our kids need to fail every so often. But I'm not hauling my monkeys all the way from the North Olympic Peninsula down to Phoenix and expect them to sit quietly and not interrupt their Uncle's wedding...when they are hungover from traveling like they never have before in their entire lives...all in heat and sun they are not at all accustomed to...and, let's be honest, when it's 85 goddamn degrees outside, would you want to sit in a church with a fancy outfit on? No. You'd want your ass in the pool. With SPF 20 Million. Because my family of Pacific North Westerners have pasty white skin...and as a cancer survivor...SPF 20 Million is required, yo.

When My Little Brother and his Fantastic Fiancé came up to visit us in July, which was the second time inside of ten months, they graciously told my husband and I that if we needed to not go to their wedding, they totally support us and our parenting decisions.

Due to life circumstances, My Little Brother is the only person from my family that came to help me, my husband, and our boys when I was going through breast cancer treatments in the summer of 2015.

My mom's brain health is declining; dementia is a bitch. And the way my parents tend to cope with life-altering health issues is to not address it. Denial is a powerful coping mechanism for them.

And I get it.

But I don't.

Because if I didn't speak up when my son was three and having these weird eye movements, who knows what would've happened. Turned out he has epilepsy.

And had I chosen to not speak up when I found a lump in my breast in February 2015, I'd probably be dead. Cancer sucks.

Had I not pushed my husband to persevere through his own battle with HPV-caused tonsil cancer in the summer of 2016...we'll he'd probably be dead...and my kids would be orphans...because that's just how life shakes out for some families...and that totally sucks.

My point is, I choose to parent my family very differently than my parents parented me. (Is it socially acceptable to use three different forms of "parent" in one sentence?) It's not good or bad. It just is what it is.

And, for those of us who are parents, we know our kids better than anyone. My Little Brother and his Fantastic Fiancé know my kids pretty well. My parents, on the other hand, have no idea who my kids are...they have never seen me parent my children...the last time my parents were in Washington State, my older son was 10 months old; he is now 13 years old and in 7th grade. They've never even met my younger son, who is 10-1/2 years old and in 10th grade.

I know that this past springtime I said I was gonna train my monkeys to get on a plane, however, plans change...and ours sure did. Honestly, part of me says there's no fucking way I'm gonna haul my kids all the way the hell down to Arizona and back to Washington State at any time because my parents have put forth zero effort to get to know my kids. So, they don't deserve to spend time my kids, especially during the school year. And regardless of when you travel, traveling is expensive.

So, the best decision my husband and I made was for him to stay home with the boys, while I fly solo to Phoenix. Do I wish they were with me? Kinda. I'm not gonna lie, I'm thankful for the much needed break. Do I wish things were different. Of course I do. But I can't change it...so why waste time and energy on things you can't change?

The bottom line, My Little Brother loves his Fantastic Fiancé so much that he's willing to learn about the religion she was raised with and get married in that particular church. And my husband and my kids love My Little Brother so much that the best choice is for the Male Andersons to stay home.