Unique parents, forever and always

Neither my mom or dad parented my siblings and me “traditionally.”
My parents themselves didn’t come from normal upbringings. Due to my grandpa being in the Navy, my mom moved around the world every three years. On top of this, my grandma on my mom’s side is 100 percent Filipino, which adds a lot of spice to all of our lives. But, neither of these stopped my mom from having some fun. She often tells me stories of living in the Philippines and swimming around small islands while thinking she was probably going to get eaten by a shark, or living in Virginia and taking her pet hamster out for its daily walk or sneaking out of the house while my grandparents had friends over to play in the snowy street outside of their Canada home.
My dad had a more “normal” childhood, though it still had its own unique qualities. To start, legend has it that my dad was diagnosed with being a genius at the ripe age of 5 years old by a psychologist who came to visit his elementary school. To add to it, as he got older, he learned guitar all on his own and learned songs by simply listening to them over and over until he could play along. 
My grandpa was also a professor at UNL and working in the dairy lab. So every week, he would bring home mint chip ice cream for my dad and his siblings. This would later ruin his fondness of mint – he thinks anything mint flavored tastes like toothpaste now.
I think that both of my parents’ interesting childhoods made them into the quirky, fun, empathetic parents they are now.
An important thing to know about my mom is that she is a 15-year-old trapped in a middle-aged woman’s body. She is energetic, sassy, and sneaky just like you’d expect a teenager to be, and it shows in her parenting. 
A prime example of this behavior is all the times she would await our arrival from school. She would hide in the small closet in our mudroom, sometimes for more than 10 minutes, simply watching. As my siblings and I would step in the front door and begin to take our shoes off, she would leap from the closet, let out some kind of scream, and scare us all. Even my older brothers would let out noises that I didn’t know were possible for young men to make. My mom would usually have her phone in hand, recording the incident. She enjoyed posting these videos to her social media for all to see. 
I couldn’t go without mentioning my mom’s infamous “hug therapy.” Basically, my mom will catch me or one of my siblings sitting on the couch or a chair, will pounce on us and proceed to hug us – most times against our will. While doing this she’ll usually offer a comforting, “Shhhh, don’t fight it. I read that this is good for you,” as we struggle to escape her grasp. This can either be a surprise or a briefly announced incident, and it’s really hard to know when it will happen. In my experience, it’s usually the latter of the two.
Going back in time a bit, I’d like to talk about my dad’s way of integrating music into our lives as babies and toddlers. 
As I mentioned before with my dad’s insane guitar skills, he’s a very musical person (even if he doesn’t think so). I especially remember when I was small, my dad would take well known songs or even make up melodies on his own to sing about little parts of our lives. If you ask any of my siblings we would all remember the song about our cat Bo drinking Drano, the “sour cream” song, and many many others.
He also likes to adopt alter egos of sorts in order to respond to my siblings and me or my mother. He had a phase where he used “little Mikey” to communicate with us. Little Mikey was simply his own hand, but placed in the shape you would use to talk if you were playing with a sock puppet. Little Mikey could really only respond with “yes” or “no” with a shake of his hand. He didn’t use this for all communication, of course, but when we would ask hard questions like, “do you know what you’re making for dinner,” or “can I come to work with you,” Little Mikey would enter the conversation.
Along with their parenting style, I think it’s key to paint a picture of what my parents’ relationship with each other is like.
There’s rarely a morning that goes by in our house that my mom doesn’t ask my dad to go to work with him. She attempts to rationalize this by saying that since she’s a nurse, she could assist when someone gets hurt, or by saying that she’s really good at directions and geography (she’s not).
She’ll start making her way to put her long johns (that she doesn’t have) on, as my dad protests her request to join him. She’ll ignore him and ask where to meet him to start the work day. He likes to respond with outlandish places. 
Just the other day he told her that she needed to go to some town in Kansas if she wanted to work with him. Then, my mom will continue to ask him questions about why they have to go so far away and what time they’ll be home. In the midst of this interaction, my dad will slip out the door with a simple “Uh huh, yep, I’ve gotta go, see you later.”
Of course this interaction is all in good humor and brings us all great laughs as we get ready for school. Every day with my parents is filled with sweet, hilarious interactions like this, and it truly makes each morning a little better.
Though my parents are far from normal, I wouldn’t have it any other way. They have raised my siblings and me to be incredible people, and they did it all through love and laughter – just as it should be. 
I will forever be grateful for the family environment I got to grow up in, and I owe everything I am today to my parents. I love them with all of my heart, forever and always.

EMMA BULLERMAN is a senior at Aurora High School and is a guest columnist. emma.bullerman@gmail. com.