Modern Family

It was this week, 11-years-ago, that I was waiting to either become the breakout  star of my own show on TLC called Pregnant and Obese, or give birth to my first and only child. 

Luckily, it was the latter. 

It had felt like years  since I'd found out Baby Sanderson, or BS, was on his or her way. All the way back to  Inauguration Day, 2009. Barack Obama was being sworn in later that morning and it was all over the television. Historic in every sense of the word, Tuesday, January 20th, 2009 was a day like we had never seen. But none of that mattered because I  would never be able to leave the bathroom long enough to experience any of it. 

Certain I had been given some Biblical flu by a kid at school, I felt I was surely days from death. Every night for the last 2-weeks I had been in bed, asleep by 6PM. I was a tired I had never known, my whole body hurt and I was one vomit session  away from fitting back into some pink suede pants I purchased in Chicago 5-years earlier.

On a lark that morning, I took what was probably an expired pregnancy test. Clearly as a Clear Blue, the United States  was getting its first President of color and I was getting my first baby. 

As he was being sworn in and everyone was dying over the Obama girls in their beautiful J. Crew coats, I was on the phone with my new first lady, my OB/GYN wailing in disbelief that I was, in fact, pregnant. It was just a real big day for all of us. 

Over-the-phone and as antiseptic as it sounds, the nurse at my OB/GYN office had given me the arbitrary date of September 21st, 2009 as my due date. And what she didn't know at that time was that I heard that date as a deadline and was prepared  to stick to it  like  gospel truth.  I am very deadline driven. Unless it is in regard to publishing this blog. Then it is just willy nilly. 

From there, months passed like years. Until July, when I found myself in the hospital having contractions. This baby was playing fast and loose with deadlines and trying to come early. Too early. And after 2-weeks of Labor and Delivery trial runs, I was put on bedrest. Which, if you have ever been on bedrest, is not as glamorous as it sounds. What I thought was going to be vacation-esque was more like the movie Misery. 

House and bed bound like the Grandparents from Willy Wonka, I was living my days out in slow motion. I had strict instructions to do little besides lie around and wait. No driving, no standing, no social life,  no fun. At one point, the doctor  told me I could alternate daily between washing my hair and shaving my legs because I couldn't cross my body's midline in the same shower session. It was everything you dream about as a little girl. 

So, I spent my days surrounded by books, magazines, a laptop and 2 beagles who were living their best lives getting fat and sleeping all day because that is all the 3 of us could do. Hand to God, we had to get dog stairs. The dogs got so fat that I couldn't help lift them onto our bed and with JD still going to work every day (like some kind of selfish monster), I had to get them dog stairs so they could get back in bed after their 900th  meals of the day. 

At long last, September arrived and I was ready. I had 21 days in September to get prepared and by September 2nd, 2009, my hospital bag was packed. Now, we waited. There are several early September Sanderson birthdays and since I didn't want my baby to share a birthday with immediate family, I spent those days trying extra hard not to deliver. September 11th was up next and I didn't think I could handle those emotions with that of a the birth of a child, so I crossed my (unshaven) legs while I watched  a Law and Order; SVU  marathons on USA. 

(Cue the "dun dun" of Law and Order...) It was September 21st and I awoke ready to deliver my baby like they had advised me back in January. 

I had moved downstairs, closer to the car, or the nearer the door the ambulance drivers could easily access should I need assistance. Literally waiting by the door like a dog who was promised a ride in the car. Waiting. JD whiled away the hours at work and not at all stressed that by 3 PM, I still had not even so much as passed gas, let alone contracted my uterus. Sensing my frustration, I mean, how could he not, he tried to remind me that babies come when they are ready. And lovingly, using my least demonic voice, I reminded him that I was promised September 21st and it was time to go. But the day grew longer and after the 3rd call to my OB/GYN to remind her it was September 21st, I resolved myself to the fact that it was not the day.  

Dun Dun. It was Tuesday, September 22nd and I was weighing the pros and cons of having a baby on a Tuesday. It isn't my favorite day of the week. It's not Monday, but it is still too close to the beginning of the week. But it was Law and Order; SVU marathon day and maybe that counted for something. I had moved back upstairs to watch and as I voluntarily devoured a show based on every mother's worst nightmares, I saw an ad for a new show called Modern Family.  Debuting this week, it was the funniest thing I had ever seen. I found the teaser online and sent it to JD and we both watched it no less than a million times. Better yet, it was airing the next night, Wednesday, so finally we didn't have to wait eons for something. 

I was telling my OB/GYN about this incredible new show later that day at my appointment. Finally, something to look forward to. Outside of a new life, obviously. Completely unphased by my news, she had some of her own; I had excelled at bed rest so well, the child that tried to come 2-months early was now showing no signs of evacuation. Therefore, she felt it was best to induce me which they would do the following night, Wednesday. 

But that is Modern Family night. 

Had she not heard me explain this new show line-for-line while she was examining me? Instructions to begin calling the hospital at 5PM the following night were met with sad eyes at the potential that I might miss the debut of what was going to be my newfound favorite show. I knew my life would change drastically when I became a mother, but this kid had learned nothing of my love for TV during our time on bedrest. 

Dun Dun. It was Wednesday. Possibly the day my child would be born and definitely the day Modern Family  was debuting. I had been advised not to eat after 1PM that day, so like a prisoner on death row, I planned my last meal with precision. I went full on biscuits and gravy from Lynn's Paradise Cafe and to this day, it is a decision I do not regret. I returned home to wait until 5PM when I could begin calling the hospital to see if they had a bed ready and get admitted. I needed that 5 spot to work so that I could get in and get settled to watch MF later that evening. If they couldn't give me 9/21, they were going to have to give me 5 o'clock. 

Except they didn't. 

In a weird twist, it turns out, I was not the only woman in Louisville, Kentucky ready and waiting to deliver a baby on 9/23 at or around 5PM. "Call back at 7." But... ok. My stomach sank which was either my hormonal depression or the biscuits and gravy. Whatever it was, when I called at 7, they had a bed and it was mine. 

We arrived at the hospital and began the preparation to have a baby and possibly rocket to the moon. Hooked to every wire in the building, I was either being monitored by Homeland Security or strapped to a bomb. I loved it. Every ounce of me was being poured over by medical professionals and I felt the safest I maybe ever have. Only all this monitoring was taking time... precious time. That clock was ticking closer to 8 and I was starting to panic that I was going to miss the MF debut... which the nurse picked up on. "Wow, your heart rate is really racing. Do you feel ok?" And the smart thing to do would have been to shut up.  But if you read this blog long enough, you will know, I very rarely do the smart thing. I began to tell her all about MF and how it was on at 8 and how much I wanted to just enjoy it and laugh before things got super serious with the baby. She looked me dead in my eyes/soul and said "You are at the hospital to deliver a baby. Things have reached level serious." 

Cool. Cool. Cool. 

Epidurals and ice chips later, I had missed it. But in a cruel twist of fate, the entire room was empty just in time for the debut of Cougar Town. 

(Dun Dun) Now it is Thursday and I was sure it was the day. Probably because the doctors, nurses and our insurance company had all advised me as such. The day wore on and I just wanted to have a baby and watch MF.  I will spare you the gruesome details because even some things are too dark for the Internet, but at 4:51 PM on Thursday, September 24th, 2009, the Sweetest Bee was born.

And in celebration, I began to vomit like I was getting paid to. 

Not even if I had delivered on a high altitude cruise ship with a carbon monoxide leak that only served gas station sushi and Copenhagen cased in spoiled milk could I have been more ill. Ugh, bless, I can still feel that phantom nausea. I had gotten an epidural that had quickly worn off and when they went to administer the booster, they told me I might get a little nauseous. A little. Not epic or world record setting, but a little. As they had wheeled me into the operating room, the precious anesthesiologist had realized his mistake. He leaned down and said "You get through this part and I will make it worth your while." He had. In another plot twist, things were now moving VERY fast and next thing I knew they were shouting "It's a Girl!" JD brought her over to me and I uttered the first words I would ever speak to my daughter. They whisked her away and I uttered the last words I would speak to my anesthesiologist "I'm going to be sick..." He said "I promised you the good stuff" as he slapped a nausea patch on me and pumped me full of the same dose of phenergan I would assume they give an elephant with alcohol poisoning. 

(Dun Dun) It was Friday. The most beautiful Friday in the history of mankind. The sun was shining, fall and hit and I was finally done being pregnant. Visitors had come and gone, we had napped and been checked out and in all the chaos of the last 36-hours, it was calm. 

Until I decided to get dressed in real clothes. 

Nothing I brough fit. And I mean NOTHING. Which was not the hiccup I needed at this juncture. I had been bedridden, alternatingly unshaven with greasy hair, bloated, missing shows and sawed in half like a magic trick. I needed clothes that fit. And with the confidence of a bank teller being told to fill a bag with money at gunpoint, JD offered to go buy some new things for me. 

He returned with bags of new sizes, some tacos (because he is perfect) and his laptop. He pulled that half recliner/half waterboarding table chair in the hospital room as close as he could to the bed. I offered for him to pile in with me, but he declined. And, like the gentleman he is, he never told me it was because I looked like a beached whale Greenpeace had tagged splayed out on that bed. He picnicked out the tacos and cued up the laptop to Modern Family. OMG. Dreams do come true. A new baby, pants that now fit, tacos and the inaugural episode of Modern Family. We laughed. We laughed so hard, we had to buzz the nurse to check my stitches. No kidding. And from that point on, when people came to visit us, we would say, "Yeah, yeah, yeah. She's really something. But have you seen Modern Family?"

Flash forward to 2020. A global pandemic and lockdown and while it seemed like the whole world was ending, so was Modern Family. We had only grown to love it more. And as we navigated life as parents, we died laughing on Wednesday nights watching our favorite families work through perfectly scripted parenting scenarios. We had fallen off of it at times but now that it was ending, I found myself flooded with emotions. I was taken back to that day in the hospital when we began our own little modern family. I never dreamed that day  looking at Bee and JD, that it would only ever be us three. The same people in the room that day, the people I didn't think I could love any more, are still the same people I see every day and cannot believe I continue to love more each and every day. We laid in bed that Wednesday night and watched the very last episode of a show that began the same time as our family. We had also been a family for 10-years and where they were leaving us, we were moving on. 

Maybe. We were still sorting out all the COVID information. The world could have ended right after the last episode of MF for all we knew. 

It's silly, but for me, it was a quantifiable memory. And as she is 11 this week, I am astounded at how many more memories I am able to quantify now. Not just TV based, but come on, that is kind of my jam. 

This Thursday, we will celebrate our favorite Thursday and our favorite person. Eleven-years-ago feels like eons and minutes at the same time. We are so blessed, so lucky and so proud of our person and look forward to celebrating her this week. 

Hopefully with large pants and tacos. 

Because nothing says "You're pregnant, you idiot" like $85 in pregnancy tests. 

                                                

Ready to check-in and watch TV like it was a vacation. 

Felt cute. Might delete later. 

"Ok, one more, but then I have to puke."

I remember taking this picture to remember how big my feet were. 

These are the "big pants" JD had to go get me. 

I still wear them to this day. 

Worth It. 

Totally. 

McRoommate

All the kiddos I know that went to college as freshmen this August are currently home. It has been great catching up with them about rush, dorm life and finding out exactly how they all got COVID. 

 

In all this 6-foot catching up, it got me reminiscing on my college days.  The truth is, I really didn’t love college all that much. And given the chance, I would go back and do almost everything differently. Yes, I know that would alter the course of my whole life.  

I saw The Butterfly Effectwith Ashton Kutcher. 

 

I could regale you with stories about bad decisions I made in and about college (is that a book I should be working on?) but today, I will tell you the scariest tale of them all…. 

 

The roommate. 

 

After deciding to go to the University of Wyoming literally hours before the enrollment cut-off, I made another brave decision and decided to NOT room with anyone I knew. Look at Kollege Katie; throwing caution to the wind. 

 

Someone should have warned Kollege Katie that the devil you know is better than the one you don’t. 

 

In this most unfortunate lottery, I drew a girl from a REAL hick town in Wyoming. Let’s call her… Mary. I cannot even imagine a world where Mary would look me up on the Internet (or Internets as she probably calls it) to try to locate me, much less read this blog. 

 

Mary from Hicksville, Wyoming was my roommate. At first, I was excited. We would be best friends forever! We would bunk our beds and pull all nighters together. She would drink coffee and I would drink tea, but somehow, we would make it work. 

 

We first spoke on the phone about a month before we were supposed to move in. She called me at home and I almost died of excitement. I had written a literal list of questions to ask her because that is what all super chill, not psycho new roommates do. 

 

My mom called me to the phone after her full-blown interrogation and I took a deep breath, ready to meet my new, lifelong best friend. 

 

“Hi Mary, it’s Katie. I am SO excited to meet you!”  I paused to let that sink in as the first words her best friend for life would ever speak to her….

 

“Hey.” 

 

I’m sorry, what?  Hey? And it was spoken in either an octave only dogs can hear or she was a mouse. Great, I was going to college and rooming with the female Stuart Little. 

 

“Oh, hey. Are you there? It sounds like you cut out a little.” 

 

Teed that up for her like any best friend would….

 

“No. It’s fine.” 

 

Cool, cool, cool.  You know what is not fine? This conversation.

 

I went on to completely overtake the conversation. Maybe she was worn out from talking to my Mom for so long. There is something about very Southern people living among the people of Wyoming: it’s awful. Wyoming persons are slow and quiet. Southern people are not. It’s not the adorable Odd Couple.

 

But, trying to overcompensate, as I would clearly be the Bette Midler to her Barbara Hershey, I took over and began asking my lengthy list of questions. 

 

All one-word answers. 

 

Until I got to  “Do you think you will go through rush?”

 

She paused, I assumed to get SUPER jazzed about us being roomies and sorority sisters….

 

“What’s that?”

 

Oh, come on. I cannot carry this whole friendship. 

 

We ended what I guess technically was a conversation, but sure didn’t feel like one. I went sobbing to my Mom to tell her I had gotten a FULL blown dud. Normally, this is where my Mom would say that it was me being silly, that surely we would be better in person, blah blah, but no. She said none of that. She said. “Kates, I got the same feeling.” 

 

Ok.

 

I had about a month to tell myself maybe she wasn’t a phone person or maybe she was shy. Nevertheless, I kept the arrangement and proceeded to move in in early August where we could meet face-to-face and sort this whole thing out. What a laugh we would get out of this later.

 

Arrival day in Laramie and, not to brag, but I was now living in the tallest building in Wyoming. All 12 floors. We were on the 10^thfloor and to this day my Dad will gladly tell you what a pain in the tail that was.  My parents and I were in the room setting up as much as we could, since I didn’t know how Mary would want to arrange our penthouse palace when in she walked….

 

What the….?

 

Hell no. 

 

She wasn’t a hick at all. No overalls or straw cowboy hat. No big ass barrel racing belt buckle. No corncob pipe or plaid shirt. 

 

She was a Princess. 

 

A for real life princess. 

 

Mary brought in all her pageant trophies. She had won everything in Hickville and nowhere else. County Queen, Rotary Queen, Queen of Corn. Cream of Corn. She had won them all. Mary also brought  in not one thing that wasn’t pink.  She brought in an ENTIRE moving box full of nail polish and manicure supplies. Mary had SILK sheets and pillowcases, some Laura Ashley/Jackson Pollock fever dream comforter and her BABY BLANKET that she called Softie. First of all, shut up. No one brings their baby blanket to college. Secondly, she was quick to tell me it was spelled “Sawftee” because she couldn’t say “Softie” when she was little. Wasn’t that funny? 

 

No. Not in any universe is that funny. Not even if you were a fat toddler dressed like Chris Farley telling me this story. That is not now and will never be funny. Under the common definition that you an I both know to mean “Funny.” 

 

She unpacked make-up in a caboodle (before they were retro and when they were just sad), tapes and CD’s that were basically just a list of “All the Artists past and present Katie Thomas hates,” and more Ramen than you should be allowed to buy without having to present a government issued ID. But what she unpacked last of all was the worst. 

 

Hot rollers. 

 

Mary, was a hot roller. 

 

Now listen, I love big hair as much as the next girl, but this was TOO much. Welp, this was Kollege Katie and her fancy pants princess roommate. 

 

From there, it got weirder and worse. 

 

Mary had a whole bedtime routine; like my Gran did at the time. Shower with a shower cap, buff, sparkle and shine her nails EVERY night. No lie, those digits got a fresh coat of paint on the regular. She applied face masks and hair treatments each night. When she didn’t fully chemically treat her hair, she hot rolled it, pinned it and slept in a special cap for hot rolled pin curls. Like Little House on the Damn Prairie. She was in her full robe at 7:00PM after her shower that lasted at least 45-minutes.  Name one person who took a 45-minute shower in college that WASN’T trying to sober up before their parents arrived. NO ONE.

 

Mary didn’t drink. Which is fine, but when I put the rest of a 6-pack in the fridge, she didn’t love it. She kept her face masks in the fridge, but I couldn’t keep 3 Bud Light’s. 

 

Mary woke at the CRACK of dawn (like everyone in college, right?) and power walked the quad. I have been and always will be a big fan of the power walk. But Mary did it in full grey sweats on top and bottom with white tennis shoes and ankle weights. She was about 5’9 and might have weighed 115 soaking wet, but she had to get that walk in  daily. In what I assumed were prison issued sweats and tennis shoes. OMG; had Mary been to Hickville Prison?  Probably. And probably for her aerosol crimes against the environment.  Mary was a BIG Aussie hairspray fan. 

 

She also loved Pantene. So much, that she spared NO drop. When one bottle was empty, she would turn it upside down and leave it to fall so she could get every ounce of that glue coated goodness. At about December, she left one like that over the holiday. We came back in January to a pile of congealed Pantene. When I mentioned it to her, she said,  “Oh, I’ll get it later.” But later never came. And I never cleaned it up. I just lived with it out of spite. To this day you cannot convince me that isn’t the reason I have sometimes asthma. 

 

Mary didn’t like much. She didn’t like Friendsor The Real World.She liked shows like Touched by an Angel  and Highway to Heaven that could only be found on our campus TV channel that had to air only non-offensive and/or student produced material.  She HATED music. Well, except her music. Which if you read and like this blog, I think would agree is not music.  Mary did love to cook. In a dorm room. She existed on Ramen and diet tab, which I still assume was decades old because has tab even been around since the 70’s? And wasn’t all tab diet? Mary did love to “treat” herself and make tacos and s’mores on the hot plate. Yes, at the same time. She loved to read and what she read was trashy romance novels. But when I had to read The Bell Jar  again for a Women’s Studies Class, she asked me if I felt like the university was putting “sinful ideas in my head.” 

 

Which made it all clear: Mary was a prude. 

 

Until a month after school had started and her boyfriend moved in. Thankfully, not into our dorm. Frankly, it was a little crowded with me, Mary, Softie, all the stuffed animals she had ever been gifted or won at a state fair and her hot rollers. 

 

He had his own room. 

 

Because he had been a last minute transfer to play soccer, he had gotten a single room. And frankly, to this day, I could kiss him on the mouth for that. 

 

Let’s call him Ryan. 

 

Ryan was here to save the day and suddenly, Mary wasn’t . She was FULL BLOWN shacked up with Ryan in his single dorm. All that was left was me, her least favorite stuffed animals and the Pantene glob.

 

And where I thought it would be quiet, it was, but it was also SO much better. There had been no way I could have lived an entire semester there with her. Let’s be honest; I almost killed her  the weekend Princess Diana died and I cancelled everything in my whole life to watch days of her funeral. “Are you going to watch this all day?” 

 

Her funeral or yours, Mary. Make a choice. 

 

Mary came back occasionally for supplies; more cans of hairspray, additional Pantene products and more nail polish remover. Her mom would send her HUGE care packages once a month filled with what I assumed were the products of her robbing a Sally Beauty Supply for Mary. She would float in, grab a few things and then leave. 

 

Thankfully, I made some good friends and a best friend that year. My best friend lived on the 6^thfloor where I lived on 10. The first time she took me to her room, I was floored. They had bunked their beds, set up a cute desk area, they had made a makeshift “kitchen” where no one cooked tacos or s’mores on a hot plate.  These two were sharing clothes and pinning inspirational quotes on the mirror for each other and they were really becoming best friends. 

 

No. THIS is what I had signed-up for. 

 

Even further insult to injury, they hadn’t known each other when they moved in. 

 

I resolved myself to living single the rest of the year and it was ok… Mary eventually asked me to “cover for her” with her “Ma” because she thought Mary might be spending the night with Ryan. 

Uh, Ma, is it? If Mary isn’t pregnant with Ryan’s baby by the end-of-the-semester, it will be a Maybelline Miracle. 

 

Mary and Ryan did have a short break-up  around February. I showed up one day after class and found her, in her sleep mask, lying on the bed sobbing and listening to Enya. Remember Enya? Exactly. She told me everything which was surprising and uncomfortable. She asked me for a hug, which if she had taken the time to get to know me, she would know I hate. I knew I would regret it, but I asked if she wanted to talk about what lead to the break-up.  If I am lying, I am dying, she told me through her tear stained face that it was because he didn’t want to name a daughter McKaylie. 

 

No one does, Mary. No one. Not even your perfect Ryan. 

 

But, it tracked. And for days I got to live with Sad Mary. She actually took a few days off from hot rollers and nail painting and looked sort of age appropriate for 1998. 

 

As soon as it was off, it was on again. He had come around on McKaylie. And I had to take back all the terrible things I had said about him. And the name McKaylie. And to show they were stronger than ever, she cooked for him. She made tacos and s’mores on our hotplate; which I assume was to get back at me for hating on the name McKaylie so hard. Do not ever ask me if I want a s’more. Unless you want to see PTSDKT. 

 

That night, Ryan spent the night in our room. Which meant lights out at 10 and then falling asleep to the 32 things they liked most about each other. Why 32 you ask? Because they had been together 32-months, obviously.  I slipped down to my friends on the 6^thfloor because there was no way I was going to get past #4 or 5 without committing a hate crime. 

 

I hadn’t gotten the roommate situation I had wanted. What I got was “Holy crap! Does that girl have hot rolled hair?” Yeah, that’s my roommate. She starts with the larger rollers on the outside and works her way down to the smaller… she doesn’t use the very little ones… OMG WHAT AM I SAYING?!?!? All my dreams of a lifelong best friend roommate had been removed like Mary’s yesterday nail polish. 

 

 

Truthfully, the whole year had been a bust and I decided to transfer. Mary found me in our/my room one day and asked about my plans for next year. I told her I was transferring and wished her the best. She said, “I’m really gonna miss you.” 

 

WHAT. 

 

Miss what? The tacos and s’mores we never shared? All the crap I watch on TV? My straight, refusing to hot roll hair? What are you going to miss, Mare Bear?  The nickname I never got to give her… 

 

I like to think that she and Ryan got married and are living in Hickville, Wyoming. She, a teacher at a cult school and him coaching soccer for  blind dogs. They live in a little house painted Barbie pink and have 4 girls named MyKennifer, McKacey, McKaphanie and, of course, McKaylie. 

 

I gave it the old college try. I did. And it failed. But Mary taught me a lot about life, living with people that aren’t my family and personal grooming. What I didn’t learn, was from my mistakes. 

 

Because I transferred across the country and did it all over again. 

 

But that is another roommate for another day.