Super heritage...

Tell ya what, all this time, I thought I was just a plain Jane tomboy with no extraordinary family history or trivia to speak of.

But I was so wrong.

Did you know, my mother is a super hero?

Yes, it’s true. Super. Hero. Or, well, heroine.

She hides it very well. I’ve known her for all of my 25—whoops, 26—years and never fully recognized the Super(wo)man behind the Clark Kent glasses until just recently.

I’m sure many of you have taken pity on her when you’ve considered the time crunch we gave her to plan her—I mean, umm, my (yeah… right)—dream wedding. I think it came out to something short of two months. And she’s done a splendid job of bringing things together. She might be an exception to the “You can’t have your cake and eat it, too” rule, as she’s avoided making any real sacrifices, despite having very little time and, in some cases, seriously slim pickings. Seems like every day she’s multi-tasking her way through invitations or dinner details or programs or table decorations or flowers or… well, any other number of strange and somewhat surprising things that go into a wedding.

(You can perhaps tell I keep a safe distance away from the thick of the action, if not in my ignorance, then in my laissez-faire attitude about the whole fancy-schmancy part of things. Perhaps to my own shame and mother’s mixed delight and stress.)

But what you don’t know, and what you will certainly pity her for now, is that she’s got a few other irons in the fire.

For example, our dog is sick. Really sick. This might not seem like a big deal, but when you consider how much this family loves its dogs, you might reevaluate. She’s constantly in and out of the local vet and has driven the two hours to Champaign, to the U of I vet school, countless times.

She’s also managed to keep up with our precious Illini basketball team, as her and dad have season tickets and never miss a game. Real Illini basketball fanliness takes up considerable time—what, with keeping up on the Tupper blogs and any Illini buzz—not to mention energy. I can’t imagine the emotional toll it takes to stand in front of my parents’ orange-drenched closet every day and decide which shirt will be lucky enough to push the fellas to a win that day. She carries the burden well.

Oh, and then there’s this tiny thing my parents have going on the side. And by that I mean, a total overhaul of our kitchen. Yup. They gutted our kitchen this week. We have no cabinets. No stove. No sink. No anything. Just one big open space where our kitchen used to be. What remains of it is piled on the air hockey table downstairs. The thing is supposed to be finished the week before the wedding. Until then, it’s complete chaos as we try to survive with things in such disarray.

It’s pretty sweet, having a super hero in the family. But it’s certainly hard to measure up.

I guess it’s kind of pathetic, isn’t it, that I can’t keep up with my own mother? Sigh.