All posts by Jackie Pick

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About Jackie Pick

Jackie Pick is a former teacher and current writer living in the Chicago area. She is a contributing author to multiple anthologies, including Multiples Illuminated, So Glad They Told Me: Women Get Real about Motherhood, Here in the Middle, as well as the and the literary magazines The Sun and Selfish. She received Honorable Mention from the Mark Twain House and Museum for her entry in the Royal Nonesuch Humor Writing Competition. Jackie is a contributing writer at Humor Outcasts, and her essays have been featured on various online sites including McSweeney's, Belladonna Comedy, Mamalode, The HerStories Project, and Scary Mommy. A graduate of the University of Chicago and Northwestern University, Jackie is co-creator and co-writer of the award-winning short film Fixed Up, and a proud member of the 2017 Chicago cast of Listen To Your Mother.

Use Two Hands

“Use two hands,” I used to say. I don’t have to say it often anymore. She knows when to use two hands. For hugs, for spreading open to the world, for twirling, for riding her two-wheeler.

Two hands to paint bold masterpieces of my heart, and, in measured time, two hands to hold her work back so as to cast a critical eye. Two hands to add a dab, a spot, a splosh.

Two hands hold onto mine because she wants to dance and for her, dancing is largely variations on Ring Around the Rosie.

Continue reading Use Two Hands

Introductions

The kids narrowed it down to each of their personal favorites.

Obsidian

Kuiper (as in Kuiper Belt, pronounced “KIE-Per”)

Astro

My kids are science nerds.

The entire family expressed their displeasure with my suggestions of Loki, Darth, and Ziggy, and even quicker to express their disdain over my suggestion of Matt Damon.

My husband suggested Angus. I was onboard. The kids, because they are nine and five, said it was bad because “Angus” sounds too much like “Anus”

They were protesting too much to hear me mutter all the things “Astro” sounds like.

Continue reading Introductions

March Month in Review — QED and Amen

I’m not a huge fan of pranks. Never have been. I find them to largely be mean-spirited, intended to humiliate.

No, I’m not fun at parties and I will not lighten up. You know who else is not fun at parties? Batman. You know who is probably fun at parties? The Wonder Twins.

QED and amen.

Anyway.

Here, the big April Fools’ Joke is that the jokes in my house were pretty terrible because all pranks were largely driven by my kids. They gave themselves the giggles by covering up the last “ps” on the package of Peeps. Hilarious.

To get into the spirit of things and not be permanently labeled “The Parent Where Fun Goes to Die,”  Continue reading March Month in Review — QED and Amen