Thinking Inside My Box

By Missy Hall and Rich Scott Keller

Ask authors Missy Hall and Rich Keller about parenting, and they'll emit primal screams while burying their faces in their hands. Then, they'll describe how raising children is an adventure filled with amazing, joyous, and downright confusing scenarios. Missy and Rich put some of these events into Thinking Inside My Box. 

 

Throughout this book of humorous essays, the authors delve into situations that include Christmas construction, television remotes, never-ending driving, Constitutional amendments according to teenagers, sand in womanly areas, pregnancy, fast food, and utter teen embarrassment. Readers will laugh, cry, and laugh again about the absurdities of child-rearing and the eerie similarities to their lives. If you aren't a parent, you may walk away wondering why people have children in the first place.

 

The second edition of Thinking Inside My Box features a new cover, preface, and essay by Rich Keller.

• Language: English
• Publisher: Wooden Pants Creations
• Release date: Apr 10, 2023
• ISBN: 9798215077405

Book preview

PREFACE

When I told Missy Hall I was releasing a second edition of Thinking Inside My Box her response was, Gosh, I’m forgetting what a different place I was when that book was written. You, too, right?

You betcha, sister!

In the years since the book’s initial publication, we’ve gone through a gamut of situations and emotions. At some point, Missy and I encountered divorce, marriage, health, illness, success, failure, tween angst, teen angst, early-adult angst, uncomfortable pants, and alien abduction. The last is the reason I wear an aluminum foil hat outside.

Plus, despite all the times we asked our kids to stop growing, they went ahead and did it anyway. Ingrateful whelps.

It has been a roller coaster ride for both of us. We’ve learned a lot about ourselves and our children, which made us better parents as well as people. Truth be told, our combined knowledge can solve many of the world’s problems and bring forth an era of immense peace, understanding, and prosperity.

However, we’re not going to discuss those ideas. Tough noogies.

Other than this preface and the first essay, everything you see is mostly the same as it was in 2014. Consider this edition of Thinking Inside My Box as a snapshot of simpler times. Moments when the only things we worried about as parents were Halloween candy, sex talks, misunderstandings, eye rolls, and the industrial battery complex.

In the end, after reading this new version, we hope you laugh, cry, laugh again, and construct s stylish aluminum foil hat.

MISSY’S INTRODUCTION

At some point during my pregnancy, it dawned on me that I was going to have a baby. It probably occurred between trips to the bathroom to vomit and visits to the mirror to wonder at the strange things happening to my body. But that’s another story, so let’s just begin with, She got here and ...

I fell in love immediately. There will never be a moment in life that surpasses the one when I first laid eyes and arms on my beautiful, purple, slimy baby. She was instantly my reason to live. My reason to love. My reason to recycle.

And then I realized the part she came out of needed, well, a manhole cover. As Mother Nature designed it, the very moment I wholeheartedly accepted my role as a mother, I also surrendered my role as a person with any shred of dignity in her privates. It’s been over two decades since that day, and I can tell you there is still not much to be found in regard to dignity. My body and my kid remind me of that on a daily basis.

Thinking outside the box? Let’s take an adventure back inside the box, shall we?

RICH’S INTRODUCTION

Parenting. The word means millions of things to the exhausted, grumpy caregivers out there. Not that your little tykes aren’t wonderful. Rather, you’d like them to get out of your house now that they’ve graduated with doctorates in theoretical physics.

Am I a perfect parent? Gosh, no! Is their mother a perfect parent? Absolutely, totally, without a doubt! Make sure you mention this when you see her. Yet, despite my imperfections, I feel I’ve learned things from my parental experiences that I pass on to you.

Thinking Inside My Box is for all parents, including those about to figure out how much poop and puke a newborn produces in an hour. Hint: It’s beyond comprehension.

I’d say you understand but you don’t listen to me. You never listen to me. That’s it! Go to your room ... and enjoy this modestly amusing book.

No, seriously, go to your room and stay there.

RICH – DRIVE. BYE.

Boy, I had it easy.

When this book was released in the carefree days of the early 2010s, I had one teen, a tween, and several pre-tweens. The only driving I did was to and from school and the occasional playdate/sleepover. I spent the rest of my time in the fresh air, contemplating the intricacies of life.