Ten Reasons Why My Mom Rocks

Even though she'll probably never read this blog, I think it's appropriate to give a shout-out to my mom.

1. She's the most well-read person I know.

2. She won't take crap from anybody. I suspect that used car salesmen and telemarketers all over the state have her photo in their "to be avoided" files.

3. Though she is extremely un-sentimental, she is kind. Once she took all of us kids trick-or-treating at the Family & Children's Services office (there was a reason), and on the way home we passed a boy, maybe 14 years old, selling papers on the street. My mom pulled over and handed him the handful of candy we'd given to her and told him Happy Halloween, because she felt bad that he was just a kid and had to sell papers instead of going trick-or-treating. One day one summer, a drifter-type guy was sitting across the street from our house. I don't know if he was hitch-hiking or what, but she took him a glass of ice water.

4. She (along with my dad, of course) was a foster parent for years. I don't know how many kids they fostered over the years, but they started when I was four and continued to take in children until my sophomore year in high school. People often ask me if it was strange to grow up in a house with ever-changing siblings. Maybe, but it wasn't strange to me...it just was the way things were at my house. There were only two things that my sister and I got that the foster kids didn't get. We went on one one-week vacation a year, just the four of us, and we went to Catholic school while they went to public school. Other than that, everything was fair. We got the same movie-renting privileges, the same amount of books from the library, the same number of Christmas presents. She may not have been a sappy Hallmark-movie foster mom, but she was a damn good one. (This is also why we went trick-or-treating at Family and Children's Services in addition to our own neighborhood...the case-workers liked to see all their case kids dressed up, and they'd put candy bowls out on their desks in the cube farm every year.)

5. She raised my sister and me to be competent, confident, capable women, and to believe that girls can do anything boys can do.

6. She is nearly all-knowing. If I need advice, I call her. She also knows lots of random facts and pieces of information.

7. She is exceptionally good at reading people.

8. She didn't bury me in the flower garden when I was a kid, even though I mostly deserved it on many occasions.

9. She's funny. I left the house today after stopping by to bring her some ice cream, and on my way out I commented on the neighbors across the street having random furniture and possessions on their porch, for probably the second or third week running. We discussed our theories--they were painting one room...the last owner or tenant had left the stuff behind...they were saving it for a yard sale once the weather warmed up--and then I said goodbye. Mom leaned out the door and called out, "That pink thing on the side there looks sort of like a fetus." And damned if it didn't, all of a sudden. I stared at it as I walked to my car, and Mom's voice floated after me: "Now, everytime you look at it..."

10. She's the coolest, most loving, most awesome mom anyone could ask for, and I'm lucky enough to be her kid.

Happy Mother's Day, Mom...even though you're internet-impaired and will never see this. I love you!