Happy Mother's Day!

Happy Mother's Day to all of you whom it may apply to, and Happy Mother's Day to you future moms as well. I was about to sit down and write about my weekend trip last week with the cute neighbor, but then I changed my mind and decided to write about moms instead after reading Tina Fey's Prayer for my Daughter. I have the World's Greatest Mom, even though I haven't exactly gotten around to sending her a card yet. But I think this is a good start.

Dear Mom,

I may not seem to have always appreciated how awesome you are, but 28 years and 2 different jobs as a nanny have really given me some perspective on that subject.

First of all, I want to say thank you for not hiring a nanny to raise me. No, really. I really appreciate the fact that you weren't more concerned with climbing any ladders and were happy to come home before 7pm and have dinner with me. I know we weren't the wealthiest family in town, and I know that we couldn't afford the "cool clothes" and lived on a budget, but you know what? That's ok. I may have acted like a brat about it when I was a kid, but now I realize that I'm better off now. It was better to have had my parents around than to have had whatever was the latest fashion in 1997. I would have only regretted it anyway.

Speaking of which, thank you for never buying me the Nintendo or GameBoy I so badly wanted as a child. I must have asked well over 800 times between 1st and 6th grades, and every time you told me to go read a book or go outside and play. Now I am a very active former librarian. Go figure.

Thank you for insisting that the entire family sit down together every day for dinner. Even if we had to eat at 4:30pm or 9pm, all 4 of us had to be present. It's why Grayer and I are such stable adults (don't laugh) and the kids I baby-sit for (who eat dinner with me, their nanny, 5 days a week) are already in therapy, and most likely will be forever.

And I may have been embarrassed by how loudly you cheered at all my softball games, but it really meant a lot that you were there. For every single one of them. I noticed, and I certainly haven't forgotten. Same goes for volleyball games, swim meets, tennis matches, band concerts, and church plays.

I also may make fun of you for practicing your ballroom dance steps in the kitchen with dad, but the truth is, if I ever find Mr. Right, I certainly hope we will still be dancing in the kitchen after 30 years of marriage.

And finally, when people tell me I'm just like my mother, I think "That's really not so bad." You really know what you've been doing all these years.

Happy Mother's Day!

Out of the mouths of mothers

Earlier in the week I was taken ill at work which of course concerned my parents. On Wednesday night I was getting almost hourly phone calls from my mum to check on my progress. At one point during one of our many conversations she asked if any of my housemates were in as she didn't want me to be on my own. I said that they were in but also that the White Horse was round so not to worry. This was at about 8pm.

At 10.30pm, our last phone call of the evening, I was updating her once more when she asked what time the White Horse went home. "About half and hour ago" I replied, not missing a beat. Obviously I was lying, he was sitting right next to me.

Now, my mum is a very intelligent person. Yet she seems to lack the common sense to realise that my boyfriend isn't just going to come round for the evening and leave at a reasonable hour. It then got me thinking to New Year's Eve. My parents were driving me back to London and they knew I was spending the evening round the White Horse's. My mum said that she hoped that he was going to walk me home after midnight as there would probably be a lot of drunk people around. I laughed it off because I thought she was joking. Now I'm not so sure.

I think my mum and I are going to have to have 'the talk'.

It could be worse: She could be Bridget's mum

Grayer mentioned in her last post that she recently had a breakthrough with our mother. The breakthrough came in the form of her actually saying to me on Sunday, "So, I'm supposed to ask you: How's your love life?" She asked, for the first time ever. (I'm well out of adolescence by this point, too.) Grayer and I had a few theories as to why she suddenly stepped up and asked (besides the fact that Gray told her if she wanted to know things, she needs to ask), one obviously being that we're not getting any younger. But I think the reason she asked had to do with our latest cell phone bill.

Last month, it seems Grayer and I were a bit out of control with the phones. Grayer went over her text limit, I went over my minutes. I have no idea how that happened, though, since I can talk to Scarlet for free and Highlander was never that interesting to talk to, let alone on the phone. Mom sent us a nice email informing us how much we owed her. I responded with the following:

Something to take into consideration: If you and dad want grandchildren (and I suspect you do), it would be wise of you to invest in our cell phone expenses. I don't know how things went down back in the day, but these days, it is literally impossible to date without texting, etc. Unless, of course, I were to date a federal inmate, but luckily, thanks to your EXEMPLARY parenting skills, I have much higher standards and no desire to do so. Just something to think about

That may sound like I was being my usual cheeky self, but I wasn't. I was being very, very serious. And I believe they took me seriously, since the next thing I knew, my dad was calling from the Verizon store, going over all the options to upgrade our family plan. Seriously, if parents are worried about their spinster daughters living out their days as spinsters, the best thing to do is invest in their phone plan. There is really no way to snag Mr. Right without unlimited texts.

I believe it was this email that prompted mom to stick her nose into Gray's and my love lives, as it was evidence that we apparently were dating. She has always been notoriously non-evasive, which isn't always a bad thing, but got to the point of ridiculousness. Take this for example: instead of asking Grayer if she was seeing anyone, while giving her a good-bye hug, our mom asked her, "Is anyone else hugging you?" It's an incident that lives on in family infamy. At least between us it does.

But hey, at least she's not running around with a Portuguese tour operator who carries a gentleman's hand bag.