Today is my mom’s birthday. I would post how old she is, but I’m not sure if that sort of thing is acceptable, even on one’s own blog, so I’ll just say that yesterday when Scarlett was asked that question, she responded “49.” Let’s go with that. Happy 49th birthday, Mom!

I was scrolling through old blog posts I’ve written about my mother: her visits to see me in New York, back when I was childless and she was a professional grandchild advocate (“I don’t even care if you get married!”); our trip to Florida when my parents met Rob’s parents for the first time and my mom and his stepdad bonded over light beer with ice in it and a mutual inability to stop themselves from overdosing on mixed nuts; our wedding weekend in New York (because that thing about her not caring if we got married was nonsense); her time in San Francisco right after Scarlett was born, when she saved my sanity by going everywhere with me and not judging me when I cried during the opening credits to the TV show Parenthood, then in its very first season, just like I was.

But that’s just the stuff I wrote about. When I was younger, my mom was a source of great pride to me. She was a teacher, she did Jazzercise, she had a ton of friends. She wore little short shorts and bandanas, and in the summers she was as brown as a leaf, and smelled like tanning oil. She had 4 sisters, 3 brothers, and parents who lived a mile from us, and our house was always overflowing with family.

Plus, she had three other kids, and I got to be the center of attention when I announced to my little friends that there would be another tiny creature in our house. A new baby was born every two years, but I remember that when I told the neighborhood kids that we were expecting again that last time, they didn’t even believe me.

My mom is a great cook, and I have very clear memories of sneaking up behind her as she rolled out homemade pizza dough on our round kitchen table, trying to snatch a handful of mozzarella cheese without her seeing me.

The first birthday of my mom’s that I remember was her 36th (the same age I am now.) I was 7 years old. Mom waltzed down our back steps in a short black skirt, off-the-shoulder top, and a walkman (the*height* of cool), her dark hair swept up on one side. Kinda new wave, kinda punk, and kinda different from the way lots of other mothers looked at the time.

“Your mom is HOT,” my friend Pete declared one day when we were seventh graders. It was not the first—or last—time I heard that.

Mom visited me at college, fitting in easily with my friends at the bars, and then splitting a pint of Ben & Jerry’s with me back at my apartment. She and my Dad came to see me in Paris, during a semester abroad. I remember one rather crabby day in the seventh arrondissement (turns out you can have a bad attitude absolutely anywhere), when I asked her why wine made everything better. “That’s life, kiddo,” she replied. Words to live by.

When I finished school, I moved to San Francisco with a boyfriend, my parents waving from the front steps of my childhood home as I drove off in a U-Haul, headed for adventure in a state I had never even visited. The boyfriend didn’t last, but my love for the city sure did, a fact that was tough on my mom, who just wanted her kids to stay close to home, like she had. When I decided to move to New York to be with Rob, she knew there was no way around it, but she did ask, “Can’t you just get your own place at first?”

“In Manhattan?!” I sputtered.

I followed through with my plans, she came for visits (with my dad, with my sister, with my aunt) and we walked the neighborhoods, eating cupcakes and bagels in Chelsea, shopping in Soho, dining on sushi in the Meatpacking District. She watched me and Rob get married in Central Park, one of only 8 witnesses.

And now at, ahem, 49, my mom hasn’t lost her stride. She finally got that tattoo she was always talking about. She’s mastering the art of social networking. Her grandchildren adore her. And she’s still totally hot.

Share this post on your social platform