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. Read More>