For My Mom

Today is my mom's birthday.  I won't tell you her age because you aren't supposed to do that...although I've never known her to get weird about that stuff. I'll give you a hint: the number is less than the number of elements on the periodic table. (She will appreciate that, very few others will)  Now. This could easily turn into a sappy post about the greatness of my mother.  I would tell you about how wonderful she is for praying for my future husband and sending me encouraging notes with bible verses in them, and really nice cards that detail how wonderful of a daughter I am, but none of that would be true and I wouldn't be writing it...because I wouldn't like my mother.  However, I am going to share with you the reasons I really do love my mom.

1. As a child, my mother (and father for that matter) consistently lied to me.  For example, "Claire, we're going to the lima bean factory for lunch. Is that okay with you?" I hate lima beans.  As a three year old this sent me into a rage the first time it happened.  After that, I got wise to the ways of the world and told her she was full of it.  So all those kids in this video (which I still maintain is the most hilarious Youtube video of all time) clearly did not have parents like mine...because we would have laughed and said "fork it over." What this taught me: Don't trust what people tell you. Figure it out for you yourself when you're pulling up to McDonalds and not the non-existant lima bean factory.

2. My mom has excellent taste in greeting cards.  In college, all my friend's moms would send the standard greeting cards that said daughter on them in script and then proceeded in a poem about how beautiful and smart she was.  My mom sent me a card that had a picture of a bunch of people square dancing screaming profanities (they were bleeped out of course) and underneath it said, "Hey! It's your birthday! Have some fun and Swear Dance!" Bahahahaha.  It was even more hilarious because my college outlawed dancing.  She has a real knack for picking out cards that are borderline really inappropriate, but not quite.  I consider it one of her greatest talents and I think she would too.

3. Recently my mom was talking about one of the great memories we had together.  It was when I skipped school my senior year of high school to go out and eat pie with her.  What other mother do you know that would say one of her favorite memories was when she encouraged you to skip school? Slim to none friends, slim to none.

4. My mother is the single most organized person I've ever met.  Her spices in her spice rack are alphebetized.  She keeps a spread sheet of the stuff she's getting people for Christmas with a different highlighting color for when it's purchased and another color for when it's wrapped.  Sometimes she also keeps a spread sheet to keep score when we play Phase 10.  I should be more like her.

5. I became taller than my mother around 6th grade and I've probably outweighed her since I was in first grade. However, the woman still had the ability to scare the crap out of me long after that, which is awesome. I'll be honest, I still wouldn't cross her. I firmly believe that all children should have a healthy fear of their parents. It makes you too scared to mess up your life too badly. One reason my brother, sister and I have never been caught doing anything horrific that you hear about teenagers and young adults doing is because we're scared of the wrath and fury that can be Martha Pat Kinney. If you've ever met my mother, and you aren't Haley, Ross or myself...you probably don't believe me on this one.

Now I know there are a lot of people out there that may be offended by this next statement, but, you feel the same way about your own mother..so here it is, I'll just throw it out there.

My mom, is most definitely better than your mom. 

Happy Birthday Mom! You're the best mom around, if only for the fact that you know better science jokes than anyone I know.

Love,
Claire