It’s Mother’s Day! My mom is freaking fantastic, so today I present to the world my 10 Reasons Why I Wouldn’t Want Anyone Else as My Mother.

10. The inside jokes.
There are SO MANY. The fact that I can randomly shout, “watch these ammo boxes!!” and we can spend the next ten minutes quoting from Tremors shows how “on the same wavelength” we are.

9. We can be reduced to an hour long laughing fit over something that’s hardly funny at all.
When she came up to help me move into my new apartment up here, I remember we were on the stairs bringing a load of my stuff up from the car and in an instant we could hardly carry the stuff we had because we were laughing so hard. Lame little reason, I know, but laugh attacks reduce quite a bit of stress.

8. She has more confidence in me than I do.
And sometimes all it takes to bring you out of the hell of self-doubt is someone unconditionally contradicting you when you say “I suck at everything.”

7. We can be content getting in the car, cranking my music, and driving around for hours.
I’m fortunate in the sense that my mom and I can “hang out” without any awkwardness whatsoever. We feel really at ease with one another. I don’t think I could have gotten through the last few years without that close of a relationship with my mom.

6. She put up with (and still puts up with) all my crap.
I’m obnoxious, whiny, and selfish, and have been for approximately 23 years now. I don’t understand how she’s been able to put up with so much bull from me over the past years, but I truly do appreciate the fact that she has.  I think a lot of parents would have completely lost their patience by now.

5. She put up with the camcorder phase.
For like three years of my childhood, I was ridiculously obsessed with taping anything and everything with the family camcorder. EVERYTHING. ALWAYS. That damn camcorder was never off. I don’t think I would have been able to put up with it if I were her, but somehow she didn’t go insane. That says a lot about how wonderful a parent she is.

4. I honestly think I could talk to her about anything.
I don’t think there’s a single topic or problem that would arise where I would feel like I couldn’t confide in her. I can’t see there being any situation in which she would become so upset with me that we would have a total relationship breakdown and we’d never talk again. I hope she feels the same way about me.

3. She is deserving of every ounce of respect I have for her.
My mom has had to put up with a lot of crap in her life and has somehow managed to stay a not only sane but phenomenal person. I don’t think there’s any way I could express the amount of respect I have for her.

2. She can forge my signature.
Yeah, weird reason, I know. I write the “M” of my last name a little strangely—I put a  little bump at the beginning of the first stroke, something reminiscent from learning cursive in elementary school. Anyway, I remember a year or so ago when I needed my UI transcripts but was unable to obtain them from up here in Canada in the time that I needed them. My mom went and filled out the forms to pick them up in person so she could just mail them to me. These forms require the signature of the person to whom the transcript belongs. I distinctly remember her telling me over the phone, “I forged your signature for you. I even put that little bump you do before the start of the M.” The fact that she knows about and makes the effort to replicate such an unimportant little component of my signature made me realize just how much attention she pays to me as her daughter. And that’s awesome. 

1. She’s…well, my mom.
Reading over this list, these all seem like really lame reasons compared to how happy I really am to have my mom as my mom. But that’s pretty much all I can really explain.

So anyway, mom, if you ever read this, I love you! You’re the best mom anyone could ever want.