Moms, We Owe You One Big Time (Happy Mother’s Day)

Dear Mom,

I have so much to thank you for on Mother’s Day!  This letter has been a long time coming. If I had appreciable control over my fingers or bowels it would have come sooner. Sadly I have no control over either and won’t for a very, very long time.

How can I even begin to thank you, mom? I guess I’ll start here:

Thank you for…

• Allowing me to stay in your home, although I spent the better part of my first three months of life screeching like a wildebeest every night at the exact instant you sat down for dinner. That was rude of me. I felt left out on account of my gums not providing me with the teeth I needed to eat dinner with you. I realize that this behavior would lead to my removal from fancy places like the Hometown Buffet if I were to keep it up. I behaved poorly, I’ll admit.

• Continuing to bathe me regularly despite my penchant for peeing in the tub. Every. Single. Night. My pudgy thighs hit that tepid water and BOOM! I just have to let it flow. I know this makes you think of the phrase “Golden Shower,” which makes you uncomfortable. I know you’d rather not bathe me in a cesspool of my own urine. And I hear you on that one! I can’t help you, but I hear you.

• Agreeing to keep me after I defecated on you. Not near you. On you.
• Continuing to love the “threenager” that I will soon morph into. Mom, I am about to make your life a true living hell. Soon I will be exerting my childish will like Kanye West at an awards show. I’m already an emotional powder keg and you haven’t seen anything yet. You have no idea what I’m capable of. I thank you in advance for your patience.

• Taking me on errands with you, even if it’s partly because you think Social Services would get involved if you left me in the car. I know that it is your deepest desire to run in and out of stores untethered, doing your errands with something resembling “efficiency” and “sanity.” I know I slow you down to a pace that you had not imagined was possible. The pace of a turtle on barbiturates. Thank you for letting me tag along despite this.

• I want to thank you in advance for what will be my incredible awkwardness when I hit puberty. I’d also like to thank you for putting up with the fact that my voice will someday sound like a woman drunk on helium got into a street fight with a stray cat and a cello. Thank you for continuing to listen to me.

• I’d also like to thank you in advance for dealing with me given that I plan to be incredibly irrational as a teenager, likely wrecking your car, listening to Emo music that will make you want to cut off your own ears, and displaying a range of histrionic behavior over the fact that you won’t give me complete freedom over my entire life. I also plan to spend considerable time journaling about how lame you are. And yet you will love me still. Thank you.

Mom, you do a lot for me. More than I can write down in one little letter. I’ve never had another friend like you, and I never will. You own the specialist of special places in my heart.

Can I have a snack?

Love, Your Favorite Child

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