Mothers like no Others

I hope each of you had a Mother’s Day as lovely as mine was. My son greeted me in the morning with a cheerful, “Frohe Mutterstag mutti!” To which I looked at him and grunted, “Huh? Speak English.” (Paul likes to talk to me in German despite the fact that I don’t have a clue what he is saying. Teenagers are fun that way.)

Later he presented me with my gift, which much to his surprise was EXACTLY what I wanted. In fact, I had even considered going to the store and buying myself a new pitcher that very morning, so I was extremely excited about my gift. Then he offered to take me to breakfast at Jack in the Box, and I told him I would rather eat my own vomit, but I offered to take him anyway. I’m a good mom like that.

After breakfast I told Paul that since it was Mother’s Day I should get to boss him around and make him my slave and he couldn’t complain. He rolled his eyes and acquiesced. I made him do all the laundry and go grocery shopping with me. I never realized how much fun it is to torture your child.

Later we went to my parent’s house to meet up with the rest of the family. “The Men” had prepared a picnic for us outside featuring BBQ’ed pork ribs, cuz everyone knows mothers love to gnaw on sauce slathered bones. While we ate my big brother entertained us by explaining how the dam is going to break and we are all going to die. It would have been more entertaining if he hadn’t been so serious, and since he drives up the canyon everyday to get to work, I tend to believe him. (Of course I tend to believe every thing he says. He raised me that way.) “Put that in you blog!” He said to me. Then he announced he is moving to Kernville.

After we were done eating we gathered together to follow another one of our family traditions – talking about the grossest things imaginable. It started out with me telling them how Ray got his hand caught in a snow blower and almost lost two fingers. My uncle is a fireman, so he quickly blew my story out of the water with a story about a man who caught his hand in a meat grinder. Then my aunt, the nurse, shared a story that featured a super smelly person, and things just went down hill from there. The story about the guy who went to South American and had fly larvae growing in his back is usually the one we end with.

Then, of course, we each received a bouquet of flowers and smiled pretty for the camera.