I know some of you are struggling right now.
Here in the U.S., it’s going to be Mother’s Day on Sunday. Many of you, like me, have lost your mother and this particular holiday is difficult. For some of you, this may be your first Mother’s Day without her. For some, it’s the twentieth.
It doesn’t matter how long. The grief sometimes subsides and sometimes it hits you like it just happened yesterday. It can make you sad. It can make you crazy. In my case this year, it can make you angry.
My friend, Judy, and I were talking about this. His mother has been gone a long time but he still feels it deeply at Mother’s Day. I was telling him I don’t usually feel it as much on Mother’s Day as other occasions like birthdays, because now that I’m a mother and Mimi, I have a different focus.
Then something happened and it triggered anger. This particular event this week opened up a thirty-year-old wound and the anger I felt is as fresh now as it was then. Except I don’t have anybody to yell at. I don’t have anybody to open up to and say, “I know I’m not perfect either, but I really think you handled this whole situation wrong and it still hurts the forty-six year old woman as much as it did the sixteen year old girl.”
My only consolation is that I do get to take one thing wrong about the situation and make it right. I can’t go into detail. I said when I started this blog that I would not hurt people I know by telling stories that aren’t mine to tell. This is a story that I played a very small role in, mostly as an observer. It isn’t mine to tell.
Without giving any details, I now get to take something that belongs to someone else and return it to her, twenty-eight years later. More significantly, I get to do it for Mother’s Day, which is significant to the original event.
So while I’m feeling the pain of being a “motherless mother”, at least I get to make somebody else’s Mother’s Day a little bit brighter, and that feels good.
I don’t really have a point in this story, other than if you’re struggling this Mother’s Day, just know you’re not alone. I have more friends now without mothers than with them, because that’s just what happens as you get older. If you’re also a mother, it can be particularly tricky because you have to navigate your own feelings while not ruining it when your family wants to treat you and pamper you.
Just know you’re not alone. There are a lot of us out here. If you need something to laugh at, come back to this blog and find the posts that made you laugh the most. Read them over again until you hear yourself laughing. That’s your mom telling you to enjoy life.
And now I want to lighten things up a little. I created a list of some of my favorite mom things that make me laugh. I hope they make you laugh too.
Best Mom Compilation
If you’re looking for funny “Mom” stories, this book is a compilation of essays from some of the funniest Mom bloggers on the internet, including Jen Mann of People I Want To Punch In The Throat and Kim Bongiorno of Let Me Start By Saying Blog.
Best Mama Impression
If you’ve never watched comedian Darren Knight and his character, “Southern Mama”, you are missing out. Of course, if you’re not from the South, you may not relate to all of it, but those of us from the South had some version of this growing up or at least witnessed it.
This video is one of the first I ever saw of him and is still probably my favorite, if only because up until last year, I was a baseball Mom.
Best Sitcom Mom – Past
This was a tough category because there are so many great sitcom moms on the TV of my childhood. I have to say, though, that the one I loved the most and that had the biggest influence on me was Carol Brady.
I don’t know what it was about her that I loved so much. Maybe it was the fact that she and my Mom had the same hairstyle for a while. Maybe it was the fact that she could wrangle six kids while wearing platform heels and still have the energy to kiss her husband chastely in their double bed before rolling over and going to sleep.
Maybe I just related to the Brady Bunch in general because we had our own version of Alice, The Housekeeper.
Except ours didn’t have a bee-hive hairdo and her wisecracks were in Spanish.
In any case, this is my choice for Best Sitcom Mom – Past.
Best Sitcom Mom – Present
I’ll be honest, I don’t watch that many sitcoms anymore. I really based this choice on the fact that the show has kept my interest enough to keep watching. It’s Katie Otto of American Housewife.
American Housewife is about a middle class mom trying to navigate life in a rich, northeastern suburb. Her husband is a college professor, her oldest daughter is a ditzy jock, her son is trying really hard to be one of the rich suburbanites, and her youngest daughter is a weirdly mature but terribly OCD girl, and I think she might be my spirit animal.
Katie Otto is not built like all the stick-thin Barbie moms in her little town. She wears flannel shirts, doesn’t helicopter around her kids, and lives for sarcasm and wisecracks. Sound familiar?
After navigating my son’s private school for ten years, and all the rich cookie-cutter cliques I had to deal with, I’m totally in sync with this show.
Best TV Mother-In-Law
The TV Mother-In-Law is one of the most important foils for the main characters. She must be a combination of smart, sassy, and wicked. Nobody carried this out better than Endora on Bewitched.
I mean, come on. That fiery red hair. That colorful chiffon outfit. That winged eyeliner. She was classy and elegant and wild all at once.
When I was a little girl watching reruns of Bewitched, I thought I wanted to be Samantha. In fact, I insisted on being a witch EVERY Halloween because Bewitched made me see witches as beautiful, powerful, and glamorous and not the creepy, green, wart-on-the-nose characters in other stories.
As much as I wanted to be Samantha, though, I realized by my teens that I was definitely Endora. I was not sweet and silly and humble like Samantha. I was sarcastic and snobby and over-the-top like Endora.
I’m not joking when I tell you that I recently found a lady on Etsy who custom makes Endora costumes and it’s a very real possibility that I will fork over a couple hundred dollars to have her make me one.
That’s how much I love Endora!
Best Clap-Back By A Non-Parent
Ok…this isn’t a mom category, but it’s still hilarious and does go with the Mom theme, sort of.
A friend of mine shared this video on Facebook and it really cracked me up. Sometimes, as parents, we really get “high and mighty” with people who are not parents. It’s true…if you’ve never been a parent, it’s difficult to understand what a totally crazy, and hard job it really is.
But as this comedian points out, what’s difficult is raising a good person. He points out that actually having kids is not as hard as ordering a pizza. A heckler in the audience takes exception to this and he ends up OWNING her in the argument. If the video is muted when you try to play it, hover over the video and you’ll see a speaker down at the bottom to unmute. Otherwise, you’ll just have to read the subtitles.
The moral of this story is, don’t heckle somebody who tells jokes for a living.
Best Psycho Mom
One of my favorite movies is “Mommy Dearest”. It’s campy. It’s over the top. The costumes and sets are absolutely gorgeous.
And Faye Dunaway is money as Joan Crawford.
That’s why my vote for Best Psycho Mom is Faye Dunaway as Joan Crawford.
I think it speaks for itself.
One evening not long ago, The Husband Dude saw me wearing my cleansing mask and started screaming, “No more wire hangers!!!”. One thing led to another and then this happened:
Never let it be said that I’m not a good sport.
Stay weird, my friends. Normal is boring!
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