It has recently come to my attention that I might pick on my mom a little here on this blog. I am of the opinion that I pick on everyone — most of all myself. I am also of the opinion that nobody who reads this blog should be in any doubt of the fact that my mom is awesome. This is partially because there can’t be more than a small handful of people who care enough about my nonsense to read this who haven’t actually met my mom. To know her is to love her. I swear. My conviction that readers of this blog must love her also stems from the fact that my second post talked about her taking us to Mexico (which is something only an awesome mother would do) and I also dedicated an entire post to what an awesome parent she is, but someone seems to feel that this was an underhanded compliment.

Either way, I would like to have an official record of my mother’s awesomeness, and my thorough appreciation of it. Or at least some small fraction of her awesomeness because this official record must fit within the constraints of a blog post.

Today is her birthday. Since I’m playing nice I won’t even tease her for being old. See how nice I am? But seriously. Today is her birthday. Her real birthday. I want each and every one of you to wish her a happy birthday because she’s wonderful. To properly encourage that, I’ll tell you a little about how wonderful she is.

I have always told ridiculous stories. As a little kid, they were mostly false ridiculous stories — as I got older I acquired enough true absuridites. This is not to be confused with children who have a propensity for fantastical lies; I was generally quite aware of the distinction between fact and fiction, and seldom tried to blur these lines. But I had (have) a really active imagination and generally preferred to construct my own reality. So when I was little I used to insist that I picked my parents. I would tell this story about how before I was born, God and I sat down and talked about all the potential parents who were expecting children shortly. They would pass me by on a sort of conveyor belt. I always pictured being in one of those car wash places that has the glass window where you watch the cars go by. Kind of like that, but with hypothetical parents passing me by while I observed from my little leather waiting room seat. I, in all of my unborn wisdom, saw my parents and knew that they were the best. I haven’t really thought about this particular bit of personal myth-making in a long time, but it warrants mentioning on this particular day.

I think I have already stated that your lives are all a little less than they could be if you haven’t seen Chitty Chitty Bang Bang. My family has always lived by the philosophy that we should be allowed to miss school whenever in order to “give the other kids a chance to catch up.” This meant Six Flags on days when the park was empty, or just staying home to go on an adventure simply because it was a day ending in “y.”

Growing up we took lots of adventures. The part of Porter Ranch where we lived didn’t start to get filled in until our last few years there. Before that, we were at the edge of the valley, surrounded mountain-y territory with lots of dirt roads. I guess the fenced off areas should have tipped us off that more of the cookie cutter communities were coming. My parents probably did realize that.

To us, though, this was just the place where my dad occasionally took us hiking, and my mom frequently took us off-roading. She’d load us up in her mustang and we’d drive until the road ended and keep going. We grew up solidly entrenched in suburbia, so dirt roads were supremely exciting. (Little did we know…)

Our house in California was always filled with kids. Sometimes we’d come home to find kids playing in our backyard. I don’t think a single child has ever not loved my mom. We were the lucky kids whose mom didn’t give us bedtimes and made the best pancakes in the entire world.

But it was more than all of that. Yes, the fact that my mother is an overgrown child (and no, that is not the sort of comment she’ll take offense to because she’s the first to admit it…and if you’re the sort of person to find that to be a mean thing to say, then what are you even doing here?) contributes significantly to the fact that everyone loves her. She is also the most generous person that I know.

Sometimes I can judge her a little too harshly when she does something that is less than angelic. This is only because she has set a high standard simply by being herself. I know that most people love their parents and see them as wonderful and blah blah blah but my mom is honest to goodness the best human being that I know. I can be a bit of a cynic, but she’s the one thing that gives me faith in human decency.

Her random acts of generosity became the accepted norm when I was growing up. Even though money was always a bit tight when we lived in California, she still managed to scrape some together to loan to friends who had fallen on even harder times. We have taken in what seems like every wayward child to cross my mom’s path. Even when some of those people took advantage of that generosity, it has never diminished her capacity to trust and to love.

As a parent, she was always the perfect amount of involved. She has been on the PTA for nearly all of our collective elementary school years and also for Derrik and Ashley’s middle and high school years. She was always among the chief architects of the fantastic haunted house my elementary school had every year (the best part of being homeschooled for 7th, 8th, and 9th grades was helping with this project.) In spite of that presence, she never pushed. She knew what was going on in our lives, but let us have the freedom to live our little lives and make our little mistakes. She waited in the wings until we said, “Yes, mommy. Please come fix this.” Knowing her as well as I do, I have no doubt that the concept of waiting for us to ask for help was an effort for her. But it was an effort she knew she needed to make.

Those “adventures” weren’t just off-roading. We have a whole gaggle of children. Sometimes things got a little crazy. When things got to be a bit much, we’d just get in the car and drive. Her and whoever needed it. I think that’s why I love driving so much. Once I got my license and my own car, she never questioned me when an argument would end with me getting in my car to drive around aimlessly. She got that because it was what we had done for years.

And so for teaching me to love the road and Halloween and know that however shitty things get, I always have room to give a little to someone else, and for never failing to love me, no matter what a horrid pain in the ass I was (am), I love her to bits. She is my best friend. And I know that picking you was the single best decision I have ever made. Happy birthday mom.