tell me about your mother.

She is a bitter Catholic woman who used to be a "bad girl." She smoked since she was 8 (has quit now), and had me accidentally when she was 20, halfway through nursing school. This caused her to try and become a paragon of virtue, and try and cut my father completely out of my life (he fought in court to get to see me every other weekend growing up).

She's been a nurse in the NICU at St. Marys in St. Louis for about 20 years now. She has had 4 kids on purpose since me, and has finally relaxed her iron grip on me, deciding I'm not going to fuck things up too bad.

She's not happy unless she's miserable, and has serious control issues (which were her gifts to me). She is well-meaning, but think she knows best about everything. She believes that the only way to be a good mother is to give up everything (which leaves her miserable most of the time). She chooses to never have any time for herself, and then takes it out on her kids.

But it's the only way she really knows how to show love, so I'm as patient with her as I can be, I listen to her opinions, and then I do whatever I want and just tell her the results (without how I got there). It seems to work alright.

she's sweet, and very Donna Reed-y, and caring/concerned. i know as her only child, she worries about me often, more than she ever should, as in the overall, there's nothing to worry about. but it's appreciated it. (though drove me nuts at the tail end of high school/early college - leading to the only blowout i think i've ever had with her) she can be emotional, but also quite strong, something i've grown to notice and respect all the more the older i get. she loves jewelry, but not in the "bling" sense; it's become a hobby to buy gemstones and have them set into various rings, earrings, etc. she loves to garden. and create - i wish she'd do more of that, she used to paint and make little knicknacky things for the kitchen or den. she digs movies a lot, and i love recommending them to her, and she always surprises me -- for every BUCKET LIST i know she'll love, she'll also enjoy LOTR, or BABY MAMA or something i just wouldn't imagine appealing to her. she's an AWESOME cook; i mean, i realize i don't have all that many people i know to compare that to, but i can think of very few meals i ever had that sucked.

right now, she's working a bit too much for a retired person, which kind of concerns me. i appreciate that she's got a strong work ethic -- it was instilled in me by both she and my father. however, my dad is finally enjoying his retirement after all these years. and i sense my mother unable to let go; and i think part of it is financial, as she's very much my grandfather's daughter in that respect. he is my only living grand-relative, and lived through the ends of the depression, and is VERY tight with his money. and i think that part of him is in my mother, and she can never quite let it go...

anyhoo...that's mi madre.

@strangerbox- I'm pretty sure the more kids moms have, the easier it gets. I was her first, and I was an accident. She was damned if she was going to let anyone fuck me up, let alone me. I was honestly okay with the control. It didn't chafe until I went to college.

The last straw we had on her planning things for me was this: She wanted to move me to Arizona from Springfield, Missouri using 3 vehicles, and bringing all my half brothers/sisters and step-dad. They were going to drive 4 hours to Springfield, load up all the cars with my stuff, and then drive 24 hours to Phoenix. Sign a lease and move me in in one day. Then continue onward to the Grand Canyon, where we would have a family vacation. Then back to Phoenix, drop me off, and drive all the way back to St. Louis.

She was going to do this with a bunch of pre-teen/young teenages, and a special needs kid (my youngest brother is mentally handicapped and will never function in society).

:) When I suggested that maybe there was a better way, she blew up at me, accused me of trying to keep the Grand Canyon from my family, and said I was "cut off" from everything forever.

@Namrok- My mom was kind of the same way about grades... I mean, I got good ones without trying. But my sibblings weren't so lucky. How many sibblings did you have?

@Namrok- Ain't that the truth. :-P Maybe 1 of my 4 younger half-siblings will go to college. Community college. And they will never move out of St. Louis. That place is a hole.

@Namrok: Are they heavy as a result?

I know some career drinkers out there who on the outside look fit as a fiddle... and they jog and go to the gym and all that shit. Now THAT is success in my estimation

My mom says hi to you!

Over the past year, she's become my new BFF. There are 2 things she talks about more than anything else: Her three cats and Reality TV.

I talk to her on the phone almost every day. She's a lifelong LA Dodgers fan. She goes to games often, dressed in royal blue. She's shorter than I am (4'10") and smiles more than most people blink. She works for a beverage company with a lot of people my age. She's always telling me funny stories about her coworkers, and impersonates the gay thugs that call her "Lil Mama."

She loves thrifting and going to antique stores. Her dining room and kitchen is decorated in a winery motif. The bathroom is decorated in red, white, and blue all year long. The bedroom has a palm tree theme. She's no interior decorator, but she makes it work.

She's totally selfless and encourages the best in everyone. She's super stubborn though. If she doesn't want to do something, she'll figure every way out of it possible. Sometimes, she's as immature as a timid 10-year-old, but she can also party with the best of them. I've never seen her not be the life of the party around good friends.

She plays in two different Bunko groups and goes to church with my dad almost every sunday. She wears cute chunky sandals almost everywhere. She is the youngest of four mexican-american children.

She was a cheerleader in high school, where her nickname was "Coconut" because they said she was brown on the outside, but a white girl on the inside. Her favorite movies are Cinderella, Pretty Woman, and The Notebook.

Jeez. I didn't realize I liked talking about my mom so much. Sorry for the long post!

oh, and she used to be a marriage counselor but hasn't done that in a while. now she sells antiques.

My mom is approx. 5 feet of elderly Irish Catholic project kid. She's one of the only people I've ever known who one-punched somebody (it was a bad date, and she maintains that "the guy had a glass jaw anyway"). She grew up during the Great Depression so a lot of her quirks are based around growing up with very little resources/food. Like don't throw anything away that can possibly be repaired because chances are we can't afford to buy a new one and never waste food or leave it out too long or it will go rotten.
I've gotten to like her the past couple years, mainly because we've reached an "agreee to disagree" stance on a few issues.