Happy Mothers Day!

Like everybody who frequents the internet, I have been bombarded over the last two weeks with ads and emails about buying things for Mothers Day- I never knew Amazon cared so much. But because I am poor, and because I think this will probably last longer than personalized chocolates, I’ve compiled a list of twenty-five things that make my mother awesome. I swear that each of them is true or only slightly exaggerated.
So here we go:

1) My mother plays the accordion.
2) I cannot ever remember her not knowing the definition of a word, or its proper usage.
3) I think she actually likes all of her children, not just loves them.
4) Growing up, she thought the men on Bonanza who died had actually died in real life, and it didn’t faze her.
5) She plays the accordion. Plays it.
6) When of us kids were younger and we ordered pizza, she pretended to like just the crusts, I think so that a) Dad wouldn’t make us eat them, and b) there was more pizza for the rest of us.
7) My mom went through a Weird Al phase. Most people’s mothers probably did, since he’s been around for a while, but my mom didn’t go through her phase until she was in her fifties.
8) While not being particularly outspoken, my mom talks to strangers like they were old friends. Sometimes its kinda weird.
9) My mom is a two-time gold medalist in brain-tumor survival.
10) THE ACCORDION. I mean, really.
11) She and some of her siblings used to (and I think they still do, sometimes) write stories back and forth, each writing a chapter of the story.
12) I have literally thrown up in my mom’s hands, and she has never held it against me.
13) When I go home to visit, she always checks out a book she thinks I’ll like to read and puts it in my room. And I always like it.
14) One time my dad shot a rabbit that had been eating his plants, and after I skinned and cleaned it, I found that she was waiting inside the house with a pan and a book of rabbit recipes- though we had never done this sort of thing before, she was ready.
15) In addition to playing the accordion, she has one. She possesses an accordion.
16) My mother has a basement lair. It’s actually quite nice.
17) When I was in high school, she would watch a lot of my tv shows with me.
18) During spring break of my senior year, Mom and I went on a road trip together, and one of the stops was in an international food Bazaar in Cleveland so we could do what Andrew Zimmern did on Bizarre Foods with Andrew Zimmern.
19) If I get excited about a book, I will read lengthy portions of it to her, and she always pretends to be interested.
20) She knows I like a certain kind of fall-themed ice-cream cake for my birthday, and when I could not get ahold of one last fall in time for my birthday, she bought one out east and kept it frozen for two months, until I came home for Christmas.
21) When she laughs, everybody laughs.
22) Mom keeps the refrigerator stocked unbelievably full of cheese. We all like cheese, so this is a blessing, but it is a little odd. My brother and I think she just buys cheese every time she goes out.
23) She made us all stockings for Christmas with our names on them, and I believe that until my sisters got old enough to help she filled all of them herself- even her own so no one would feel guilty, since nobody remembered to.
24) Growing up, she made each birthday really special. When her birthday came around every year, we usually would fail colossally in remembering, gift-buying, decorating, and cooking, and she would try her absolute best to act like we had done a good job.
25) On one of her very first dates with my dad, his family played this mean trick on her that involved splashing her in the face with a glass of water, and she still married him.

Happy Mothers day, Mom- you are unique and amazing, and I love you!

-Daniel