Time-Out from the Boy to Say...

HAPPY MOTHER'S DAY!

Do you know my mom? You should, because she is AMAZING. I wish, almost every day, that we lived closer to each other, so that I could spend more time with her than I get to right now. Seeing her only a handful of times each year? It's just not enough.

When I was about seven years old, apparently, I very calmly and rationally informed my mother that I had decided she was an 85% good mom and a 15% bad mom. I'm not sure where I got these figures from, as I'm fairly certain I had not been collecting data on the subject or anything, but I had somehow come up with those "official" numbers for her.

My mother, being awesome as she is, just sort of went with it. "Okay," she said, and we moved on.

A few days later, I was being... gently scolded, shall we say, for something that I can no longer remember. (A scolding, by the way, that I'm certain I deserved, as I had a habit of being a somewhat bratty child at times.) When she finished, I sat pouting in silence for a few moments. Then I told her, through clenched teeth, that I had changed my mind. "About what?" she asked.

"I've decided you're an 80% good mom and a 20% bad mom."

"Oh...." She nodded in understanding. After a moment she asked, "Is that 20% for times like this, when you're getting in trouble for something you've done?"

"Yes," I replied, with no small amount of sass.

"Hm," she said thoughtfully. "Well, I think I'm okay with that."

See? Isn't she totally awesome? It takes a certain kind of bad-ass mom to be like, "Oh, you're angry that you got in trouble? Well I don't really give a damn, 'cause I am your mother whether you like it or not." Exactly the kind of bad-ass mom I hope to be some day.

All these years later, I'm older and wiser, and I realize that there really aren't numbers to put on how much any mom is a "good mom" or a "bad mom." That's just not the way the world works. There are no good moms or bad moms - there are only moms, and those moms make some good decisions and those moms make some bad decisions. I think the most you can hope is that the good decisions outweigh the bad decisions, and that, over time, the good decisions become easier to make and the bad decisions easier to avoid.

So here's to my mom, who has, in my opinion, made many GREAT decisions through the years - decisions that have helped shape me into the Lara I am today.

Love you, Mom!