My Mother, My Guilt Trip

Today is my mother’s birthday.

If you know me have read this blog for a while, you know my mother (God Bless Her) is someone who gets on my nerves like no one else can. She has the talent to turn me, a 38-year-old grown woman and mother of one, into a 13-year-old teenage brat. She always makes me feel fat – example: included in my birthday present this year was an aromatherapy roll-on thing that had grapefruit extract in it and was specifically meant to “control hunger”. She told me I could roll it on my wrist and sniff it whenever I was feeling hungry. Gee…thanks mom! Thank you for reminding me once again that I need to lose weight. After all, isn’t that what mothers are for? To remind you of your inadequacies? Anyfat…I digress.

This weekend, my mom helped me organize and staff a moms-to-moms sale I did at Daughter’s school. If you don’t know what a moms-to-moms sale is – it’s like a flea market or garage sale of child-related things. You could get everything from cribs to bicycles to clothing to toys at this sale. I still have lots of Daughter’s baby clothes and since I’m not having any more children (now you know that since I’ve written that statement, I’ll probably end up pregnant before the year is over, right?), I might as well try to make a little cash off of what I have left. And since I’m not patient enough or organized enough to put together garage sale (nor do I really want to commit my entire weekend to sitting outside watching people rummage through my things), I thought the moms-to-moms sale was perfect. It was from 8:30-1pm, and there would be lots of people there.

Since my mom helped me, we decided after the moms-to-moms, I would go home, pick up Daughter and we would go out to lunch to celebrate her birthday. When I got home to pick up Daughter, she was asleep. I decided to let her sleep and went to lunch without her and my mother was not happy about it. I didn’t think it was that big of a deal, but apparently, this was the first of many mistakes I would make over the weekend. That evening, my mother called me to invite me over to have dinner at her house on Sunday, once again, to celebrate her birthday. This was a huge problem, because for the last year, if not more, Husband, Daughter and I go to Husband’s parents on Sunday evenings for dinner. My mother knows this and is insanely jealous of the time we spend over there. Correction: she is insanely jealous that my inlaws get to see Daughter a guaranteed once a week. As a side note, ever since Daughter was born, my mother turns every visit, every holiday, every everything, into a competition. Who do we visit more? Who do we spend more time with? Frankly, I’m tired of it. It’s not a competition to see who we love more, or whatever she thinks. It’s just that my inlaws are normal and my family is dysfunctional. Every moment my parents spend together is like watching War of the Roses. It’s embarrassing for me, it’s uncomfortable for Husband, and it’s not a good example to set for Daughter. My mother has nothing nice to say to my dad, and my dad has nothing nice to say to my mom. It’s PAINFUL.

But after guilting me into having dinner with her on Sunday (of course I showed up, she’s my mother), she didn’t let the fact die that she had to basically coerce me to visit, and the jealousy shined through like a bright lighthouse beacon.

“Why do you always have to have dinner over there?”
“Why don’t you come have dinner here sometimes?”

Basically, "why are you such a bad daughter and prefer to spend time over your in-laws instead of here, at your childhood home with dad and me?" Here are the answers I would have loved to have given:

1. Because all you do is pick at dad until he’s a broken man.
2. Because dad has no respect for you or any other women, and therefore, I feel compelled to open up a can of Feminist Whoop-Ass on him and cause arguments myself.
3. Because you decide to argue in front of not only me, but Daughter and Husband (even though you know this makes him extremely uncomfortable).
4. Because I hate Gizmo (their evil Pekinese dog) because he growls at me.
5. Because Annie makes me sad (their Beagle who in probably going to be put to sleep this week because she’s old and sick and is probably the sweetest dog ever).
6. Because you guilt me into shit and make me feel like a bad daughter.
7. Because you make me feel fat all the time especially when you point out how "healthy" the dinner you've made is.  Oh and let's include how you think Daughter is fat (she's NOT fat, y'all).  Just because neither of us are anorexic-stick-figures doesn't mean we're fat.  (Well, I'm a little fat, but my child is definitely NOT.)
8. Because you make me feel like a bad mother because I don’t force Daughter to eat vegetables all the time. (Sorry, mom, I’m just trying not to give her food issues like you gave me.)
9. Because you remind me that you almost died, and therefore, I should want to spend every waking moment with you.
10. Because the both of you are Republicans and drive me crazy with your ultra-conservative bullshit.  And I can't stand all of your hatin' on Obama (which I'm convinced has roots in racism which I can't stand.)
11. Bonus: Because you both like Glenn Beck. Who in my opinion, is just as big of a douchebag as Rush Limbaugh. And that’s saying something.

If I had any balls, I would tell my mother to get off the cross, because someone else needs the wood. She is the classic martyr. *sigh*

HAPPY BIRTHDAY MOM!  :)