(S)Mother's Day

Mothers. The only people who can constantly criticize you, yet still leave you yearning for their approval other than men, dentists and highway patrol officers. This weekend we celebrate them and that means eating sub-par food prepared by men and giving them a crappy handmade card because they're not allowed to dislike anything made by their offspring. To be fair, that's better than what my family does for Father's Day which is have the women make all the food and then clean up afterwards. It is in no way distinguishable from any other Sunday. Or weekday for that matter.

Mothers are special. Our mothers:

• Fix our hair. (My mother cuts my hair in my sleep because I refuse to let her when I'm conscious.)
• Teach us the importance of moisturization. (Missy once found me covered in Crisco and I said, rather proudly, "Look Mommy, lotion.")
• Discipline us. (I always got in trouble for reading past bedtime. Boy was I a handful.)
• Show us how to use makeup. ("You're naturally pretty Rachel, you don't need makeup." The boys I went to high school with determined that was a lie.)
• Throw their arms across our chests when they slam on brakes while driving. (My dad's hand immediately goes to the lid of his coffee.)
• Pack our lunches. ("Here's some lunch money, I expect change back.") 
•  Do our laundry. (While throwing out the clothes they don't approve of.)
• Watch movies with you. ("Rachel stop asking me questions I've seen as much of the movie as you have." while watching Renaissance Man. Never in my life have I seen someone so invested in a Danny DeVito movie.)
• Shop with you. (In my case that means let me follow you around a store. It drives my mother crazy but I hate alone time.)

Say what you will about Missy (like I intend to in the remainder of this post), but I always knows she loves me and bless her heart, she really does think I'm beautiful. She stares at me. A lot. She's kind of obsessed with me. But I'm obsessed with her right back. She is (unintentionally) one of the funniest people I know. I spin that straw into gold and give you this blog and #TheMissyChronicles tweets.

So allow me to take you on a photo journey. Me and my mother throughout the years. We laughed, we cried, we spent hours in Aeropostale looking for something we could afford.

As you can see here, my mother taught me how to be a gangsta almost immediately after my birth. 

Also, I promise I was born female I just didn't have hair until I was 3.

 My mother also gave me bangs. 

And she wonders why I still only let her cut my hair for her birthday and Christmas.

But I still love her because even though she was really committed to those bangs for most of my elementary school career, she also got me and my brother matching Christmas pajamas. 

While I don't actually remember these pajamas, it looks like I was thrilled.

Since I'm the firstborn, almost everything in my life is documented in a photo album.

Here we have my very first black eye.

Please note how my mother took the time to get film developed (I'm old) and then cut this photo into an oval for the scrapbook.

As if it were a portrait or official school picture and not me, my black eye and my scrunchie chilling at my grandma's house.

This is one of our more recent pictures.

I am trying to finish a cookie and my mother is putting her hand in front of my face in a gesture that says both "I want you to stop talking" and "I will smack you."

That pretty much sums it up.