Becka's Epic Adventures: My Mom is Magic

Today is my mom's birthday, which is a totally appropriate situation in which to celebrate her many skills. My mom is a very talented woman, so talented I sometimes thing she is magic (I'm tempted to believe she may be evil, but she uses these talents for good, so I think she's probably just magic). There's really no way to list all of her accomplishments (she's held some jobs, got some college degrees, let lots of children live...), so I'll just stick to the 5 skills that have made the biggest difference in my life.

Me and Mom, 12 hours after I was born. That's when my mom left the hospital. She's tough stuff.

I'm very happy she let all of us live, seeing as we've been fighting formal portraits for almost 30 years now.

1. Surprise skirt lining! My mom is an incredibly talented seamstress, she's made many of my friends and siblings wedding dresses, all of my formal dresses, and matching outfits for my siblings and I for many years.

We always get matching Christmas jammies.

Lots of ladies in lots of bright colors.

Not only is she good at assembling clothes, she's also good at picking patterns. Over the years her dress making whims have produced all of my favorite clothes, including this very nice looking skirt with a surprise red lining! There's no end to the joy surprise lining has brought me, whenever the lining pokes out it reminds me that my mom loves me and calls me Sunshine.

2. Powers of healing. We older siblings give my mom a lot of grief over how little sympathy we got when we were sick as young children. We had to be bleeding or puking to get out of school/church and we were certainly never offered drugs. Then the younger ones went through grade school and they get drugs whenever they're ill and they can take days off frivolous things (yes, Psych marathon is frivolous!). However, we older siblings have proven to be remarkably good at avoiding the hospital, so perhaps all the with-holding made us more resilient.

Despite holding this grudge, I still know that my mom will come nurture me back to health whenever I need it, even though I live an hour away. One day after I moved out of my parents house I got very sick, so sick I was crawling to the bathroom to puke. I waited until I could get out of work and called my mom and whined "Mom, I can't stop throwing up, I need you." And do you know what she did? She came over to my apartment at 11:00 pm with Saltine crackers, popsicles and Coke to make me feel better. And it worked! Whenever I get sick I'm pretty sure my mom can sense it, because she usually sends a text message reminding me that she loves me and is willing to come get me if I need her. Magic I tell you.

3. Food, so much good food. My mom is an excellent, prolific cook. Staying at other people's house growing up was always a little worrisome because we thought me might starve to death in places that didn't eat as often as we ate at home. And the things we ate at home were awesome! Growing up I think my favorite meals were Tater-tot Casserole and most excellent Sunday Pot-roast. But because my mom is awesome and adaptable, when I became a vegetarian she adjusted her cooking techniques and started making the most delicious curries our family has ever seen.

My first solid food, February 1984

The best cakes ever made, December 1988

Mom made me a wedding cake for my 25th birthday, because she's great like that.

Thanksgiving the way we do it.

Holidays with my family are a great time, in part because we just eat all day long. All the sugar and fat make us quite jolly. And kind of nappy.

4. Tickling the ivories. In addition to cultivating skills in sewing, general crafting, and cooking, my mom can also play the piano really well. We used to play these awesome Oscar and Hammerstien duets, as well as a duet to "Memory" from Cats that will always hold a fond place in my heart, but perhaps my favorite piano memory was the time my mom played the piano without part of her finger. One day while putting together a quilt, my mom sliced the side of her index finger with a rotary knife; don't worry, we picked up the piece and she got it sewn back on. However, this slicing lead to many stitches and quite a large bandage, which was unfortunate because my mom said she would play the piano for a mission farewell in church. Never one to back down from a commitment, she played through an entire 8-page song in front of the congregation, the only help she needed was me to turn the pages for her. Hard core. And she still plays the piano, it's great.

5. Magic purse. I mentioned earlier that my family loves food, and that love plays into this most magical skill of all. My mom gets a lot of grief for the gigantic purse she carries around. Really, last I checked it was 2 feet long and a foot tall and wide (and brightly colored, which is great). I'm still not sure what goes into the purse, but I do see her fish out her wallet pretty easily, so I imagine it's an effective case. Several years ago, while I was in college (and mom was in college, because she's rad like that), I met up with my mom somewhere and I was just famished. I thought I might die and I told my mom that, and you do know what she did? SHE PULLED TWO SOFT SHELL TACOS OUT OF HER PURSE! It was the most magical things I've ever seen in my entire life. Not only was it enough food to staunch my hunger, but it was good food, not like old purse food you would think might come out of a bag. That's because it's a purse that belongs to my magical mom.

You might have noticed I'm kind of reaching for pictures with my mom in them. While she did an excellent job documenting all of these pictures in my scrapbooks, she was good at hiding behind the camera. Thank goodness for cell phone cameras: