to the hautest mama.

It has come to my attention that rumors of my disappearance, and/or possible death are circulating, so I suppose that means it's about time for me to start tickling the plastic ebonies again and fill you all in on what   I've been up to. The good news, is that I am alive and well. I did, however, almost die from the excruciatingly long days spent in record breaking heat at the the happiest place on earth, or as I now like to refer to it, the center of the sun.

Anyways, despite the fact that my mom and I crafted sweat rags to shove under our boobs as we were riding through the air-conditioned heaven that was It's a Small World, and that I tore the butt of my favorite jeans this weekend thanks to numerous buckets of D-land popcorn, I still relished in the time with my family, was pretty impressed with the almost negligible number of melt-downs,  and was reminded of some of the happiest moments of my own childhood.

I was a quiet kid, kind of shy and cautious, but I was a really happy kid. Almost all of my childhood memories are happy ones. This is mostly because I had amazing parents and probably the world's best mom. 

She wasn't one of the loopy moms that every other kid thinks is so awesome because she gives you candy bars for dinner and lets you color on the walls. Although she definitely is her own brand of crazy, she was, and still is, just one of the kindest, most lemonade-out-of-lemons people you will ever meet.

She didn't work until I was in junior high, but she was always on the go- soccer mom, hot lunch mom, solid gold dancing mom (she's got the leotards to prove it)- you name it, she was the mom on the scene.

She was my shopping companion from day one. "Hide the bags," was a phrase I heard often in my youth, but she didn't have to feel guilty for long, because when her time came to return to the workforce, CB approached her career the way she did everything else in her life- with tireless energy and a  positive attitude. It seems that whatever makes for a good mom, may also make for an amazing business woman, because my mom is the very best at what she does.

Despite the fact that she never stops working, she somehow still manages to fit in being there for her kids and her grandkids every single day. She is a little bit nuts, always late, somehow manages to slurp something audibly at every meal which drives me completely insane, overfeeds my overweight dog,  lets my kids watch too much tv and has a terrible habit of laughing uncontrollably whenever anyone falls, but, at the end of the day, all I can ever hope for is to one day feel really certain that my kids love me as much as I will always love her. She is, without a doubt, everything I strive to be in a mother, a wife, a friend and a woman. Oh yeah, and she still looks pretty hot.

Happy Belated Birthday Grammy Cath. We love you. xoxo