Motherhood can be a thankless job, full of headaches and hair pulling. The only time my crew notices what I do is when I stop doing it. I have no clean underwear, didn’t you do the laundry? There are no more Cheez-Its, didn’t you go shopping?

I know appreciation won’t come ‘til later, if ever. So with Mother’sDay looming near, it’s high time I gave a honking big apology to the woman who thanklessly washed my day-of the week panties and kept me in salty snacks. Better late, than never, right?

Sorry Mom.

About those starving kids in Cambodia. Now that my children arrive at the dinner table with turned up noses to reward my slaving-at-a-hot stove-efforts with ‘I’m not eating that’, I marvel that you never pulled a Mommy Dearest and made me sit there ‘til my plate was clean. Instead you just cooked my favorite foods again and again, even though that meant there were no scraps left for the poor little Cambodians.

Sorry Mom.

For annoying you so bad you wanted to sell me to the gypsies. Pestering, asking the same question over and over, fighting with my brothers. Kids can be annoying, and you were right, the gypsies probably would have returned me after a day, but thanks anyway for not shipping me off to a caravan of pickpockets and garbage-pickers. And thanks for not making good on your threat to swap me for the boy down the block.

Sorry Mom.

That my room was a pigsty. Clothes covering every inch of the carpet, drawers spilled over like we’d been robbed. You say it was so bad you wanted to hang a ‘Condemned’sign on my door. While I don’t remember ever being that messy, now that I have a young daughter who’s already leaving her dirty socks everywhere from the couch to the kitchen table, I concede it’s entirely possible.

Sorry Mom.

For always walking in on you when you were naked. Or peeing. Or bleaching, tweezing or insertinga tampon. And for screaming ‘Mooooom!’ every time you got a second to yourself, even when I could clearly see the phone on your ear. I came out of your womb–so how was I to know Moms need boundaries too?

Sorry Mom.

For robbing you of all that beauty sleep. The early morning soccer games, and later, the late night partying. Night scares and thunderstorms that popped up minutes after you drifted off. Yanking on your pj’s at 5 a.m. every Christmas morning. If I could go back in time, I’d give you a pair of earplugs like the one’s I use so you could’ve slept through it all–forcing me to try Dad’s side of the bed.

Sorry Mom.

That I always sniffed out the secret snacks. You tried to teach us moderation but we were worse than raccoons, hell-bent on finding and devouring any garbage in the house. My own kids can hear the ruffle of a bag of chips from two floors away, and will even find cookies stashed in spots I forgot about months ago. Now I’m forced to hide their iPads too–and every time those sneaky bastards sniff ‘em out, I’m reminded that payback is a mutha. Or maybe it’s a mother?

Sorry Mom.

For being so stubborn about my clothing. For making every shopping trip a pain worse than hemorrhoids. If it’s not too late, I DO like dresses now, and would be more than happy to let you buy me some.

For the head lice it took you hours to comb out. And the chicken pox I gave you. And for vomiting everywhere but in the toilet.

For trying to stab my brother with a butter knife. If you taught me anything, it’s that I could have done more damage with a wooden spoon.

For the dog I never walked, the fish I never fed, the cat I never cleaned up after.

And for every school show you ever had to sit through.

But most of all, sorry Mom for not grasping that you were an actual person. Like most kids, I assumed you were put on this earth just to GIMME GETME BUYME and DRIVEME. If I hadn’t lost that spelling bee, I might have known there’s no ‘I’ in MOM, but there would be no ME without ‘U’.

I still don’t know how you did it, but I’m so glad you did.

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