I'm so mad at my mother...(courtesy of Steve Martin)

Moms. It can be a love/hate relationship. Especially between a mother and daughter. Since I still live with my mom (like a rock star) there are inevitable fights. Or just those situations where she can make me feel so small and useless. Here's one of my favorites.

For her birthday I had a big plan to make her a surprise meal. The tricky part was timing, to run to the store and make the meal the day of while she was at work. Being the summer I wanted to keep it somewhat light, so I made a classic ceviche and a 9" lemon tart from scratch, crust and all! I was so excited to do something like this for her. Real life being what it is, plans changed and she was able to come home early that day. I thought, "Oh well, it'll still be quite a surprise, I'll just be finishing some things when she gets home."

So I'm in the kitchen, the tart is cooling on the stove, and I'm still cutting up some of the white fish for the ceviche. She comes home and walks into the kitchen. I smile and say, "Happy Birthday! I'm making you dinner, I'm just finishing up." She looks at the ceviche, a disgusted look comes across her face and she says, "That's the dinner?" in the most disappointed voice possible.

My heart breaks.

Suddenly I'm trying to defend the nice thing I was trying to do for her. Then she goes into how I shouldn't make her feel bad on her birthday and how reasonable she's being. I could go on and on, but even now typing this out, it still hurts.

Then just this past weekend she and I went to a party that was celebrating several of my friends' birthdays, including my own! I made a ton of yummy cupcakes of course. And one of my friends is expecting a baby, so for her gift I knitted a baby blanket, fluffy and soft. My mom reminded me how to knit and do the edging, but I bought the yarn and spent almost a month getting it done. The party was fun and lovely, even my mom seemed to be having a good time.

Flash forward to the next day. I come downstairs, before I or she even says, "Good morning" she starts, "I was just thinking how much of the ingredients you must have gone through to make those cupcakes. And you could have at least said I did the edging on the blanket."

Confused? So was I.

I contribute to groceries every month and I fully planned to restock the sugar, flour and such. And excuse me about the blanket? Thank you for reminding me how to knit but dammit I did the work. I couldn't talk to her for the rest of the day I was so furious. I should have simply said, "Fuck you". But I still have to somehow live with this woman. I seriously need a reasonably priced apartment. Maybe I'll get that for my birthday.

Watch she makes me dinner...then its my turn >:oD