Bestest

Hiccups.

They happen at the least convenient times, don't they?

Not just the "hic-cup!" ones either, the ones that you can't stifle no matter how hard you try when you're sitting in an exam or church. I mean the kind that throw your entire system out of whack, like when your apartment isn't ready and you can't move in. That kind. You spill coffee on yourself the one time you wore a white top (am I right?), or got mud on your nice, clean pants. The phone cuts out just at the moment you finally got through the 20-minute wait with Bell custome service. It rains and your hair looks like more poodle than volumous the day of your interview or hot date. They happen to us all, some more easily straightened out than others.

My Mom is the ultimate in straightening-out of things. From stained shirts to ripped pants, the woman can fix pretty well anything except a broken heart, but she's pretty good at helping you put the pieces back together. I'm not even half the Mom she is, and I mean that in the least self-depracating way possible. I've got 21 years to go before I can truly compare myself, but if nothing else, I hope F thinks I'm as great as I think my Mom is. She is funny, kind, intelligent, able, and down-to-earth. She has bent over backwards for my brother and I a gazillion times, loved us when we were hard to like and stood up for us when she probably should have knocked us on our asses. She's that kind of Mom. The kind of Mom that every child should have.

We've had some rough times, she and I. I've loved her and been royally pissed at her a million times over growing up, and we still argue. We're really different. She is reserved and neat, and she's almost never on time - early isn't in her vocabulary, but I adore her. I have pushed her patience, let her down, made her angry and probably made her question her own sanity about four hundred times in the past year alone. Throughout every up and down, she's been right next to me. Even though I can't imagine how I've done it, I've somehow managed to make her proud twice that many times in the past year. She listens to me rant and cry and laugh and pretends my (not so funny) jokes are funny. She is my fashion consultant, voice of reason and biggest cheerleader and I sure hope that she knows she's my best friend. If she doesn't, she'll know soon when I approach her with the usual, "Hey, want to hear the blog post I just wrote?".

She's not alone in her awesomeness, though. My Dad is pretty awesome too. The pair of them have bailed me out more times than any of us can remember, and I pretty much owe them an Island or something to that extent. They have moved me to and from the city, into new apartments and back into my bedroom at their house. They've let me sit and feel sorry for myself, dragged me out when I least felt like it and held my hand through the storm. They've changed F's diapers and cleaned up Daisy's messes. I'd be totally lost without them, and the most amazing part?

They didn't have to do a single bit of it. They didn't have to be my parents. They wanted to.