MY MOM:  What’s that?

ME:  The fact that I sit here, cradling my sick daughter all night long without getting any sleep myself day after day, and in thirteen years she’s going to scream, “I HATE you!” because I won’t buy her an overpriced mini-skirt.

MY MOM:  I’m so glad you had a kid.   Now you understand.

My mom just poked her head in before going to bed, and rather than the usual “good-night, love you,” she asked when she should start crying because I haven’t gone into labor yet.   This is what it’s come to, people.  Until now I’ve been able to distract my parents with day trips to Santa Monica and a pantry full of sugary snacks, but the gig is up.  The pressure is on.  I have eight days left to produce The Granddaughter before they must return to Pennsylvania.  If Baby Girl stubbornly remains in Club Uterus, I will have let my parents down in a way I haven’t let ANYONE down since informing Grandma Kirby I got a job as a staff writer for CBS’s The Bold and the Beautiful.  To which Grandma replied:  “You REALLY should have gone to law school.”

Oh sure, it stung.  But I came to realize Mom may have saved my life with that suggestion, as I was practically just an open Hawaiian shirt away from being a dead ringer for Magnum P.I.

This sentimentality has led to many evening spent thumbing through old family photo albums.  Which has led to much laughter and “Oh no, I di-in’t!”s.  Well, oh yes, I DID — as you can see in the picture I’m about to share with you.  A picture that, I believe, embodies the true spirit of the increasingly popular blog called Awkward Family Photos:

The bigger the hair, the closer to awesomeness

Considering Mom has NEVER had her eyes open in the history of all photos taken of her, that’s actually a nice picture of her.  And this time, I can’t really blame her for closing her eyes because OMIGOD, LOOK AT THAT HAIR OF MINE!  Mom is probably closing her eyes in fear that my hair is going to attack her like a pack of rabid dogs.  Either that, or she’s lamenting how her daughter has single-handedly punctured a hole in the Ozone with the four cans of Vavoom Freezing Spray that were used to sculpt that hair into such a work of art.

It was the early ’90s, okay?  I wanted to be Julia Roberts in Pretty Woman so passionately, that I even bought that polka-dotted dress!  And begged for brown-colored contacts!  And waited on street corners for a hot billionaire to drive up in a Lotus!  (Never happened, strangely, but I did get some lovely offers from middle-aged men in Trans Ams that I regretfully had to decline.)

Lord only knows how my daughter will humiliate herself when she enters the dreaded teenage years.  Like Mom, I’ll just laugh and close my eyes.

"Where did THIS thing come from?!"

It’s my 30-Week Milestone!  Also known as The Tipping Point.  Seriously, with my center of gravity officially missing in action (I swear a kitchen tile jumped up and tripped me this morning), college kids sure could have a lot of fun sneaking up on me and tipping me over.  Let’s grab a case of MGD and go Candy Tipping tonight, guys!

Of course, it would be all fun and games until I HUNTED THEM DOWN AND SAT ON THEM.  Once I managed to get back on my feet.  The next day.

While I keep an eye out the window for USC students bearing cattle prods and double-bolt my doors, I just have to say pregnancy has agreed with me in a way I never expected.  I’ve become one of those happy, glowy, knocked-up chicks you want to smack on the head.  The odds of this happening were previously thought to be even worse than Tom Cruise’s chances of getting drafted by the NBA.  Just ask my mother:

ME:  I can’t believe how much I’m enjoying being pregnant.

CANDY’S MOM:  I can’t believe it either.  At all.

ME:  I hear Tom Cruise is going to play center for the Lakers next year

CANDY’S MOM:  Really?!  Well, I guess that’s not so crazy.

Hey now.  Who WOULDN’T love having a belly that could double as a ball in Tom’s first NBA game?

CANDY’S MOM:  Already?!

CANDY:  They’re booked months in advance.  There’s actually a waiting list.  Hell, we’ll have to start looking at pre-schools soon!

CANDY’S MOM:  I’ve heard some of those places even make the kids take I.Q. tests.

CANDY:  Crazy, right?

CANDY’S MOM:  Good thing we didn’t have to do that at your school.  We never would have gotten you in!

(Ed. note:  It’s no wonder I turned to Snickers Bars for comfort as a child. And teenager.  And adult. Dammit, WHY IS THERE NO CHOCOLATE IN THIS HOUSE?!)

Candy and Her Beloved Crazy Parents

My mom has a healthy outlook on growing older:  “Nothing good about it!”  Okay, so we may lose bone density, hair, mobility, the ability to apply lipstick within a five-inch radius of our actual mouths… but, as I learned from my recent trip back home with my parents, we also gain something valuable with age:

Carte blanche to act bat-shit crazy.

It’s true.  My parents have gone completely nuts.  And, most fascinatingly of all, they know it and could not possibly care any less.  Armed with their Senior Citizen Cards, they not only enjoy 10 percent off their Crunchy Onion Rings at Applebee’s, they also are bestowed with an “I don’t give a flying f*ck what anyone thinks”-type attitude.

I am, to be quite honest, jealous.

My dad has taken to reading useless bits of trivia from the local newspaper:  “Did you know a hundred people choke to death on ballpoint pens every year?”  Why, yes, Dad, I believe you read that to us yesterday — but he doesn’t care.  Dad merely cranks up the volume and talks over me, once AGAIN repeating the tragic story of the foreman at the paper plant who fatally tripped with a four-color Bic in his mouth.

Poor guy was probably running away from his father, who insisted on reading that day’s Farmer’s Almanac weather prediction to him.  Again.

My parents, Mr. Candy and I frequented the new grocery store in town — a lovely, sprawling place, I must admit — where my mom claims she “gets all the exercise she needs” because she has to walk across five whole aisles to reach the deli counter.  When I roll my eyes, my mom just laughs and tells me to “shut the hell up!”

I can only hope to have Mom’s gentle maternal approach with my own daughter.

But that’s not what made me briefly consider calling upon the help of a Senior Citizen Whisperer.  Oh no.  As we sit down to dig into a pizza in the grocery store’s cafe (we needed some sustenance after walking ALL the way from the fruit stand), my mom reaches into her purse… and unwraps a towel filled with her own utensils and pizza cutter.  Dear god.

“Um, Mom?  The pizza’s already cut.  And they gave us plastic forks and knives; they’re actually pretty nice…”

Mom just continues to wipe the phantom lint from her pizza cutter.

“I like using my own utensils,” she snipes, head up in the air.

“But it’s silly –”

“I LIKE THINGS THE WAY I LIKE THEM, OKAY?”

Well, I can hardly argue with that.  Not that I could ever win, anyway — Dad would undoubtedly shoot me down by reaching into his ever-growing arsenal of fascinating facts:

“Did you know a thousand people die from contaminated plastic utensils every year?”

Why, NO, Dad, I did not!  Tell me more.  (See?  I’m learning.)

A cosmopolitan metropolis?  Not exactly.  The smell of cow dung was all-too-familiar and Esprit was the brand I aspired to wear one day.  Oh, one day!  The ‘Burg was and is, however, a lovely place to grow up.   I was blessed with a sprawling backyard, sickeningly healthy childhood and loving parents… which, as we all know, is the Achilles’ heel of any writer.  Where is the deep-seated pain and abuse from which great writing flows?  Couldn’t my mom at least have had the decency to lock me in the attic for an afternoon or two?

Thank goodness for eating disorders and college years depression.  But more on that fun stuff later.

After graduating from a university located, oh, a whopping twenty miles from my parents’ house, I finally decided to spread my wings and fly north to join two of my high school friends who had already settled in New York City.  This was, as the kids used to say, a Big Fucking Deal in my family.  When I announced my plans, I saw “the look” cross Dad’s reddening face.  The look that screamed:   “My baby girl?  Living in a city filled with HEATHENS WHO WILL STEAL HER INNOCENCE?  Or, even worse, HER PURSE?”

You have to understand, my parents were born and raised in Central Pennsylvania.  My older brother and sister still live there.  My grandma, my aunts, my cousins… yeah, you got it… still there.  Now a lovely shade of crimson, Dad started to tear me a new one — until Mom gently-but-forcefully laid her hand on his arm, as only moms know how to do, and flashed him HER look.  The look that admonished:  “She’s going to go whether you want her to or not.  So just shut up and deal — and I’ll reward you with meatloaf later tonight.”

And that was it.  He did, and she did, and I went and never looked back.  City life agreed with me and, as it turns out, having me in the city agreed with my parents who enjoyed visiting me in New York, then grad school in Chicago and now Los Angeles.  Oh, they especially love Los Angeles, where the pleasant warmth eases Mom’s arthritis, desire to eat dinner at 3PM and other ailments you get when you grow older.

Or, should I say, they LOVED LA — past tense — before it meant 3,000 miles and a long-ass flight separating them from their granddaughter.

Apparently, being thousands of miles away from ME is no big deal.  After thirty-some years, they’re obviously over their youngest daughter.   Been there, raised that, bored with that.  But their first granddaughter…?  That’s a different story.  Previously supportive of us living in Los Angeles, my mom now always finds a way to “casually” work this little distance issue into conversation:

“We’re thinking of going to the grocery store today.  TOO BAD MY GRANDDAUGHTER WILL GROW UP NOT EVEN KNOWING WHO I AM!”

Subtlety, thy name is Mom.

That’s not to say I don’t have regretful pangs every once in a while.  When I found out I was pregnant, Mr. Candy and I traveled to New York to tell our friends the good news and, at my insistence, check out condos.  You know, just in case.

“We’re not moving back,” Mr. Candy declared with a knowing smirk.

“But we don’t know how we’ll feel once the baby’s here!” I protested while weeping over a particularly moving episode of “Two-and-a-Half Men.”  Because that’s how my pregnancy hormones and I rolled in the first trimester.

When I walked out of JFK airport and a chilly blast of below-zero winds smacked me in the face, I screamed (as my husband loves to quote):  “LA FOREVER!  LA FOREVER!”

I’m sorry, but weather trumps family.  At least I have my priorities straight.

Meaning, we’re going to become quite the experts in Skype, WebCams and Ambien-laced milk… or whatever it is that helps knock out babies on planes.  Will it be tough?  Abso-fuckin-lutely.  Especially on birthdays and other special occasions, such as when Baby Girl repeats her first curse word.  Awwww.

But probably not nearly as tough as the day when Baby Girl tells us she’s moving to New York City and I have to gently-but-forcefully lay my hand on Mr. Candy’s arm.  Let’s just hope Mom passed on that gift to me.  Because I sure as hell can’t make meatloaf.

*AHEM*

So color me fortunate to have a mom who’s there for me in these delicate times. A sampling from this morning’s touching phone conversation:

ME:  (WITH GREAT EXCITEMENT)  I’m really starting to look pregnant!

CANDY’S MOM: Huh?

ME: Yeah, my old clothes are getting too tight. Although my maternity clothes don’t look cute on me yet –

CANDY’S MOM: Oh, Candy. They’re never going to look cute on you. [PAUSE] Don’t you dare write that in your column!

Later in the conversation…

ME: (WITH SLIGHTLY LESS EXCITEMENT) We bought a prenatal heart monitor at Target yesterday. It’s so cool — you can hear the baby kick!

CANDY’S MOM: A heart monitor? Must be nice to be rich. [PAUSE] Don’t you dare write that in your column!

And even later…

ME: (WITH TOTALLY REPRESSED EXCITEMENT) I’ve been playing Mozart and Telemann for the baby…

CANDY’S MOM:  Good lord.

ME:  Well, um, I hear it’s good for them…

CANDY’S MOM:  Oh yeah? And which baby ever confirmed that? [PAUSE] Don’t you dare write that in your column!

And people wonder where I get my smart-ass gene from.  Hmmmmmm.

CANDY (WITH TREMENDOUS SYMPATHY):  Well, believe it.

CANDY’S MOM: It was an innocent comment.  I didn’t mean anything by it.

CANDY:  Uh-huh.

CANDY’S MOM: That’s it.  I’m not saying anything about you and the baby ever again!

CUT TO:  ONE MINUTE LATER

CANDY’S MOM: … I’ve been SO waiting for you to have a daughter; a little terror, just like you were!  You know what they say about karma… I’m going to be snickering the whole time –

CANDY:  Mom?

CANDY’S MOM: Yeah?

CANDY:  You do realize I’m writing this down, right?

CANDY’S MOM: (PAUSE)  Damn!

Editor’s note:  Toddler Candy was nothing but an angel sent from heaven.  Those SCREEEEAAAAMING tantrums on the department store floor…?   Merely a precocious child’s dramatic interpretation of the pain and sadness inherent in Picasso’s Blue Period.  …No?  Oh, okay, Toddler Candy was a little terror.  Karma will indeed be a bitch.