My Kooky Mom

This blog post was written by my daughter, Tiffany Jarman Jansen, about me in honor of Mother's Day.

My mom is in no way like your normal, everyday mom.

When my brother and I were little, she used to write notes that she’d slip into our lunchboxes saying “I love you, have a great day.” My brother and I had no doubts about my mother’s love for us. She told us about it every chance she got.

If my mom laughs, you can hear it from miles away. Once, I was waiting for my mom to come pick me up. All of the sudden, there’s this cackling coming from down the hall. The acquaintance next to me turns and says “Your mom’s here.”

She insisted on taking us to and picking us up from school every day all the way up until we had our driver’s licenses. My brother and I quickly learned that this meant getting to school at least five minutes late and having to wait another five minutes after everyone else had left to be picked up.

My mom has always had a hand in everything: the Parent-Teacher Association, taking part in community theaters, volunteering at school, leading our scouting troops, horseback riding, teaching. You name it, my mother did it. She was always going and often had so much on her mind that she ended up forgetting it all.

Our home was always a zoo. We had ferrets, cats, dogs, birds, hermit crabs, gerbils, hamsters, fish, horses, lizards. She even tried to sneak a pot-bellied pig into the house once. Needless to say, it didn’t work. My dad found out pretty quickly. Though he wasn’t happy about it, she was able to convince him to let the pig stick around.

Each holiday has its own distinct wardrobe: socks, jumpers, t-shirts, sweaters, sweatshirts, and even jewelry for everything from Christmas and Halloween to Mardi Gras and Saint Patrick’s Day. And the house was to be decorated to the extreme for each one. There’s a separate box in the attic devoted to every holiday imaginable.

When my brother began dinner conversation by asking what “cum” was, my mother very calmly turned to my father and said, “I’ll hand this one over to you” then continued to serve as my father explained.

She has a group of friends who happen to be drag queens and is almost always off at one of their shows. My mom is actually so dedicated to her gay friends that she started a PFLAG (Parents, Families & Friends of Lesbians and Gays) chapter in my hometown.

Observant is most certainly not one of the words you would use to describe my mother. My brother and I still laugh over the first time she used a digital camera. After taking the photo, she took a look at the screen to admire her work. “Oh, it says something,” she said, squinting at the camera as she put her reading glasses on. She took another look and said, “Picture is blurred? What does that mean?” Um… I don’t know, Mom. Maybe that the picture is blurred?

Everyone loves my mom. All my friends envied me my cool and eccentric mother. And me? Well, I was just plain embarrassed most of the time. Of course I loved her – she was my mom, after all. But her presence sometimes made me want to crawl into a hole.
As I got older, my mother became my best friend. We did so much together and told each other practically everything. She was there for me in good times and in bad. She supported everything I involved myself in and was proud of everything I touched. While my friends and their mothers argued and generally did not get along, my mom and I were doing things together and loving every moment.

Of course there were things about her that drive me bonkers. Like her as-long-as-your-father-finds-me-attractive-I-don’t-care-what-I-look-like attitude or the fact that you can still hear everything my mother says from all the way on the other side of the street. Or how she yells into the telephone like the person on the other end won’t hear her otherwise.
But those are just some of the little things that make her who she is: the kooky mom that every girl wants to have as her best friend. I’m glad that I’m the one who gets that mom. And I hope that someday I’ll get to be that mom to someone else.