I'm still cool????

I love my mom. I really do. It's just that from an early age I remember looking at the woman and thinking, "Man, she's weird." I'm not talking typical teenage, "Omigawd, can you believe she's my mother!" stuff. No. I remember thinking this at 6 years old. If there was ever a time I wanted to be just like her, it happened before I was old enough to remember.

What my teen relationship with my mother looked like...

Our relationship is much better as we got older, acknowledging the other one is completely strange, but loving them just the same. This is pretty much what I thought all mother daughter relationships were, until I had my daughter. I would never have gone up to my mom and say, "Hey that telenovela you are watching seems cool. Can I watch it?" or "What is that strange dish you are enjoying? Can I have some?" My daughter never grew out of the mimicking mom stage and I was stunned when she expressed an interest in Dr. Who and spicy Indian food (my mom was too - not at the Dr. Who part, but she feels very annoyed her picky eater grew up to be a foodie with foodies-in-training for kids).

She turned 11 early this week, and so far it shows no signs of abating. This terrifies me slightly. Oh sure, I expected it as a baby, and it's amazing to have a steady buddy for Chicken Saagwala and Sailor Moon nights, but I think of all the other things she could emulate - my annoyance at being predisposed to being curvy instead of willowy, my tendency to run myself into the ground to get things done and ignore my health until the last possible minute, my predisposition to keep hurt inward and soldier on until I am ready to snap. No I don't want that legacy passed on. Just like mommy? Oh please gods NO!

But then at the orthodontist's office earlier this week (yeah, she's got mommy's crooked teeth too, poor thing) she got into a conversation with me over the 80's music playing in the office. I explained to her how big of a star Madonna was back in the day and how so many little girls copied her look as Madonna-wanna-bes.

"That's stupid," she said. "Why not just be yourself?"

The orthodontist smiled at us both, and I breathed a sigh of relief.

I'm glad she still thinks I'm cool and shows an interest in all the things I like ("Can I have matcha creme brulee mom?") but I'm most glad she knows that ultimately the best thing to be is herself.

Yeah, I hope she doesn't pick up my swearing either - that's something my mom and I do share LOL