Mother:

1. I’m sorry people mistook me for a boy in 3rd grade. It must have been a little disconcerting that the female offspring you produced couldn’t even manage something as simple as looking like her own gender.  What else would I prove incapable of in my coming years, you surely thought? (Sports. All of them.) Don’t blame yourself; I’m the one who opted for the giant glasses and bowl cut.

2. I’m sorry I never stopped talking. Although I’m sure your mother would claim it is just a delicious bit of divine justice that your offspring should be as mouthy as you, I still feel like I owe you an apology for never ever ever shutting up.  You took it in stride, no doubt, but I can’t imagine it was particularly riveting for you to have to sit for an hour and listen to your 6th grader explain to you what she’d just learned about subatomic particles in a book she read.

3. I’m sorry I’m taller than you. I mean, like, way taller than you. You always joke about it, telling people you introduce me to that “she got her legs from me” and watching them squirm nervously, unsure how to respond, because you’re five feet tall. But seriously, how unfair for you! So I’m sorry for all those times I patted you on the head precociously like you’re an adorable elf, or hugged you around the head because that’s where my arms hit.

4. I’m sorry I always thought it was really funny to use atrocious manners at the dinner table, just to watch you react. But this is a half-hearted apology, as I still find it hilarious when you gasp in shock and tsk at me when I show you the chewed up food in my mouth. Your other offspring and I will continue mixing the foods on our plates into one glob of mush and I will continue to suck Jell-O out of a bowl.  There’s just no getting around that. I guess that leads to my next apology…

5. I’m sorry I’m not very mature. Perhaps its terrifying when your 5’10” twenty-four-year-oldndaughter bounds toward you on the couch, plops in your lap, and digs her bony ass into your thigh. You certainly yell loud enough when I do it.  I appreciate the fact that despite all this, you’ve never once told me to grow up.

6. I’m sorry for that one time in 2006 when I woke you up at midnight in tears and said I was driving from Lincoln to Omaha that night because a boy was mean to me and I wanted to talk about it. You probably needed your sleep, as you had to work in the morning, but you stayed up with me and talked and let me sleep in your bed with you. So what if I was 20? Come to think about it, sorry for waking you up from a dead sleep all those times I came home after my curfew, too. My bad.

7. I’m sorry I took this picture, and refuse to stop showing it to people despite your best efforts to curb me.

8. Oh, and also this picture.

9. I’m sorry I’m a cynical smart ass, and that it prompts you to regularly refer to me as “Smart Ass” instead of by my given name.  Which reminds me, I’m sorry for that one time I said Hope Floats was a terrible movie because I  was jaded even though I hadn’t seen it, and you called me “heartless.” I’m sure it’s a lovely film.

10. I’m sorry I laugh so unabashedly at you when you call to ask me completely random questions, like “Who was that creepy little guy in The Lord of the Rings movies?” and “Who was Darth Vader, again? I mean, like, who else was he in the other movies?” I probably audibly sigh every time and remind you that you’re probably in front of the computer and could thus Google this, but I also get a little bit of pleasure out of knowing the answers to your peculiar pop culture questions.

–Katie Sisneros thinks The Tangential moms should meet.