Mother's Day

Technically the definition of me as a small child was: “selfish and loud force (much like a tornado) that will destroy your house and a large portion of your social life, while constantly demanding food, your attention, and an endless stream of praise/affirmation ” …and Betsy still thought I was worth the hassle. This is reason enough to celebrate Mother’s Day. Surviving me was an accomplishment.

To fully appreciate Betsy Brown-Rice (my lovely mom), I have compiled a list of some of my favorite memories that we have shared throughout my short 24 years.

1. THE SEX TALK: Bets and I both could probably agree on how little we BOTH wanted to talk about it, but when Haley Burson told me you had to have to have sex in order to have kids...I was shell-shocked and needed someone to disprove this horrifying news. To my knowledge, you said a prayer and God would give you a kid when He knew you were ready for one. So naturally I asked Betsy to clear things up. The conversation began and right there in her bathroom, my mom and I buckled up because regardless of how much it was going to suck…this shit was going to happen. Anyways, long story short – I ended up crying in my closet and my mom lost the privilege of speaking to me for the rest of the week.

2. LUNCH BOX: Everyone at PGMS would unanimously agree that I had the best sack-lunches. My mom would put sandwich ingredients into separate baggies to assemble at lunchtime so that my sandwich would not get soggy. Also I had a full plastic baggy of sugar to dip my fresh strawberries into…which come to think, may actually be part of the reason I have a sugar addiction to this day. Anyways on top of it all, Bets would leave a handwritten note of some sort, which was sweet and also helped me to fake her signature on permission slips and to disprove Santa Claus later in life.

3. PREGNANCY AND CURFEW: As a kid, I had a strict curfew to which I never abided. My excuses were very innocent usually, like ‘I was jumping off Britton’s roof into her pool.’ Anyways, it was the rule that when I got home, I had to come and tell mom that I was home safe. That usually ended in her bursting into my room in a panic later that night at 3AM and shaking me to make sure I wasn’t dead. That actually happened when I was a baby, and is only slightly exaggerated for my teenage years. So, to remedy the problem, I started saying “Mom, its Allyson - your first born daughter. I’m home. It’s 10:30 (lie...it was 11) and its FRIDAY. Do you comprehend this?” The best response I ever got was “Okay, honey…go and tell your sister that you are pregnant.”

What was shocking about this was both that I was clearly not pregnant at age 15, but also that she seemed so casual and nonchalant about my breaking this news to a 12 year old Brittney. Which I promptly did: “Britt, mom said to tell you I am pregnant. Goodnight.” She handled it surprisingly well.

4. RICE RABBITS: Betsy, at what I can only assume was an early-mid-life-crisis, thought that having a dog in our home wasn’t enough. (This would later work itself out in having MULTIPLE DOGS OF THE SAME BREED IN OUR HOUSE. How many you may ask?  SIX. Which by definition is hoarding.) In this case, and in order to have the complete childhood experience package, we apparently needed bunnies. BUNNIES! So we adopted Clover, Thumper, and Fluffy. Fluffy was Carson’s rabbit and he suffered from post-traumatic-stress-disorder after Carson played catch with him when he was a baby…but that’s a different story.

Let me tell you something about bunnies….they poop every 5 seconds. And they pee all over each other, which becomes very obvious when they have white fur. And when your friends come over, you have to take them to see the rabbits in the new outdoor cage (with a polka dotted sign that read “Rice Rabbits”) and the bunnies will poop and pee on everything and then look at you with their floppy ears like “OMG ISN’T THIS AWESOME?! WHO ARE YOUR FRIENDS!!?”

…Skip to the end of the story - you will send them away to live on a ‘farm.’

5. FAMILY VACATION: My family is very fond of the beach. On the strict contrary, my family is not fond of luxury traveling. We choose to instead pile every human being alive into a single vehicle, and drive from dawn to dusk, or until our legs fall off from cramping, or until someone kills someone else. It’s the Brown-Rice WAY. Anyways, on one particular year, we set out for the beach (8 people, one vehicle) without any sort of direction as to how to get there. Because of course we would. We got about an hour into our drive, when my mom looked over and said “Do you know where we are going? Because I don’t.” It hadn’t occurred to anyone that we should bring a map or at the very least – print off directions from mapquest. (Keep in mind this is before smart phones).  "All I know is that we were supposed to go East."  BRILLIANT.


All kidding aside, Betsy did THE BEST job at being a mom, because none of us turned into dangerous sociopaths, and none of us have died under her watch (so far). Not to mention, she is the sole reason that we are not complete selfish idiots.  I suspect that she might be the best mom in the world based on her kindness, selflessness, and sheer capacity for unconditional love.  And because she raised ME.  Without going completely insane.  *NOTE: I am not entirely sure how much of her superhuman patience was out of love, and how much was simply self-preservation from the psychotic episodes of both me and my father.

Anyways, it is my recommendation that we take this entire weekend (and the rest of our damn lives - Brittney, Carson - Im looking at you) to appreciate Betsy Brown-Rice for everything that she did, does, and is doing. Because she is really a rockstar.

Happy Mother's Day MOM!  You are ALWAYS deeply loved and only sometimes deeply crazy (and with that, we've finally found our common denominator).  Truly, we wouldn't know what to do without you!!  Do something crazy this weekend. Because YOU are the boss of YOU.

To read more reasons to love Betsy, check out my blog from this time last year:  Found HERE