Before There Were Kids

Just a heads up that this post may be the death of me.  Dad--look the other way, and no one tell mom it exists.

My mom raised us to be pretty darned independent. She was not the type that I could just bring a load of laundry home to after a tough week in college. But who am I kidding? I am not the type to let someone else do my laundry. I can't bring myself to share that kind of fun.

When it comes to food though, she is 100% doting mama.  One of us needs to merely mention a craving and the next thing we know, that food is sitting in front of us.  I like to think we try to control this incredible power we have, but in truth, we don't.  And the funny thing is, it doesn't matter how independent a girl is or how much she likes to cook for herself, there's always something so comforting about mom making you food. 

Som Tum.   When you have tickets booked to head back to Thailand this April, you have to start prepping for the daily consumption. As my Dad kept asking as my mom was pounding away....couldn't I make this myself?  Of course.  But it's so much better when mom makes it.

I didn't plan on going back to Thailand this year, but my parents planned a trip this April.  I couldn't pass on that opportunity.  As I visited with family over there last year, I heard stories about my mom and about my parents.  This was my mom's home, her family and where my parents met and got married.  There were stories here that I wanted to see and hear again with my parents there as well.

See, apparently, before she was a mom who jumped at every food request we made, before there was even a Mary, Mikey or Monica(or Mark and Matt)...

She was actually, well, not a mom. It's hard to believe.

I can't even imagine her outside of our family, having a life that didn't include us.  But alas there was a time that she hung out with her friends posing for pictures that look like something from an Amy Tan novel.

Eventually, this young woman fell in love with an American GI with sweet TEDs and superstar bike skills.

(A bike skill, if we recall from this past 4th of July, was not passed in the genes to me.)

But I digress.  So when I see these old photos and hear these stories, there is a fascination in two lives lived before I even existed.  And when presented with the opportunity to visit Thailand with them, and see my mom's homeland through her eyes, or even through the eyes of a father who first experienced it as a 20 year old, how do you pass up that opportunity?  And the view's not so bad either....