Dear Minions,

I feel as if I need to write you this letter so that you will be able to show it to your therapist when you’re older. As you well have learned, because by the time you read this you’ll be grown thank fucking God, everyone has their quirks and mommy has many of them. You’re surprised, I know. Believe me when I say that I truly am sorry you had to endure my antics growing up, but like drinking they were simply unavoidable. Please bring this of my craziness to your therapist seeing as how by the time you’re reading this I will already be rocking in the corner of a padded room.

1. We probably never carved pumpkins together. I hate how they smell and even more how they taste. I think fall is the worst time of year because every coffee shop known to man has to come up with pumpkin flavored everything. This needs to stop, so when one of you becomes President I expect you to outlaw all things pumpkin.
2. Nothing in your rooms ever matched, this includes the sheets. Not sure if you noticed, but nothing in the house ever matched either. I’m what you call eclectic….this is true in every sense of the word. Correct me if I’m wrong, but I’m pretty sure the truck pillow case coupled with the flowered sheets didn’t scar you too bad. Besides, the sheets were flannel, that’s gotta count for something.
3. There were never any ‘sugar’ cereals in the house. You can blame Nani for this…its how I was raised. You might have noticed that there weren’t ever any at her house either. But at least Papa let you have cookies for breakfast.
4. Video games. In the month before writing this letter, they were only played once in the house. You didn’t even have handheld ones…those, I’m sure, came after you started to get an allowance and paid for them yourselves.
5. I blame all your bad habits on your father because I’m obviously perfect he’s half Italian half Greek and from Staten Island. I’ll let him write you his own damn letter to defend himself. Just remember that mommy is always right.
6. Our house was always in a state of chaos and dust bunny war fair. I’m not a domestic goddess by any sense of the word. There was a period of 3 years were I was but that was before either of you came along. With your births away went my domestic gene. This is one of the many reasons I stopped at two. I would have lost all cooking and baking skills had I had one more child.
7. Growing up I threatened to eat you and called you evil. Please believe me that I never would have REALLY eaten you, you were always too grubby to be appetizing, and calling you evil was a term of endearment. Much like how you call me bat shit crazy now.
8. Although I never ‘encouraged’ Theo’s obsession with all things pink and sparkly, I never ‘discouraged’ it either. I confess, there was a secret hope in my heart that he was in fact gay. There. I said it. So Theo, if you end up being straight you can laugh about this with your wife. You’re welcome.
9. I let Pheobe pick out her clothes since she was two. This often resulted in her looking a lot like something a thrift store threw out, but it was her choice and you never fight with evil unless you want to go up in flames. Who knows, maybe she’s a top notch fashion designer now because of it. Hey, a mommy can dream.
10. Finally, I very rarely cut your finger and toe nails. *barf* I have always cutting other people’s nails. Your great grandmother use to make me cut hers every time I went to her house. The damn things fly all over the place and land god only knows where! And think of all the germs on them…landing on your toothbrush or in your mouth. So yeah, I was often scolded by your father about that.

So there you have it. Just a few things I’m sure put you into therapy as an adult. If you have any further questions you can ask my therapist at the looney bin. I’m sure I’ve already filled out a full disclosure slip so they won’t even have to take me off my meds to ask. In closing, just know that I love you and I did all that I could for you growing up. I’m sure you’re both making me very proud. Even if you’re not gay or a fashion designer….or President.

Love you always and forever-Mommy