Anyone who knows me knows that I am a bit left of center and blew the word ‘unique’ out of the water. So this Mother’s Day I feel that I should pay homage to my mother and grandmother who made me this way. So sit back and relax, I’m about to tell you how it was growing up in Maine under the influence of the women who raised me.

My grandmother was an art teacher. In reality I really shouldn’t have to say much more than that. We’ve all dealt with art teachers dressed in homemade clothes with their bifocals dangling from around their neck on a beaded tether. <= That was my grandmother. My first memory of her was when my mother and I were living with her in a small little New England home overlooking the ocean. I ran into the bathroom one day to get my pet hamster, isn’t that where everyone keeps their hamsters? and saw her with her underwear down to her knees bent over spraying them with perfume. As I stopped short in my tracks she simply looked up at me and said, “There is no reason for it to ever stink.” I now know that ‘it’ meant your cooter, but at the time I was convinced ‘it’ was your underwear and for the life of me I couldn’t figure out why your underwear would stink.

Throughout the years I watched as my grandmother would shamelessly yank off her shirt in the midst of a hot flash in the middle of dinner and frantically walk around the house in her underwear. When I was in college we would have entire conversations about her boobs and how gravity had taken them south. When she would fart she would say that she was deflating, and we would be in tears every time she hugged someone due to the fact that every hug would inevitably squeeze a fart out of her. After she passed away in 2008 I found a bottle of her husband’s Viagra (he had passed a few years before) in the night stand on his side of the bed. Right then it was confirmed that up until 2006 my grandmother was still at least trying to have sex.

As they say, the apple never falls too far from the tree. They also say that your children are three times worse than you were. Enter my mother. She isn’t an art teacher, but she did want to be a hippy. Every summer growing up my mother would walk out the door in her underwear and start mowing the lawn. It’s quite possible I miss this the least since leaving home. Quite often more than I’d like to admit if my brother and I heard rapid footsteps coming toward the kitchen we knew that she would soon be sliding across the floor in nothing but her socks yelling “Ta-da!!!”

Summers growing up included happening upon my mother on the back porch sunbathing topless every weekend and winters being mooned by her in her ancient night-gown. The older I get the more stories I hear and the more comfortable she feels about going bra shopping with me for herself.

And that’s how it was for me growing up. Listening to their stories about sex and boobs, and wondering if I was ever going to have nipples like my mother. They were never shy about nudity and taught me it was a normal part of life. Even now I have conversations with my mother on the purpose of ‘manscaping’ and how an underwire bra helps to combat the look of gravity.

It’s because of them that I now  put on deodorant in that little area where my thigh meets my crotch cracks BF up every time he sees me do it, enjoy pants off Friday, encourage BF to motor boat me, and have taken my shirt off in public more than a handful of times…ok, that last one was probably due to tequila but my mother always taught me to never blame the alcohol. Therefore I blame it strictly on genetics. Thanks mom!*wink wink*

So this Mother’s Day I want to thank my mother and grandmother for molding me into the free spirited nudist I am today. Without the constant influence from them both I can only imagine that I would have become a stuck up bitch who doesn’t know the first thing about wacky sex and underwear perfume. I miss my grandmother every day and continue to be thankful every time my I come to realize my mother is becoming more and more like my grandmother. This means one thing….I am sure to stumble down the same path and so is my daughter. Watch out world, this mommy is undressed for a reason!