You say it's your birthday.........it's my birthday too!

It's my Mom's birthday this month....oh, and mine too.  I was an early birthday present born 3 days before her own birthday.  So, to celebrate the two of us, I thought it would be fun to write 20 random ways that I find myself just like my mother.

1. Our favorite color is blue. 
2. We love music and musicals.
3. We enjoy puzzles (all types) but our favorite currently is the Sudoku puzzles.
4. We can pass hours reading a good book
5. I have my mother's hands.
6.  Both of us feel extreme terror upon seeing mice in our house.  I think my mother's terror may be more extreme stemming from an incident in her childhood where she, barefooted, stepped on a dead one.  I still remember a scene from my youth were my mother stood wildly screaming on top of a chair after opening one of her boxes that contained her canning supplies to find a live mouse inside a jar.  Her scream was louder than the one I let loose upon finding the dead mouse that was stuck to the bathroom cabinet of my current residence.
7. We both have five children.  She claims she has it easier as hers are all grown now and she gets to enjoy being just being Grandma.
8. We both bake candies for Christmas.  She is more of a pro and her fondant always turns out.
9. We've both moved frequently.  Mom's lived in 19 different places.  I'm up to 18.  I'm hoping the moves are done (and it looks like they almost are) and my mom will have always beaten me in this category.  No, our husbands are not in the military.
10. Boggle is our favorite board game.  For me though, banagrams is surely a contender for that spot.
11. We married younger men and were concerned when we found ourselves seriously dating them.  My Mom's concerns have been somewhat validated by my father who harasses her the whole six months she is older than him.
12. We received scholarships from the colleges we attended.  She wants it known that she had a 3.9 in college and was only kept from a 4.0 because of a B she received in bowling class (She's been telling us this for years).  Let it be known that I did not have a 3.9.  My mother was much smarter than I. 
13. Once, we sported the same hair cut.  I forced her hand.  She said I wouldn't like it, but I insisted.  As soon as it was over, I cried and cried.  Until this haircut, people never told me I looked like my mom, but after, the comments rolled in all the time.  My husband still hasn't let me live down this cut.  He calls it the Michael J. Fox haircut.  Of course, it was the haircut I had my senior pictures taken with.



14. At times, I find myself laughing at something and hear my mother...could this be true?
15. We love bargain shopping.  It's addicting and difficult to stop.  Hopefully, my closet will never be as full as my mothers with shampoo, toothpaste, toothbrushes and deodorants.  If so, I will know I've gone too far.
16. When completing a project, our children and household go completely unnoticed.  For example, when Jake rips up important documents in our office while I am posting a blog Brad always asks me, "Didn't you see him do that?  What were you doing?"  He just doesn't know how my brain works.  I got it from my Mother.
17. We're not much for emotions and can deemed "insensitive" by those that don't know us well.
18. We fear swimming in large bodies of water.  Me, because as small child I jumped in a pool (certain I could swim) and sunk to the bottom where I saw the drain (I still have a vivid picture of that drain in my mind umpteen years later) and my mom because, as a young girl, she jumped off a river dock thinking her 2 swim classes had given her sufficient practice but found herself sinking as she tried to dog paddle to safety.  Luckily her brother was nearby and pulled her out by her hair.  Good solid reasons for both of us to fear large bodies of water.
19. My mom thinks she's right all the time and claims I think the same. I disagree, but will include it on the list as I'm running out of similarities.  Besides, she’s always right. 
20. I can't think of 20.  19 will have to do.

Happy Birthday Mom!  I'm proud to be like you in so many ways.