Well, Jules at Everyday Mommy announced the award winners at Hidden Treasures. Mercy me! Three, count 'em, T.H.R.E.E. of my blood relatives, 'seen each other in our underwear', 'would share *toothbrushes if we were all stuck together in a nuclear fallout shelter', 'would nurse each other's babies before we'd let them them starve to death', THAT kind of relatives, won. Won. Either it's something in the water, or good writing genes.

My mother, who has been clicking on a manual typewriter late into the night since Barb and I can remember, won for this post. She has some silly in her, but those genes are far and few between. Mostly she's intent. As is this post on my brother's death. Most of the time when she's laughing, its at the quiet in the room after she attempts to deliver a punch line to a joke she never should have started in the first place. All I'm saying is it's good she went into nursing instead of stand-up comedy. I can't stand to think of my mother-the-comedian, standing on street corners with some cold can in her hands, saying, "Lady, spare a dime?" You want deeper thinking, read my mom.

My sister is truly good at everything. Okay, except driving but she's so good at getting everyone else to drive her wherever she needs to go, that somehow counts too. If she ever lies to you in her blog and tells you her house is anything less than 'lick the floors, they're so clean' clean, don't believe her. They are. If mine was, not that it EVER will be, I would have hated the whole process of getting it there, or paid way too much money to somebody wearing an apron, with a feather duster in her hand, answering to the name of Florence or Verna or something. Barb enjoys cleaning her house. Barb looks forward to it. I kind of like the smell of pledge and windex, when I use them on rare occasion. Mostly I like buying new cleaning products, hoping just this one time, they'll hop out of the carrier and do their thang all by themselves. She uses FOUR products and her house is spotless. Like the 'sort of makes you nervous to touch anything' spotless. But you could go ahead and mess it up - she'd have it all cleaned up before you could say jack flash. And she's not kidding - she really does spray stuff on her little dog to make her smell sweet. I have a small pony living in my house. When he tracks in "stuff" that leaves brown marks on my creamy white tile, I grab the rag off the wall hook and smoosh it around with my feet, and we just don't think about things like e coli. It amazes Barb and me that we are closely related. If you are a Martha wannabe, you can read Barb daily to find out where to begin. She's already there.

Then my daughter, Sarah, well, she'd tell you last year was a good year. And mean it. Standing on the sidelines, it felt a little bit like a trip to hell and back several times. Her posts are sometimes so heartfelt, speak of such deep grief and despair, loneliness. Then I wait two days and she writes a banner post on diaper doo blowouts, and I find myself wondering. Is this the same girl? The same mom? If you're in the middle of motherhood, as she is, and you need to feel like someone else can relate, read her stuff. One day spent with her, and the three little ducks tagging along behind, while she's driving down the interstate in her minivan, half-eaten happy meals, baby praise playing, Caiden chattering in the background - you'll feel right at home. She's balancing a lot of balls most of the time. Just like many of you. Her post on motherhood was one of her best so far, if not the best. It makes those college payments feel like money well spent.

It's nice when you have good teeth run in a family. Or nice bone structure. Or athletic ability. We got good writing, apparently. So - well done, to all the women in this crazy-blogger family of ours. Now, I'd like to know where the unibrow and funny toes trickled down from.

Labels: Girl Talk