At exactly midnight last night, I called my son Thomas to wish him a happy birthday. Not like a normal mother.

So I FaceTimed him and launched, loudly and confidently, into what can only be described as a stereotypical 1990s rap rendition of “Happy Birthday,” except mine included several strategically placed F-bombs, because I am a classy woman and motherhood has refined me.

I was committed. There was rhythm. There were hand gestures. There may have been a little shoulder action.

Was it good? Irrelevant. Confidence is at least seventy percent of musical talent.

I could hear people laughing in the background, but I knew Thomas was out with his friends, so I wasn’t concerned. These kids already know who his mother is. I have long since passed the point where Thomas can convince anyone that he came from a quiet, dignified woman. So I kept going. And going. And going.

What Thomas neglected to mention was that he was not sitting privately with a couple of friends. My son was in IHOP. On FaceTime. Without headphones. Which means at midnight, somewhere in Forney, Texas, innocent people were eating pancakes while a forty-one-year-old mother they had never met performed an explicit birthday rap through a cell phone speaker. And my son just let me.

This is particularly on brand for Thomas, because Thomas has been entering rooms dramatically since literally the day he was born.

Twenty years ago I was twenty-one, almost twenty-two, enormously pregnant, already a mother, and trying to explain to medical professionals that this particular baby was coming. They disagreed. “He isn’t engaged yet,” they kept saying. I kept telling them, “My babies don’t engage.” Apparently that was not persuasive medical testimony coming from a twenty-one-year-old who looked about twelve.

But I knew my babies. Thomas did not care about their assessment. Thomas did not care about procedure. Thomas barely cared about making it to the hospital. Nana was driving me about ninety miles an hour down the highway while my other children sat in the backseat, having what I imagine was a very private conversation with Jesus while repeatedly informing me, “Do not push that baby out in this car.”

Excellent advice. I was doing my best.

We made it to the hospital, although 

“made it” is generous, because Thomas damn near arrived in the parking lot. This was also my first completely unmedicated delivery, which was not some beautiful earth mother decision involving candles, breathing exercises, and a playlist of ocean sounds. There was no playlist. There was panic. There was me insisting that this child was coming while everyone kept telling me he was not.

Finally the doctor decided he had time to leave the room. Thomas took that personally. Before that man could get all the way out the door, my son essentially fell out of me. No doctor majestically catching the baby. No peaceful moment where everyone whispers, “He’s here.” No. My aunt and his aunt caught him, because apparently Thomas’s birth plan was surprise, bitches.

His father was deployed overseas at the time. This was 2006, before FaceTime and the magical little rectangles in our pockets made the other side of the world feel five minutes away, so the Red Cross had to notify him that his son had been born early.

Then came the NICU. Thomas was my first, and thankfully only, NICU baby. And somehow, in the middle of an already terrifying experience, the hospital temporarily lost him. Yes. Lost. My baby.

There had been a mistake. He wasn’t supposed to be where he was, but he’d already been started on a feeding tube, and once that process began they couldn’t just yank everything out and hand him back to me to nurse. They had to gradually step him down and work him back toward nursing normally. It was terrifying. It was exhausting. It was an absolute mess.

And somehow it still isn’t my most traumatic birth story, which probably tells you everything you need to know about my reproductive history. I think Nana may still nominate the highway portion as her most traumatic birth experience, though. I was busy having contractions. She was driving ninety miles an hour with two children in the backseat while trying to prevent a live birth in her vehicle. Perspective.

But from his very first entrance, Thomas established the theme. This child does absolutely nothing without drama or flair. Nothing. And somewhere along the way he became so much like me that sometimes I don’t know whether to be proud or apologize.

He got my love of the arts. My passion for the stage. My flair for the dramatic. He is incredibly smart. He is kind. He feels things deeply. He loves hard. And Thomas was one of the children who taught me something I don’t think anyone can explain to you before you become a mother, which is that every child takes a piece of you with them. Not in some tragic way. You simply realize one day that pieces of your heart are walking around outside your body. They get driver’s licenses. They fall in love. They make decisions without asking you. They become adults. They stay out until midnight with their friends. They turn twenty. And apparently they sit inside an IHOP while you unknowingly perform an explicit birthday rap for the general public.

Because let’s not get overly sentimental here. He’s still a giant shitface.

I didn’t discover my audience until after my performance. Suddenly people around him started wishing him happy birthday. “Happy birthday!” “Happy birthday, man!” And I’m staring through FaceTime thinking, who the hell are all these people? That’s when I realized. Those were not all his friends. Those were IHOP patrons. Strangers. Thomas had put me on speakerphone in a restaurant and let me drop multiple F-bombs into a birthday rap while people were trying to eat pancakes.

He was laughing. His friends were laughing. IHOP was apparently enjoying the show.

And you know what? Fine. I haven’t performed publicly in probably ten years. Apparently I’ve still got it. You don’t choose your comeback venue. Sometimes Madison Square Garden isn’t available. Sometimes God gives you IHOP.

So when Thomas comes by to get his birthday decorations and collect the mandatory birthday hug, I will absolutely scowl at him. I will remind him that he humiliated his mother. I will make him feel just slightly guilty about publicly exploiting my artistic talents without my consent. And then I’ll laugh, hug him too tightly, kiss him whether he likes it or not, and tell him I’m kidding.

Because he’s twenty now. He’s at that age where his friends are his world. That’s exactly how it’s supposed to be. But for one ridiculous minute at midnight, I got to be part of it too.

Twenty years ago he came flying into this world before anyone was ready for him. Last night he sat in an IHOP surrounded by friends, laughing while his mother unknowingly serenaded an entire restaurant. And somewhere between those two moments, that tiny baby became this grown man I am ridiculously proud of.

Even if he’s an asshole.

Happy twentieth birthday, Thomas. You have been keeping me on my toes since the second you entered this world.

And to anyone who happened to be sitting in the Forney IHOP around midnight and heard a strange woman aggressively rapping obscenities through a cell phone: I apologize for nothing.

I don’t have a YouTube channel. But I do have a blog. And if there is enough public demand for my return to the stage, I am willing to discuss it.

My rates are reasonable. Apparently, I also accept pancakes.