I’m a night owl and I come by it honestly, courtesy of my mother.

Tonight I watched the two hour finale of “Desperate Housewives”. I know my parents watch too and I wanted to talk about it, so despite the fact that it was 11 pm, I called my mother, knowing she’d still be up. It turned out that she was up, but she had just gotten out of the bath and into pajamas – she hadn’t see the show because my dad was watching the finale for Survivor, so they recorded the show to watch later this week. I obviously didn’t want to spoil the ending so I shut up other than telling my mother to PLEASE call me after she got to watch it since I wanted to ask her what she thought of something.

Still, we managed to talk on the phone for over 20 minutes. We talked about the weekend, the weather, the fact that her friend from work got me the autograph of the first Canadian astronaut in space, books, and other shows.

In the end we only got off the phone because my mom has to get up early for work on Monday, holiday aside (Victoria day) since she works for an American company. Otherwise, we would have kept going, because it’s only necessity that forces my mom to bed before midnight, not genetics.

When my grandmother was still alive and her house was still standing, my mother and I used to have epic late nights during the summer. With my sister being five years younger than me, she’d be in bed at a reasonable hour, but I remember that all summer when I was 14, 15, 16 years old, my mom and I would stay up late.

We would sit in the kitchen until at least 11 pm, and then we’d head upstairs (my dad would be in the city all week for work, coming up north on the weekends). I’d sprawl across the bed with a book or magazine and my mother would sit in a little wicker chair, reading too. We’d both read a bit but we’d also interrupt each other to chat. My mom and I could sit and talk to each other – easily – until 1 or so in the morning. More than once it was almost 2 am when we finally said good night and I’d finally head off to my own bed for some sleep.

I’ve always been able to talk to my mother. Sure, as a teenager there were a multitude of things I never shared with her, as will be the case when my own girls are teenagers, but overall, I never had a problem talking to my mom. I love to talk to her on the phone now, but sometimes I wish we could just go back to the house that no longer exists and just talk until the hours become ridiculous, until we’re both yawning and all but nodding off, and just relive those days.

(My mom hates that picture, taken at Christmas time, but that’s only because she has no idea how much it means to me.)