Before they gave the precious gift of life to their ungrateful children, our moms were regular people with lives of their own. They had careers, ambitions, talents, dope, naked mud wrestling matches, and tons of casual sex with workers of all stripes. Especially plumbers, for some reason.

"I didn't steal your car but I think my mom may have. It's a long story. I'll explain, but your car is safe and sound," reads a flier with a photo of a green Honda, posted in Red Hook.

The premise of Joe Nicolosi's "The Matrix Retold by Mom" video is simple: After making his mother watch The Matrix for the first time recently, Nicolosi asked her to retell him the plot, and then he animated the result.

Attention: Women of Princeton.

Sometimes moms do cool things like drive you to the mall and let you borrow/keep forever $20. Mostly, though, they are embarrassing.

Three days after he was arrested for allegedly punching a woman in Times Square, Spider-Man (or, more accurately, a man who dresses up as Spider-Man in Times Square for a living) is now accusing the same woman, a mother of two, of attacking him first with a snowball. It was only after the snowball attack, according to Spider-Man, that he punched the woman to defend himself.

Gwyneth Paltrow does a pretty good job of embarrassing both her children (Apple and Moses Martin) and God's children (all of us watching), in this video of her champagne sway-dancing onstage with Jay-Z and Chris Martin at the former's New Year's Eve concert.

On Thursday, swimmer Ryan Lochte's mother Ileana "Ike" Lochte took "Cool Mom" to a whole new level when she leaned in to Devil in a slick tailored suit Matt Lauer and told him her son is a wham-bam, Your money's on the dresser, Chocolate kind of guy:

The power of Christ compels you. [Daily Mail]

For those of us with family members prone to quasi-racist, half-coherent Thanksgiving dinner rants, it's a relief to know the rich and famous sometimes go through the same thing. Celebrities: they're just like us. Brad Pitt's mom is apparently just such a loon, although she's more of the letter-to-the-editor kind, which is dying art these days and should be applauded with a slow, cautious clap. Anyway, Jane Pitt, Brad and Doug's mother, wrote a letter to The Springfield News-Leader which, amongst other things, says:

Canadian folk hero Ryan Gosling returned home to his ancestral land Wednesday to attend the graduation of his mother, Donna, from Brock University. He brought Eva Mendes. Canada freaked out.

For four years, my mother had a crippling fear of death. It started during her first bout with breast cancer. While recovering from her mastectomy, she insisted on driving my father to and from work, so that if he died in a car accident she'd be there to say good-bye. Nobody in our family was allowed to drive in bad weather, lest the vehicles hydroplane and we die. Christmas traditions were banned; anything that reminded my mother of the passing of time reminded her of death. She objected to my teen sleeping habits: "Just lying there all morning, like you are dead. How do I know you are not dead?" Chastised for her morbidity, my mother would snap, "You don't understand."

Today is an especially good day to take the M if you're a mother — or if you can fake it. Someone has been putting up "Reserved for mothers today" stickers all over the cars, which I think means you're legally required to stand if you've never raised a kid.

Jamie Lynne Grumet, whose left breast achieved stardom this week by appearing on the cover of Time while inside her nearly four-year-old son's mouth, went on the Today Show to discuss the controversial cover. With son Aram mewling by her side (wouldn't it be great if she'd whipped out a tit and shoved it in his mouth, right then and there?) Jamie explained that attachment parenting "is not for everybody," and that she isn't trying to judge anyone. She also notes that she's getting guff from breastfeeding critics and advocates:

Meet Aram Grumet. He is one month shy of four years old and he breast feeds. To illustrate a feature package on attachment parenting, Time had Aram stand on a chair and suck his mother's teat while gazing into the camera. The resulting photo will soon be on every newsstand in America.

The United States is a slightly better place to be a mom this year than it was last year, according to the annual State of the World's Mothers report released by the Save the Children international aid organization earlier this week.

Ann Romney joined Twitter last night, apparently to retaliate against CNN talking head Hilary Rosen, who criticized Ann by saying she "never worked a day in her life." @AnnDRomney has tweeted twice so far:

In response to our Toddlers & Tiaras post from earlier today, we received two emails within two minutes of each other from someone purporting to be Wendy Dickey, the pageant mom we wrote about. (Her Gmail picture is one of all of her kids. I recognized them from the show. If it's not her, it's someone really dedicated to impersonation.)

Twin surgery! Young insurance! Teen weedheads! Statin flu! Cookie dough! Thin tricks! Working moms! ADHD drugs! And the very latest cigarette news from Eastern Europe! It's your Wednesday Health Watch, where we watch your health—sickeningly!

Behold, a play date that will make a thousand social-climbing mommies seethe with envy: Angelina Jolie brought her brood to Gwen Stefani's London home today, for a play date and dinner. Looks like Kingston and Shiloh got into one of their moms' makeup kits?