Pammie, since you do have to eventually talk to your mother again for your kid's sake, it might be easier the sooner it's done so so much time and "silence" doesn't get in there making it even more difficult to think of things to say?

Were I you, I'd call my mother rather than pick up when she calls you, that way you have the high ground. I'd be "angry" and tell her exactly why you haven't called so there's no mistake and so you cannot be thought of as "sulking." My stepmother would probably accuse me of being "too sensitive" but you have lots of examples to back up your point of view it sounds like. Being "attacked" in such a way probably will make your mother defensive but hey, she'll know where you stand and you will have cleared your half of the air with where you are. She can know for sure how you feel/have felt and maybe you can get a different sort of adult start to a relationship, not based on mother/daughter so much since she messed that up but on two adult acquaintances?

I remember that talking to my stepmother about her childhood helped me some. Do you know any of your mother's stories? My stepmother turned out to be a lot like me. She had three brothers (so do I) who teased her (but she was oldest and I'm youngest) and hearing some of the pranks they played on her and what she was like as a girl helped me see her in a different light, unrelated to me at all. Seeing the longer/wider (she would have been 91 last week) history helped me see my own life in its whole history too and how much of it is not related to her.