Mother's Day

No surprise to my family, but Mother's Day is my LEAST favorite holiday. Go ahead and throw the stones. For Mother's Day, I don't want to hear the word "MOM"...I don't want to go to church...I don't want to comb/curl/blow-dry/braid anyone else's hair...I don't want to touch water unless it's related to my relaxation...no food preparation...no leaving the house...basically, everything that I end up doing on Mother's Day is NOT what I want to do.

Why is it that the people who made you a "mother" are the people you want to be away from on Mother's Day. At least that's me. Probably because they mean work. As much as they try, they mean work.

This year, as in at least 4 other Mother's Days, Will has been gone. So forget any kind of parental-negligence on my part. I have to be a mom on Mother's Day. I sound very spoiled and bitter, huh?

Well, all I can say is that I have wonderful children. While I spent the day on Saturday working in the yard and cleaning and re-cleaning and re-re-cleaning the house and fuming that my children were lolly-gagging around and not obeying and only thinking of themselves and wanting to do things to pamper me, but then leaving me the mess to clean up, they were actually being very thoughtful and sneeky.

Lauren "mowed" the lawn for me on Friday. Saturday I got a manicure from Lauren and Emma for my dirt encrusted hands from weeding. Emma has a new technique for painting fingernails...but they did a great job and they had MY (I'm always yelling at them - don't break MY chair) lawn chair with an umbrella tied to it for shade and the bowl of soapy water and an assortment of colors of polish to choose from. I ended up choosing the one that we could get the lid off.

While I thought Jay was walking Willie, he was actually at Jake's Brookside getting me a beloved Diet Coke and in a later trip, he went to the floral shop down the street and bought me flowers, but they were a surprise - a true surprise - for Sunday. I would have loved to see how Jay handled that situation. A boy teenager in a floral shop, with $10 and wanting to get a dozen roses. He got me 2 roses instead!

Jay and Jacob L, my nephew, made lunch for all of us. Jacob even took orders on a note pad. So lunch was outside on a blanket in the warm sun with my beverage treat for the day.

I cleaned up lunch. And the manicure mess.

Sunday morning was a true, great surprise. With no noise (a heavenly aaaaaaaah!) the kids made muffins and eggo waffles for me. Lauren had been sneeky on Saturday too and had taken a bike ride to the store and bought me some Mother's Day grapes for breakfast! It's a new feeling to have my children doing things that are independent of me. Here I'm thinking that they can't possibly function without me, and they're leaving me in the dust!

They had all kinds of homemade gifts, very thoughtful gifts, and the flowers and cards and letters. It was a rare GREAT Mother's Day morning! My kids amazed me. Emma gave me a book she made in kindergarten. It made us all laugh. Emma's answers she wrote are in "quotations"!

My mom has "brown" hair and "brown" eyes. (hmm, or green eyes)

She is "7" feet tall and weighs "1000" pounds. (um, help)

My mom likes to "go to the gim." (she drew me doing push-ups!)

My mom is happy when "I clen my bedrom" (I'm NEVER happy then)

When I'm at school my mom "she gos to slep." (what?)

My mom is very smart. She knows all about "logre (laundry) and sopeing (shopping) and cocing (cooking)"

My mom likes to eat "shrip" (I think it's Emma that likes to eat shrimp!)

My mom gets mad when "I don't clen my room" (it's a theme.)

My mom is special because "win I come home from scool she clens my room" (see, a theme.)

I love my children for doing their best to give me the best Mother's Day so far. They got tired of the pampering thing at about 10:00 in the morning, and I never did get a nap, but that's okay because I don't think that I'll ever experience a "perfect" Mother's Day. I decided this year that it's not all about me. It doesn't matter what I get or how I am treated on Mother's Day. As long as my children feel like they are doing something wonderful and thoughtful and helpful for me and it makes them happy and proud, then I am happy.

I love you Jay, Katie Jane, Lauren and Emma!