A Moment for Mother's Day

I love being a mom. I am thankful for my girlios. My own mother passed when I was young, around the age of my eldest daughter. My father remarried when I was in college. I have come to love my step mom and appreciate her very much. She's been great for my dad and is a fabulous grandmother to my girlios. It's been foreign to me because I didn't have a mom or mother figure from 10 to 20. With this in mind I am nervous yet optimistic about venturing into these years with my own girls. The mother-daughter relationship is the stuff bestsellers are made of. With three girlios, I expect at least three volumes.

Nemo and Dori photo bombed us!

As a youth, I never remembered Mother's Day. For a while, I would do something for my dad, but it didn't stick. Now, as a mom, we don't really celebrate Mother's Day well. It's at a terrible time of year for us. My husband has coached track for the past seven or eight years and May is track crunch time. He's zombie tired around this time. I've been taking classes and it's finals time.  Looking back on the last nine Mother's Days, I've been sick and called in for antibiotics. I've worked. I still cook and clean. My girlios selectively listen. This weekend even my dog is sick. My husband and I joke that he takes a nap on Mother's Day, and I take the nap on Father's Day. We generally don't do gifts for either day. This Mother's Day I'll set up coffee at church and study for my finals. Something normally happens during the weekend that disrupts 'ideal' plans, whatever that is. I don't expect anything except some sort of curveball.

This is not a gripefest. It's a commentary on a mom's life. I have had several mom friends comment that vacation is doing the same things as every other day in another place. It makes me laugh and cry because I identify. But, that's the joy of being a mom. One of the things I loved about teaching was that no day was the same. It's the same thing in the motherhood. And the hours are much much longer.

So what's my point. When my husband and I got married, I wanted to stand at the end of the aisle and take in the moment before things moved so fast and were over. A minute or two to look at my husband, look around and absorb it. Very Ferris Bueller of me. Unfortunately, the musicians couldn't follow the program, and I didn't have that moment. Don't get me started. It upsets me more than finding out one of the cameras didn't work during our wedding photo shoots. I digress.

I wish all the moms an absorbing moment this Mother's Day. A chance to mentally stop time, cherish your children at the age they are, relax in the chaos and be loved on a little. Good job moms. Kids of all ages, clear some space for your mom, mentally, physically and emotionally. She's amazing.

Happy Mother's Day!