Merci beaucoup, Mom

For this weekend's Mother's Day blog blast, Parent Bloggers Network asked for posts about what our moms have handed down to us. I have an old post that sums that up perfectly, from back when my blog was very new. Here it is, if you're so inclined.

(Photo from my mother's retirement party in 2006 ... two years before she unretired and went back to work.)

Actually, yes, I would like the chest to wear it on too.

Alternate title: Mother's Day--The Low Road

I know it is petty, but sometimes I would like a teensy bit of credit for the things I do. I bet you do them too. You know, the things that are essential to the running of the household; or maybe just considerate--but that go entirely unnoticed by everyone else. Things like:

• Being able to pinpoint exactly where every item of clothing is at any moment: "your middle drawer"/"the hamper"/"in your cubby at school"/"in the too-small box because you outgrew it two years ago"


• The biweekly declutter (along with the weekly, semiweekly, daily, and hourly declutters)


• Dressing and undressing in the dark if others are sleeping


• Unloading the dishwasher 98.7% of the time
  
• Wiping the bathroom sink clean every single night (can't anyone get their toothpaste down the drain? How does it end up on the shelf under the medicine cabinet?)

So for Mother's Day, I am giving myself a giant pat on the back. And here's one for you too; what do you do that no one ever appreciates?



*My husband is very good at holidays so I am sure I will be suitably thanked and celebrated today. It's just the other 364 days a year that sometimes need work.

Happy with just a teensy side of guilt

That's how I'm observing Mother's Day, because isn't that what mothering is all about? At my request Jeff took the kids out for the day, an extended dance mix of outings and errands designed to give me some time alone to putter around. So far, a little yoga, a little laundry, a long shower, a little Sunday Times, a little blogging while I wait for photos to upload to send to the grandmas.

I didn't necessarily need the time alone to happen today of all days, and I do feel kind of bad that I've kicked my own kids out of the house on a holiday which I wouldn't celebrate if it were not for them. But we had breakfast together at the diner and we'll have dinner together later and I'll happily take on the whole bedtime routine because my husband will be worn out by 7 p.m. And I won't mind at all.

Photo from the kindergarten Mother's Day party.

Mother's Day Mission

Area Forecast Discussion for Mayberry, May 13-14 2007

Sunday morning should bring homemade cards and pictures as well as hugs and kisses, however breakfast in bed seems unlikely at this point. Check updated forecast later. Mood sunny with occasional passing clouds of Annoyance or Whining. Outdoor play (as well as material gifts) may be limited by renovation and/or lake flies so make alternate plans.

In the afternoon, look for a cancelled baseball game family outing to be replaced by an ice cream parlor trip. Forecasters expect bedtime to be relatively uneventful however the threat of stomach virus in small boys requires us to recommend extra parental fortitude and defensive sleep acquisition; also note that child care will be an unavailable option for afflicted small boys on Monday.

Thanks to Jennifer for inspiring a new twist on the "what I did for Mother's Day" post.

What makes me a mom

Ever since Parent Bloggers and Light Iris posed the question "What makes you a mother?" I've been thinking about how I'd answer. I knew right away it had very little to do with carrying and birthing my babies. Though I love to trade pregnancy, birth, and breastfeeding war stories as much as the next mom, I believe that adoptive, foster, and stepmothers, along with other mother figures (like the grandmother and three childless aunts who helped raise my husband alongside his "birth" mom) are every bit as motherly as I am.

What really makes me a mom, I thought, are two things: sacrifice and bodily fluids. I'm a mother because I've given up hours--weeks--of sleep to my children. I've slowed my career, changed my name and my financial priorities, moved to Mayberry. My body has been permanently scarred and temporarily bruised. Every meal I eat is interrupted, and eligible for sharing whether I want to give it away or not. There's no one else I'd do all that for.

And I know you know what I mean about the fluids. Sure I picked up dog poop before I had kids. I changed diapers often when I babysat. But before I had kids I never had the pleasure of hearing a poop blowout happen from the front seat of the car, then extricating a craptastic little baby out of a car seat, carrying her inside face down and at arms' length, peeling off her clothes without befouling her hair, and spending a half-hour bleaching everything in sight. I never knew how it felt to stuff my bra with nursing pads (and still wake up with soaked pajamas every morning). I never leaped across the back seat of a speeding car to catch another person's vomit.

Yeah. Motherhood. It's pretty gross. But these two make me a mother, and I wouldn't trade them for anything.

Now you go: Put up a post about what makes you a mom and you could win a $100 GC to Spafinders.com. You could use it for a glute massage! Get all the details at Parent Bloggers Network.

Someday

To the as yet unknown true love of my life,

It’s coming on Mother’s Day, and I find that I miss you, now more than usual, in some strange backward manifestation of grief, as if you had been here all along. I’m not sure how or when, but you’ve settled yourself in the deepest seat of my heart, content to wait until we can be together. Not in silence – no, you wait with such clamor and excitement that it’s hardly like waiting at all, but more like an insistence that time move faster and hurry our anticipated meeting. I wonder sometime if you’re the reason my heart beats at all, and I’m scared to realize the power you already hold over me – how much you are already the center of my life.

Sometimes when I lie in bed at night, I close my eyes and I see you. I see your eyes, and they sparkle and shine and I wonder at such brilliance in a simple shade of blue. I see your nose, tiny and pert and perfect – but not – just like mine. I see your wispy tufts of hair, and it reminds me of my father’s at the end, and I wonder if maybe we won’t call you Baby Eaglet too.

But mostly I see your smile, open mouth, not an ounce of self-consciousness, just unaffected joy at something so simple I probably would have missed it without your laughter telling me to notice. I see me in your smile, and my mom, and my sister. But there’s something else too – shades of a man I’ve never met, who will someday change my life. A man who knows you already – just as I do – and sees himself in that smile I love.

I don’t know when we can be together, but I know we will be. I’m frightened sometimes, because I love you so much already, and I don’t know how to love more than this. It hurts my heart sometimes, the intensity of what I feel. And yet I know that when I see you, when I know you even more and feel the reality of you in my arms, my heart will break a thousand times over just trying to make room for everything I will feel. I wonder sometimes if you will completely destroy me, only to build me back up into everything I was ever meant to be.

Some people will never understand how much I love you now, today, years before we even meet. They don’t feel what I feel – they don’t know you like I do. But that’s okay, because it means it’s special, this bond we share: precious and misunderstood and just for us. When I miss you too much, I’ll just hold my hand to my heart and know that you’re there, waiting.

I’m waiting too.

With all my love (and even more than that),

Your Mama

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This post was written by Lara David as a part of the May Blog Exchange about Mother’s Day. Lara is a 20-something writing her way through life one day at a time, constantly discovering that the more she learns, the less she really knows. She loves new friends, so follow along with the ups and downs of her life lessons at Life: The Ongoing Education. Plus, I'm writing over there today, so go visit and leave a friendly word or two.

Mother's Night

Originally posted at Life: The Ongoing Education as part of the Blog Exchange.

11:30 p.m. I finally finish working/blogging/folding laundry/puttering around. I’m nearly ready for bed, brushing my teeth, when I hear my son’s cry.

I enter his dim room. He’s standing in his crib, sobbing. I can hear the tears and the snot all over his face, even though I can’t see them. I crawl around on the floor, feeling for the pacifiers he’s either dropped or hurled to the floor in anger. One, two, three—I feed them back to him through the bars. He crouches down long enough to pick them up, and just as quickly pulls himself back onto his feet.

I stand next to the crib and he grabs for me, his arms tight underneath mine, his head on my shoulder. “Hold you,” he gasps between sobs. “Hold you, Mama.” I rub his back and tell him, over and over: “It’s nighttime now. I’ll hold you in the morning.”

Still angry, still sobbing, he soon gives up. He sits down, but he can’t help himself. “Hold you, Mama. Hold you.” But now the yawns come, too, amid the sobs and the pleas and those sharp, damp intakes of breath.

I sink down to the floor, stretch out, wait. Keep murmuring. “In the morning, sweetie. In the morning.” The wails soften and the intervals between them stretch longer. Eventually I hear the chok-chok-chok of the pacifier in his mouth, the slowing of his breathing.

Cautiously, gingerly, I stand. Tiptoe to the door, my hand on the knob.

“Mama stay.”

“Yes, baby. Mama will stay.” I return to my post on the floor, waiting and listening. Mama stays.