Wow, it's been a while. Sorry. I've gotten lost in life. I'm resurfacing just days before the "all-important" Mother's Day Holiday.
Now, this probably will not shock you, especially if you read my previous post on Valentine's Day. I'm a scrooge with respect to certain holidays. I'm not totally sure where Mother's Day fits in. It's not my birthday, which is my favorite holiday. I really like my kids' and hubby's birthdays too. Thanksgiving, Passover and Hanukkah are up there. Mostly because they center around food. Even though I don't celebrate Easter, I like the holiday because of traditions we have with friends.
Regardless of how I feel about Mother's Day, I'm being asked to celebrate around the previously scheduled activities of my kids. Hmmm... I think I'm a mom because I have kids. Not totally sure how it all works, but I'm pretty sure about that. It's like celebrating a birthday because it is the anniversary of the day you were born. Oops, I'm digressing, back to the topic at hand. I've been asked (in e-mail) to send my kids to Sunday school and celebrate later. A coach of one of my kids asked for me (in an e-mail here too) to celebrate before or after practice. What these e-mails are saying to me is that yah, we know it's "your day", but it really isn't going to be any different from every other Sunday, or weekday for that matter.
Now, maybe some of you have lovely traditions. Maybe you have families that plan without your input or effort. That is not my experience with any holiday that my family celebrates. I love my family to pieces, but they are not planners. When I say family, I mean my husband. It's not that he doesn't care. He does. He'd do anything. He's chock full of ideas. The problem is that most of his ideas are things HE wants to do. It's really cute, but also annoying. It does come in handy for planning for HIS birthday, etc.
The kids are too young and are also casualties to the holidays where "mom should be taken care of". They aren't prompted ahead of time to create cards or have a plan on how to be nicer that day. This puts them into a panic on the day of and then they start giving me "little treasures" (aka junk) that symbolizes how much they love me. One of my kids actually gave me $1 on my birthday. If they're not scrambling to find me gifts at home, they're making me special gifts at school. In the 10 years I've been a mother, I've gotten ONE useful gift on Mother's Day. I'd much prefer a hug, kiss, day with no fighting, doing chores without asking and maybe someone cooking my favorite food for me. This has me reflecting back to trying to buy my mom nice gifts for Mother's Day. She was born in April, I'm sure she'd like an Aries Ram necklace to symbolize that. Ugh, sorry Mom. We tried.
Oops, I'm straying off topic again, sorry. Whatever we do will have to be done before 8:30 and between 1-5:30. We already have our tradition of donuts before Sunday School (which I cannot eat) and that's about it. Do I need more tradition? Nah. Then the pressure sets in on Monday. "What did you do/get, etc.. for Mother's Day?" Um, nothing? Isn't being the mother of 4 unique, healthy, amazing kids enough? It's like Mother's Day is every day.
I'm probably missing the point of this holiday. While you're busy explaining it to me, explain Father's Day too. A day where the kids shower the Dad with love and affection and the Dad gets to take time off from doing Sunday chores. How is that fair? It seems to be the "anti-Mother's Day" holiday instead of Father's Day. It's double the work on Mom who does everything during the week and 1/2 of everything on the weekends. Hmmm, maybe I'll start celebrating Father's Day.....
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