First of all, I want to acknowledge that there are many people who find no joy in Mother’s Day – those who have lost their mothers, or wanted desperately to have children and couldn’t, or lost a child to illness or tragedy, or whose children have run away from home, or disappeared, or distanced themselves from their families. My heart goes out to them, and I’ve spent time today sending them love through my prayers.
But for most it is a fun celebration of motherhood. A day to think about the happy times.
Being a mother has not always been easy. My children were, at times, difficult, as are most, I suppose. And of course, I floundered through motherhood knowing what I didn’t want to be, and making the rest up as I went. I made way too many mistakes, but somehow we all survived, and have mostly happy memories of those growing up years.
We used to have a poster up in the hallway of the Simpsons with a caption that read “As far as anyone knows, we’re a perfectly normal family,” and I guess that pretty much summed it up. I still have that poster inside a garage cabinet and still laugh every time I see it.
Somehow they both grew up to be responsible, contributing adults, married other responsible, contributing adults, and presented us with the best rewards parents could ever ask for – grandchildren. I feel very blessed that both my kids have chosen to live close to us as adults. I figure I must have done something right.
Now grandchildren have turned out to be amazing creatures. I heard once that the reason grandchildren and grandparents get along so well is that they have a common enemy (heeheehee!) I don’t know that THAT is true, but for some reason, they seems to think of grandparents as allies. It may be that by the time they come along, we’ve mellowed, or else learned from our mistakes. Maybe we have a better sense of what is important and what isn’t. All I know for sure is that even with as much contact as we have with our grandkids (since we care for them while their parents work) it is easier. And we’re not the typical spoil ‘em and send ‘em home grandparents. Because we have them so much, we HAVE to enforce the rules, or we’d have to spend a lot of time with the little monsters we were creating. So whatever it is that makes this particular bond so much fun, it’s NOT because we don’t have to discipline or counsel.
So, today we had our celebration at my daughter’s house. The guys got take out at our favorite Mexican Restaurant.
Here’s the moms along with the babies that make them moms -
Me and my babies, Andra and Alex
Andra and her babies, Hannah and Bea
Meegan and her baby, Joshua
Sandy and her baby, Kerry
Andra didn’t want to get her picture taken because she got pink eye from Bea and has a swollen eye, so Mr. Tattered came up with the idea to get patches for all of us. She loved it almost as much as the kids did!
Mr. Tattered made strawberry shortcake for dessert! The perfect end to the day!
Since it’s also day #13 of Flower Month, let me introduce you to another of my flower friends…
This is a tray of alyssum, my go-to filler flower. I tuck it in all over the garden. Like the calibrachoa, it is supposed to be an annual, but I find that it often comes back. Even so, I still seem to plant more every year!
