Forget-me-nots and pretty pansies in pint-sized cardboard boxes sit in large trays on the foyer tables at church on Mother’s Day. They’re there for the mamas to scoop up and take home, bright little bits of life to say to weary young mothers that they’re valued and to older mamas that their steady acts of great love have not been forgotten. These tiny reminders aren’t frivolous. They’re powerful symbols of appreciation from our chosen community, and they bolster our tired spirits with their fragile joy.
And that’s why, for years, those flowers destroyed me.
They broke me apart into tiny pieces. They made my stomach clench. And they pulled my grief, loneliness, and longing right to the surface, like an oil slick on water.
I didn’t go to church on Mother’s Day in 1998. After losing my third baby to miscarriage and wondering whether I’d ever join the ranks of blissful mamas around me, I just couldn’t take it. The celebrations. The kind words. The sympathy. And especially the flowers. I, quite literally, couldn’t take the flowers.
Oh, I was offered flowers in the previous years. Out of great compassion, I was offered flowers by my pastors and my friends and the sweet old ladies who hurt to watch me hurt. No one in my church full of loving people wanted me to feel left out. “You can take some flowers, too,” they’d say on Mother’s Days. “We want you to have them.” And they did. They really did. But I couldn’t take them even though I knew that it would make everyone else feel better. Because what would I do with these flowers once I had them? These happy pansies? These forget-me-nots? What could I do? Plant them at home in our yard? What if the flowers lived and were a constant reminder of what I’d lost? Or what if the flowers died and reminded me that I failed keep beautiful things alive?
No. Taking the flowers wasn’t an option.
When I was a child, Mother’s Day was easy. It was about my mom. And homemade cards. And, when I was 8 years old, it was about baking her a very moist cake all by myself with 3 cups of oil because I wasn’t good at recipes yet and “1/3 cup” was just too confusing.
Now that I’m a mom, Mother’s Day is… well, it’s complicated. It’s about my mom. It’s about Greg’s mom. It’s about me.
These days, Mother’s Day is about making sure we acknowledge our mamas, because there’s nothing like becoming a parent yourself to convince you that mamas can feel underappreciated and that our mamas, though no longer in the trenches with little ones at home, deserve our thanks for raising us to be self-sufficient enough to pay for our own counseling. (Good job, our mamas!)
These days, Mother’s Day is about trying hard to meet all the mamas’ expectations while we all pretend not to have any expectations at all.
These days, Mother’s Day is about meeting my kids’ needs. Most particularly, that I stay in bed and pretend to be asleep, and not get up no matter how badly I have to pee because I know that the second I try to run for the potty, my kids will arrive with my annual breakfast-in-bed and they will be devastated that I’m awake already. I will singlehandedly ruin their Mother’s Day and we cannot have that because everyone knows there’s no crying on Mother’s Day.
And these days, Mother’s Day is about looking at all of the experiences we have as women, from ruining cakes to longing for forget-me-nots to juggling Mom’s Day with my kids and my moms and my grandmoms… and recognizing that Mother’s Day is as complex, as multifaceted, as joyful and as sad, as it is to be a mother. That is, Mother’s Day is full of celebration, and Mother’s Day is full of desolation, and Mother’s Day is about learning to come to terms with being a Both/And kind of a woman.
We mamas – we have so very many experiences on Mother’s Day. And they are as different as we are. As different as our stories. As different as our memories.
For some of us, Mother’s Day is filled to brim with gratitude. We feel honored and cherished. Valued and pursued. And we leave the day with a sigh of pleasure and fulfillment.
But for some of us, Mother’s Day carries a measure of pain and of sorrow and of loss. And for us – for we mamas who are just a little bit lost – it’s important to remember that we don’t walk this road alone.
Today is the day after Mother’s Day. A day as complicated and as simple as yesterday was. A day that’s a mix of things over which we’ll rejoice… and things over which we shall tear out our hair.
And to all of us, I say,
Happy Day After Mother’s Day!
Happy Day After Mother’s Day, mamas and mamas-to-be!
If you rejoiced yesterday with wild abandon, appreciated and celebrated by everyone around you… or if yesterday was dark and lonely… or if yesterday was a mix, a jumble, a tangled ball of yarn that’s impossible to unravel… I want you to know, you’re not alone.
You’re amazing. Whether or not you could take the flowers, you’re amazing.
And today is the first day of an entire new year.
Happy HAPPY Day After Mother’s Day!
With love,
Beth
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P.S. I wrote this piece for the mamas at my local Mothers of Preschoolers group.
I was incredibly honored this year to be the mentor mom for the team that leads the group. The “mentor mom” role was new to me. When they asked me to do it, I balked. Mentor other moms?! Then I laughed. Then I asked the askers, “But doesn’t a mentor mom need to know what she’s doing? Because I am a total screw-up, you guys, and I’m not very good at pretending like I have it all together.”
They said, “Perfect!” And that’s when I knew we were going to be great together.
So this year, I got to hang out with a lot of moms who are way cooler, way younger, way taller and way skinnier than me, and they never made me pretend like I knew what I was doing. Instead, I spent the year sitting with these mamas, in awe of their strength, wisdom, perseverance and endurance, and I got to tell them that they’ll sleep again someday. Not that I’m sleeping; just that I hear it’s possible we’ll sleep again, and I’m all about sharing hope.
I told these mamas that they’re doing a great job.
I told them to give themselves a break.
I told them not judge themselves too harshly.
I told them the truth as I understand it, which is that there are lots of different, right ways to raise kids and to engage God, and that trusting their mama gut is good.
I wrote this piece for my local Mothers of Preschoolers group, which meets today, but I wanted to share it with you, too. Because I feel the same way about you – this awe that you let me into your life with my imperfections and inconsistencies and brokenness and that you still let me tell you the best truths I know.
And so, dear mamas on the Day After Mother’s Day, how was it? How was your Mother’s Day?
Really really. How was your Mother’s Day?
Was it happy? Was it sad? Was it crazy? Was it mad?
Do tell.
With still more love,
Beth
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65 responses to “Happy Day After Mother’s Day!”
I’m going to share, even though it’s the week after, the day after mother’s day. It’s been haunting me for a week, so maybe this will be therapeutic. I know it was healing to read the stories of others. We ARE much more alike than we are different, across the globe! I loved seeing pictures on Instagram from national geographic, of mother’s and their children from around the world. But mine. Yep, it was full of all of those things another momma wrote, love, hope, regret, guilt. After having an already disappointing day, I decided I would listen to the many voice mails that I saved from my mother, fit the first time, since she died on March 16th of this year. I could not get though them all. Also, my mother in law kept my son, ALL DAY, took him to a funeral, and a few other places. All of this was not planned. I thought I would have my son with me for the day. But apparently neither of them thought of this. I kept thinking he was coming home all day, but it just kept dragging out. Anywho. I was missing my 18 year old as well, who currently lives 2 hours away. But… I did have my 2 year old with me. So I was trying to be grateful for that. But then feeling utterly selfish thinking, she doesn’t even know that she’s supposed to be celebrating need today, sooooooo. Then, I asked for an hour to be alone, somehow the husband couldn’t manage that with the two year old, so we fought. Then he complained all day because he mom was continually complaining to him that he didn’t go to church with her that day. Lots of dysfunction in that whole scenario. Oh, and then just before bed, I found out my mother in law allowed something almost unforgivable in my book, while she had my son all day. Something that we had repeatedly discussed with her. So in the end, I wished mother’s day, with all of its expectations, and then trying not to have expectations, and then major guilt for not handling it all with grace and gratitude, would just go away. But thank you, thank you Beth for being and sharing you, and to all the other mommas for sharing….I heart you momrads!
I had a handful of Mother’s Days where I was bitter and sad and discouraged because it seemed like I would never get the the point where I could hold one of the babies I carried. Loss after loss made me really start to resent my faith and walking into church where I just knew there would be a new baby or a new – healthy – pregnancy announced just seemed like too much to ask. Then I had half a dozen Mother’s Days where even though I was exhausted I gloried in the four amazing boys I had been blessed with. Then came diagnosis after diagnosis and brain surgery after spinal surgery. Life is different than I expected for sure. But today my 15 year old was diagnosed with ASD, dyslexia, dysgraphia, and ADHD and I rejoice. I rejoice because I have him and we already know we can do hard things. With these diagnoses I can let go and love who he is instead of attempting to convince myself that I should try to make him like everyone else expects him to be. Mother’s Day was mostly awful with me being selfish with what I wanted it to look like versus what is reality in my house with a heavy dose of migraine thrown on for good measure. But 2 days after Mother’s Day I smile because even though my oldest wished someone other than me a Happy Mother’s Day I know that he knows that I’ll be his filter for the world for as long as he needs. I’ll cry my tears in the privacy of my closet while eating from my secret chocolate stash – but I’ll smile for him and all of them because we can do hard things.
Thank you for this. I’m not gonna lie. I locked myself in the bathroom and sobbed, and then I hid in the greenhouse and sobbed, and then put myself back to bed and tried to sleep but mostly just sobbed instead. I have kids. They are generally wonderful kids. The day before mother’s day, they were sweet and amazing and surprisingly generous and loving. I’m not sure what happened Saturday night after we put them to bed, but when they awoke Sunday morning they were miserable, angry, entitled selfish trolls and my husband (who can sleep through anything and is generally terrible at holidays and celebrations of all kinds) didn’t get up until I lost my cool and started yelling after three hours of dealing solo with said trolls.
I called my mom to wish her a happy mother’s day (and apologize for any troll-like behavior I may have inflicted as a child), but got her voicemail. I got her voicemail because she was outside having a smoke. I know this, because she rarely leaves the house otherwise. This infuriates me on a number of levels, not least of which is the fact that she nearly died a few years ago from a massive heart attack and then went right back to sabotaging her life as though she’s the only one to whom it matters (cigarettes are not the only issue). I love my mom. I loved my grandmothers, who were both really thoroughly beautiful human beings, and I’m not sure I ever really told them how I felt.
Mostly, I cried because my period started on Sunday and I was a blubbering heap of hormone-glazed mess and I KNEW how ridiculous I was being the whole day. I knew how lucky I was to have healthy, bright, funny, beautiful children and I also knew I was just not capable of focusing on that, which upset me intensely because I knew that I was really the one who was being a troll. So: guilt, love, regret, hope, etc. Seems pretty appropriate on mother’s day.
Monday was great. We had a great day Monday.
This is AMAZING, Rachel, and I ADORE you for sharing this.
YOU are amazing, Beth. Thank you for sharing everything you share. I don’t know if you realize just how much you give to so many.
You’ve summed up why this day has always been awkward for me. I suffered 2 miscarriages before we adopted the two girls who made me a mom. For years I dreaded this day. When it was finally my turn all the crap and drama from previous Mother’s days made me not look forward to it. This year was my 4th Mama’s day and I think it was the best yet because I’m trying to let go of all my hang ups about this day. However every mother’s day I don’t forget the other women out there whose hearts are breaking because of the babies or their own moms they lost. I also think of my girl’s birth mom as someone else mentioned. I think no matter how many future mother’s days I’m blessed with I’ll always feel that tangled ball of yarn inside as well. Thanks for sharing!
Mothers’ Day in the UK was the end of March. It was a bad day, feeling like I should be happy and delighted and really just wanting to be on my own,nowhere near my kids who I love and struggle to be with. It’s also hard for my husband, whose mum died two years ago. Turns out, reading your blog and some of the comments above, that I may not be the only one who finds these moments, where you feel you ought to be happy, really quite tough. Thank you for helping me to find out that I am not the only person who feels like this…
We waited 6 years for our first child to come along, then another 3 years for our 2nd, and our 3rd was an amazing surprise a couple of years later. We don’t celebrate mothers’ day for a few reasons. We get to be moms – how incredibly, amazingly lucky are we??? We are a two mom adoptive family in 2016. I grew up in a time and place where me being a mom was unthinkable. So we don’t need a day to celebrate (we need a few decades to catch up on sleep, but that’s a different story). Also, mothers day is a tough one for our kids’ birthmoms. I know my daughter’s birthmom has a hard time with it, and I know my sons’ birthmom may not remember the boys’ exact birthdays (so she doesn’t have a specific date that is hard on that front), but the world tells her which exact day is mothers’ day…and the world tells her that mothers are these fantastic, unattainable women and that she doesn’t measure up. I can’t celebrate a day that makes my kids’ first moms feel like crap. Finally, I think of all the women I know who are hurt by this day – the ones who ached to, but never got to raise babies, the ones who lost babies, the ones who are trying to hard to become moms. I get to be a mom; my kids are beautiful and healthy. I don’t need this day.
Yeppity yep yep! I know that my mom was always somewhat begrudging on Mothers Day–I think it’s just kind of an awkward holiday at best. Like–if you have to be TOLD when to treat your mom right, how sincere can it be? But how hostile would it be to NOT try to treat your mom right on Mother’s Day?
This was my sixth MD since my mom died, and my fourth since becoming a mom to two kids who have a living birth mom. I guess it’s a weird sort of progress in that it was the first time I went off by myself and cried with missing my mom instead of my kids’ issues hijacking the emotional weight of the day? They’ve made a lot of progress since the first year they were here.
Saturday really felt like my Mother’s Day. My son’s soccer coach couldn’t do it this season, and nobody else volunteered. They would have had to break the team up without a coach, so I volunteered. We played in the pouring rain Saturday, and we lost, but I still felt so much pride in the team. I treated the kids to lunch, and they were behaved. When we got home, my son lamented on how he still hadn’t learned to ride a bike. I had always assumed my husband would have to teach him, and thought there was no way I could do it. Well, my husband works, and we always seem just so BUSY, that I decided I would give it a try. I picked that bike up, shoved and pushed until I fit in it the car, and went to the gas station to pump up the tires. When we got home, I taught him to ride a bike, in the RAIN no less, because it had rained for days, and somehow it seemed more fun to learn in the rain. Within about 15 minutes, I watched my son pedal down the sidewalk, a beaming smile on his face, while his little sister ran behind him cheering. I felt invincible. My mom passed away 10 years ago, and I miss her every day. I figured that my victory in teaching him to ride his bike would have made her proud, and that made me beam from ear to ear. Mother’s day was really nice too, but I did spend some time thinking about a family member who has had several miscarriages. I thought about her all day, but I never really know what to say. I am so angry and heartbroken for her because I know she would be the best mom, but it looks like she may not get that chance. It all is so unfair. My heart ached for her because I know deep down, the pain is always there for her, and I think it probably hit harder yesterday. I just sent her a message saying I loved her, but again, what do I say?
To all the moms who have lost their babies, know that you were thought of and loved yesterday. Some folks, like me, don’t know what to say, because how do you say anything except “I love you”? Your pain seems so big to me that anything I think of seems hollow.
JustMe…”I love you” is awesome…so is “I remember too”…so many people won’t even mention or acknowledge that in your heart…you lost your babies…not matter when it happened…having someone acknowledge it…helps. 🙂 Coming from a mom who has 4 angel babies and 2 blessings.
I got cold fried eggs and cold hot tea and cold toast along side some home-made cards for Mother’s Day. It was the most amazing mother’s day ever. And not because everything was cold! I got to lay in bed and listen to my 14yo step-son work alongside my 8yo & 6yo daughters and 4yo son attempt to work together like a family to prepare something for someone else. I got to listen as they squabbled and then figured it out, as they were excited to get it just right, as they made the whole meal and realized that they wanted to include artwork filled cards. I got to grow as a mama as my new family begins to really affirm itself as a family whether by blood or choice. I got to listen to the growth!
I don’t have expectations for Mother’s Day fortunately so I was able to flow reasonably well with what turned out to be a mixed bag. Mostly it was good because I prefer to count my blessings and not lick my wounds. Although at times it is more of a chant in my head than actual actions, thoughts and/or feelings. Surely I get an E for effort and being straight As is so overated and goody goody. Imperfections add interest, right?
In general I struggle with holidays; we didn’t “do” holidays growing up so all the fuss is foreign to me. However, I do feel proud to have children and being a mother has stretched me and pushed me to be a better human being, wife and mother. Who knew having kids would mean all of us grew together? With that said I want holidays to be special so my kids don’t think holidays are just another day. My husband and I make a modest effort to keep special days special but not over the top insane Hallmark movie special glop. We apparently like a good challenge.
On another front this was my second Mother’s Day without my own mother. She went downhill fast and I find myself wanting to talk to her all the time about the mundane mostly. She is no longer a phone call away and I can’t bring myself to delete her from my contact list so there her smiling face is each time I open my phone. All in all it is seriously odd and jarring but I suppose I will adjust. We weren’t super close but I suppose for most of us moms and mother figures have special places in their children’s hearts. Maybe not always good special places but such is life. I know I married a great man because he hasn’t deleted my mom from the contact list. I danced around it one time because I didn’t want him to delete her. I couldn’t bring myself to ask out right for some reason. But bless the man he read between the lines and said she’d stay right there on the list until something changed. Oh and the super odd icing on this cake is my mother’s surviving partner. They were together twenty plus years and I thought have a surviving mom would be beneficial. Um yeah no. I struggle with my second mom. She feels less and less a mom like every time we interact and we are struggling to have any relationship at all. I keep on keeping on in honor of my mother but I think my second mom and I can see the handwriting on the wall. We just aren’t ready to rip off the band aid and let the chips fall where they may. It is hard not having anyone to talk to about a lesbian mother, her surviving partner and what the hell relationships look like after mom’s death.
Finally my almost four year old decided the whole weekend was a terrific time to be a ginormous PITA about absolutely everything. I like to pick my battles carefully. He takes a more equal opportunity, nondiscriminatory approach; he prefers to pick every topic as a battle when the winds blow a certain way. This weekend the winds were gale force. True to form if he takes a real liking to the battle, he is utterly unafraid of turning it into an all-out war waged with every ounce of his being and total destruction accepted merrily. It is unbelievably draining and makes me feel like a crap mother when my fuse blows, repeatedly. We lock horns frequently during these phases and while I tell myself it will be better next time, I am not there yet; we are not there yet. The journey with him is an iron man triathlon in the desert. I never was one for organized sweating so I am hardly up for his endurance tests. I tell myself I will get there eventually but we both might need therapy when the smoke settles from his scorched earth approach to personal interactions. Mother’s Day in particular was epic; it was one mini battle after another. I tried not to let his behavior color my day but man was it a herculean effort. Sigh. I really hate wanting to strangle him and then I feel guilty I don’t enjoy him and then I feel guilty he cries and is upset. I hate when those I love hurt but he sure makes it hard to love him and comfort him and being a good parent in general. He’s the last one and he has given us a real run for our parenting money. Thank all the stars above his older siblings are so mild. I hope you had a decent Mother’s Day and the day after is better. Thanks also for letting me ramble. Things have weighed on my mind but there isn’t always a time or place for the musings. Life can leave a funny taste in my mouth and that is hard to reconcile since I was expecting more sunshine and rainbows for reasons I don’t fully understand. Hope is a funny thing I suppose. Here’s to hoping for a more graceful day after.
It’s so weird, for some reason I woke up thinking about you and Betty and that I hadn’t seen a post from you in a few days I thought “I wonder if Mother’s Day is hard for her for some reason like it is for a lot of women.” and I realized my eyes hurt because I cried a lot yesterday, which is also weird because in the grand scheme of things it was not as hard of a Mother’s Day yesterday as it has been in years past. So I went to my blog feed, and no blog… But just a bit later, this popped up on Facebook. So, thanks for asking!
My mother is mentally ill and won’t acknowledge it and get help, which is truly tragic because she’s only mildly mentally ill and it’s totally fixable. She’s still functional and can take care of herself but the net net is that we don’t have much of a relationship because in a lot of ways there’s nobody home and she’s just painful to be around. But I invited her to dinner at my best friend’s house for yesterday and she actually agreed to come, and it was really nice. She stayed for about an hour and visited with everyone a little bit and cried when I gave her flowers and chocolate. I think that’s about as good as it could get.
I’m 49 years old and not yet married which means no kids. I’m super blessed to be close to my best friend and her kids though, so kind of like the favorite aunt there. Her 2nd daughter, the one I’m not even as close to sent me the nicest text yesterday for Mother’s Day with a scripture about Mother Eve. It left me bawling in the kitchen, which made me late for church. Bawling in the nicest way, of course, because I felt loved and valued and appreciated.
I teach the 15-16 year olds in Sunday School at church. I took them French pastries for treats yesterday to let them know I’ll miss them while I’m gone to Paris for a month. We’ve talked about me going, but I don’t think it had really sunk in. When a couple of my rascal boys realized I’m really going to be gone for 4 weeks in a row they were genuinely sad and kept saying, “But I’m going to miss you!” (few minutes earlier one of them had handed me the Mother’s Day goodie bag of chocolate after Sacrament Meeting.) It was a good reminder that I still have a motherly influence, even when I’m not the mother.
One of the highlights of Mother’s Day for Mormons is when the missionary gets to call home, since they only get to do that twice a year (Mother’s Day and Christmas.) My best friend’s boy has been in South Korea for nearly two years, and we got one precious hour on Skype with him. I’m not the mama, but I love that boy about as close as I could one of my own. So good to hear his voice and see his face! We ended the call with the family tradition of “happy time” (where you go around the room and everyone shares what their favorite part of the day was) and family prayer, with him leading “happy time” and saying the prayer. Lots of tears shed, the kind with some sobbing and snot. But joyful tears too. He has grown up a lot. Being separated from him has been hard, but so much good has come out of it. And he will be home in just five short weeks! We’ll get to hug him and hold him and hear all about Korea. And yes, I timed my Paris trip so I’ll be home in time to go to the airport and meet him and everything.
Mother’s Day can be hard. I don’t have much of a relationship with my own mother. I don’t have and won’t give birth to kids of my own. But I’m so incredibly blessed to be able to influence other kids and be loved by kids and included in a surrogate family that is so good to me. I’m pretty blessed.
My feelings got a little hurt by something that happened on Facebook last night, and I was gonna write about that, but it doesn’t seem important anymore. Thanks, for asking about Mother’s Day. It was a good one!
My Mother’s Day was quiet; it’s always the lull before the storm of the three kids’ birthdays in eight days (10th, 11th, and 18th).
My own bio’rents were terrifyingly evil, but I have enough surrogate mothers in the world to make up for the fact that the only news I want of my “mother” is notice of her impending funeral. 😉
So Mother’s Day just isn’t a biggie for me.
My best friend, though…
My best friend, Q, is the best mom I know. She’s ten years younger than I am, proud mom of three.
But of the three, the two older ones were born with MPS – the rare, deadly specter of Sanfilippo has hung over the family since their diagnosis, and last year, nine year old L died suddenly in his sleep. This is Q’s first Mother’s Day without him.
And it might be her last with B – who, at age six, is already sicker than L ever was. I don’t know how moms can be so strong, but Q is. She’s amazing and strong even when she thinks she isn’t.
So this Mother’s Day I thought about Q and hugged my own kids very tightly and was grateful for them even when they are absolute little shits. I’m kind of a crappy mom. But I’m glad I got to be one.
My Mother’s Day was a mixed bag of feelings. I felt sorry for myself all morning because I didn’t get any phone calls, cards or flowers ( my kids are all grown with families of their own). Then I went to church and was reminded of a Mother’s Day 28 years ago when a mother I know was in a car accident and two of her four sons were killed. Then my feelings were turned around and I didn’t feel sorry for myself anymore.
Thank you, Heavenly Father for my beautiful children and grandchildren!
Thank you for posting this
Kathleen
Thanks Beth. Really. Thank you.
My first Mother’s Day that _I_ thought I “qualified” was the Mother’s Day after I got married, because I’d also acquired two sons on the day I got married. But not everyone agreed. Two years later, I was grieving the loss of my baby that I’d miscarried the month before. So for all the people who thought stepmoms “don’t count” among the ranks of moms, I SHOULD have qualified, but my baby was dead. It was a horrid day. I survived by trying to focus on my own mom and making the day nice for HER.
Yesterday was interesting. It came on the heels of the worst day yet of being a mom of teens (no, I’m not exaggerating). My 17 yr old flipped out. And I mean Flipped Out with a capital “F” and “O”. He had all sorts of privileges taken away as a result. Which definitely has me well in the lead for Meanest Mom Of The Year. And then my 15 yr old had a meltdown at church yesterday (which is humiliating for a teen boy, obviously) because he misses his bio mom so badly. (It’s been over 5 yrs since she could be bothered to visit them. And she seems to even have a hard time returning their phone calls.) Which made me realize that it has progressed way past “I want to see my mom” and we have now officially entered “I NEED to see my mom”. So. My Mother’s Day was full of plotting, planning, brainstorming, trying to figure out a way to come up with the hundreds of dollars necessary to help him get to see his bio-mom. Because we don’t exactly have extra money lying around, since his daddy has been out of work so much in the last 4 years. But somehow I HAVE to make this happen if I possibly can. Because he needs it. Because that’s what moms do. And in the meantime… Happy Mother’s Day to me.
I did get flowers from my husband and my 2 yr old daughter. And I got lots of kicks and punches from my almost-due little boy. Pretty sure those meant “I love you, Mom.”
So. Here’s to a sad, mad, glad, hopeful, fearful, angry, mixed bag kind of Mother’s Day. *clink*