Mother's Day weekend began nice and quiet with a Girl's Night, just me and my girl (the boys were at the Father and Sons campout). Miss J and I had a great time eating at Wendy's, going to the Dollar Store, watching a movie, painting nails, eating treats and then sleeping in my big bed. As we were laying in bed together that evening Jilli turned to me and said, "I love Girl's Night!" Besides spending extra time with my girl, I loved that she slept until 9:30 the next morning -- a record for any child in this family.
Mother's Day is always a bit of a let down for me. Not for lack of effort on anyone's part, but for some reason on this day I expect my children and husband to behave perfectly and do exactly what I want them to do without me even having to ask -- really is that too much to expect?
This year I decided was going to be different -- I was going to mentally prepare myself for just a regular day, nothing special, and I actually think it helped. When I found my sweet husband reclined back in his jammies, browsing the IPAD three minutes before we needed to leave for church, I didn't completely lose it. When we squished our family of six into the end of a pew and I fought feelings of claustrophobia for over an hour, I kept my cool. When my children had to be hushed and quieted through sacrament, I did it just like any other Sunday. And when we came home and I heard arguments and complaining and "I'm bored" statements, I did my best to handle it even tempered.
There was no feeling bad for myself that "they just didn't understand that this is MY day," but there was much more of "this is my everyday life and it's not too shabby." Honestly, every day my family showers me with hugs, kisses and cuddles and I guess I'd rather have that everyday than just one epic day each year.
My Mother's Day loot.
Happy Mother's Day! Here's to not setting expectations too high and in return not feeling disappointed and to enjoying the every day pleasures of being mom.
P.S. And just for the sake of remembering, Nate did make me a beautiful salmon dinner . . . and he did buy me a new van -- he 's a good guy!
