Wednesday, May 14, 2008

The Great Mother's Day...

Mother's Day started early this year as C's class had Mother's Day Tea on Thursday. I promptly joined her and her class at 10:30 am to observe her gymnastics/dance/get-all-their-energy-out class and then headed off to tea. J was nice enough to stay home with M, so C and I got some one on one time. I swear, her teacher's are amazing! They prepared quite a spread for us, including cucumber sandwiches! :) The best part was find our spot, which was marked by a special place holder and placemat.

(The card reads: Recipe for Motherhood
1 Heart full of love
1 Head full of understanding
2 Eyes in the back of your head
3 Heaping cups of patience
1 Gallon of generosity
1 Barrel of laughter

Mix well. Sprinkle with kidness, add plenty of faith. Heat with sunshine and spread generously over a lifetime for a plateful of joy and a cup of warm memories.)

We then got our munchies and the teachers played a little game. They had each child fill out a survey about their mom and we had to guess who it was. C's answers were as follows (they are in bold):

1. My mommy is ? years old. (Other children's answers ranged from 6 to 21 but apparently my daughter was nice enough to not reveal my age. :) )
2. My mommy's favorite color is brown. (Really, since when??)
3. My mommy likes to eat salad. (Ahhh, gotta love this response. Yes, I like salad, but if it was my favorite I would probably be a lot thinner!!)
4. When I am at preschool, my mommy: I don't know because I can't see her. (Other kids said work or take care of a sibling. Got to love my literal daughter!!)
Right after question #4, C recognized her answers and told me this was mine. I started cracking up!
5. My mommy and I like to cuddle. (Can I get a collective, AWW!)
6. My mommy laughs when I do funny things.
7. My mommy is really good at everything. (I swear I didn't put her up to this one!!)
8. I love it when my mommy gives me hugs and kisses. (Can you tell we are an affectionate family?)
9. I love my mommy so much because she does nice things for me. (Again, no bribing here!)

I loved this exercise and listening to what other kids came up with!! I went home with tears in my eyes and a huge smile on my face. Score one for C.

After this we headed up to NJ for a wedding. Truth be told, I wasn't looking forward to this. I mean Mother's Day is supposed to be a day of relaxation for me and here I was going to have to drive back home. Yuck! The wedding turned out well, in a comedy of errors sort of way. Here's some of the highlights...


- We got there in one piece which was a small feat in itself since C was coming with us. She was all dressed up, white and purple dress, white tights, white shoes. So of course what does she do 5 minutes after we arrive? Decide she wants to cut through a bed of flowers and wind up with mud up to her ankles! Stockings were thrown out and shoes were washed. How did she manage to get no mud on her dress?? I'm still trying to work that one out myself.

- Once the wedding was over we headed into the reception area and made it through cocktail hour unscathed. Thank god. No sooner did we get into the actual reception room then did I get a flute of champagne dumped down my dress!! Nice, huh??

- C wound up having a blast and dancing all night long. We didn't get home until almost midnight and M was still awake! She was with my mom and apparently decided to have a crib party all her own. I was greeted with her voice over the monitor saying "Mommy, I miss you!!!". Insert aaaawwww here. She didn't sleep at all Saturday night, nor did C.

Both girls were up before 7 am Sunday morning and I was dead. Needless to say we were all cranky beasts and Mother's Day was bad as a result. I even tried to make it to my brother's lacrosse game until to arrive as the horn blew signaling the end because C didn't want to wear a coat!! GRRRR!!!

I definitely was bumming the whole trip home and was still in a foul mood on Monday. Then I realized, well, this is all being part of a mother right?? Why should Mother's Day be any different than any other day? Shouldn't we celebrate our families every day of the year?? So that's what I am trying to do. Hope you all had a wonderful Mother's Day and you celebrate every day and every milestone! Someone said to me the other day that when you have kids the days go slowly but the years go by too quickly. How true is that?!? So enjoy every moment!! :)