You know, I feel like Mother's Day has this expectation to it. Breakfast in bed, wonderful children, presents, meals made for you, etc. etc. After Mother's Day this year, I got on some blogs and read how wonderful the day was for everyone. Let me tell you how my Mother's Day went.
The kids gave me breakfast in bed which consisted of an apple and lots of candy. Liam gave me his gift which was a recipe book his class had made. Erin gave me her gift of bubble bath. Then the fighting over whose gift was better began.
Cameron is sick and after telling him for a week he needed to go to the doctor, he finally decided that he felt bad enough he would go on Sunday. The InstaCare place didn't open until 1:00, so I decided to just take the kids to church with me. It all went okay until sacrament meeting and the two older kids got up to sing a song with the primary. Owen wanted to go up too and I was trying to convince him to stay and watch them with me when he started to scream "NO!", over and over and over again at the top of his lungs. Can I just say I have never been able to sit and watch my kids sing a song in sacrament, because one or the other of my children tends to freak out right beforehand. Anyway, out into the foyer Owen, Reagan and I go.
I am trying to calm Reagan down whilst wrestling with Owen. I finally give up on Owen and let him go and focus on Reagan. Owen is running all over which bugs the heck out of me because our cardinal rule at church is that if we have to go out into the foyer, you have to sit on mom or dad's lap the whole time. There's no running around. Anyway, he's opening doors and opens the sacrament door. My older two see this and come out and say "What's going on? Can we sit out here too?" Thinking it would be a little better than being loud and rambunctious in front of our brand new ward, I tell them they can sit out with us if they will just sit and listen. Ha!
Liam and Erin decide they need to go to the bathroom. It is usually our rule that we go before sacrament and not during. But, I am outnumbered, so I let them go. Owen decides he needs to go too. They leave and I try and console Reagan. Liam comes back and says "Mom, Owen needs your help. He needs wiped and he's in the men's bathroom!" I tell Liam I can not go into the Men's room and he will have to help Owen. Two minutes later, Liam is back saying "Okay mom, I took him into the women's room, so you can go help him now."
Sigh. I tell Liam, I will go help him, but you need to sit RIGHT HERE and watch Reagan. Okay? "Okay mom!"
Off I go in search of Owen. I find him, pants and underwear around his ankles, hopping around the hallway outside of the bathroom with some nice guy saying "Where's your mommy?" I growled "He's mine." and whisked him into the bathroom. Cleaned him up and back to Liam, Erin and Reagan. I find Reagan precariously perched on the couch in the foyer with nary a sibling to be found. Deep breaths. To make a long story short, this story ends with Owen and I wrestling down on the floor in the foyer, Reagan crying and the other two running around. I packed them up and left while the closing prayer was being said. Walking to the car in a torrential downpour, the kids bemoaned how wet they were getting, but at that point, I didn't care. We got home, I put them in their rooms with strict instructions not to get off their beds and went downstairs to the wails of four upset children.
THAT is how my mother's day was. It didn't sparkle and I had no wonderful spiritual awakenings about my children, but I suppose it is apt that my Mother's day was a wreck. Isn't that how it is a lot of the time for Moms? We're doing our best and that's what we can do right? Maybe next year it will be all aglow with love and happiness. I won't hold my breath though.
