Ok, it's not a recipe at all. I lied. Just needed a place to write things down and not lose them ...
I had the most awesome
Mother's Day this year.
Earlier in the week James and the kids asked what I wanted for Mother's Day, and while I was tempted to ask for the kitchen floor to get mopped, or for a box of See's candy, I decided I'd really like to go for a drive and have a picnic in the mountains, which I knew would end up in James and the kids going for a hike. I let him know that I wanted to opt out of said hike and lay in the grass and read a book.
Alone.
(Well, me and Jack,
anyway.)
Saturday we had to take the
kids to their Endangered Species Faire in Chico for them to parade around with
their endangered species puppets they made at school. It was rainy and dark and
since we'd all been sick we slept in so late I assumed we weren't going. By the
time everyone voiced their desire to go, we were running late and I was
stressed about the probability of my cough getting worse, having the baby get
cold and wet and possibly succumbing to our germ fest, and just the task of
packing up everything we would need and getting everyone out the door. But we
got there at the perfect time, we all had fun, and we didn't stay too
long.
Before we left Chico James
took me to See's (as he had told me he was going to but I think I
really didn't believe) to get a Mother's Day box of chocolates.
Which meant we ALL went
in.
The day before Mother's
Day.
Yup, it was slightly
ridiculous in there, and each of the kids were quietly hoping (outloud) to get their OWN box of candy, which was adorable, pitiful,
and annoying all at the same time.
(It's MOTHER'S DAY not
kid's day!)
James hates going
in stores, and he hates spending money, so I knew how incredibly
thoughtful this was of him, and I loved him for that even more than I loved
getting to have my favorite chocolates.
When we got home the plan
was to clean up the house so we could have a fun day on Sunday. That sorta
worked. A bit. It was just a little too much and the kids kinda wanted to do
anything BUT that, so they all did a little and then disappeared.
(Or I had to remind them
that they needed to disappear if they weren't cleaning up.)
James and I got derailed
because the kitchen sink, dishwasher, and washing machine got backed up from
Sam dumping pine shavings down the sink (only because he's been so
responsible in taking care of the chicks' water every day) and the
laundry room got flooded. So we spent a LONG time working on that and thought we might even have to call a plumber.
(Like later in the week,
NOT on the Saturday evening before Mother's Day.)
$$$
But in the end my awesome
hubby not only fixed it, but also
MOPPED THE KITCHEN AND
LAUNDRY ROOM FLOOR,
which is ALWAYS an amazing
gift for me. And even though the house didn't get completely clean, their effort did make a difference that I appreciated.
Since we planned to go on a
picnic after church the next day, I went to Savemart after the kids went to bed
to buy way too much picnic food, and in an effort to save my "good"
chocolate from my adorably pitiful children, I went to Walgreens to get them each their own Mother's Day box of chocolate that they would be welcome to gorge
themselves on.
The last few days I've
gotten lots of "I love you's" and "You're the best Mommy
ever's" from the kids whenever they remembered that Mother's Day was
coming up. During the week Jonas had asked me if Michael's would have any heart
shaped paper, and I noticed him trying to cut out a heart on Saturday which must
not have met his high standards because he later abandoned it on the
couch.
And on Saturday when we
were walking through the parking lot to See's, Sam had his last $10 out, all
ready to pay for my special chocolate.
Sunday was my first day
back at church since Jack was born. When we were getting ready Jonas quietly
came in from the back yard and wordlessly handed me a red rose. (Literally
JUST the rose.) He plucked it right off the top of the stem because he
couldn't figure out how to pick it with all those thorns. I tried to figure out
a way to put it in my hair or pin it on myself like a corsage, but there wasn't
even enough stem to do that so it's perched on top of my old bottle of
"Green's Lung Restorer" that I use for a vase. The look on his face
when he handed it to me was just the best. One of those you can never capture
with a camera. He was very serious and gallant about it with just the tiniest
hint of a shy but proud smile in one corner of his mouth.
Jack was just the cutest
little thing in his white shirt, tie, and hat. He was the best behaved little
baby ever all through church and I'm still basking in the illusion that he will
stay that way forever.
(lalalalalala ... I don't
want to hear any different.)
Sad I didn't have time to
take a picture of him. Next week.
Another picture I NEEDED
was the heart-aching cuteness of seeing Daddy and Soraya holding
hands and walking to church together. (I elected to drive the van
and the boys hopped in with me.) Soraya wore her black and white polka
dot dress that she's just barely starting to grow out of so
it's gotten short enough that it has that little-girl-from-the-60's look
to it. Both of them were carrying their scriptures and you could tell even from
behind that Soraya was happily chatting away with Daddy until she saw us and
her face lit up as she began running and tugging Daddy along to race us.
We were late enough that we
took the sacrament in the foyer and it wasn't until we sat down and got settled
in the chapel that we looked up and realized all the primary kids were on the
stand ready to sing their Mother's Day songs. I told the kids,
"That's ok, you can just sing to me here." That's when Sam
humbly apologized for not paying attention when they were teaching them that
song. But I did hear him singing softly to me the other two songs that he must
have been paying attention for.
Another image I wanted to
burn into my brain was Sam holding Jack in Sacrament meeting, and seeing Jack
so comfortable with his gentle big brother that he fell asleep on his
shoulder.
After Sacrament meeting James and the rest of the
elders quorum passed out chocolate bars to all the mothers and my renegade
bearded husband slipped me an extra one.
The kids drew pictures of
me in primary which they excitedly ran up to show me. Sam apologized that he
was being silly with his friend and drew me with pink hair. Then he scolded
Jonas for throwing away the picture that he had drawn of me. Jonas insisted it
wasn't good.
"She doesn't care, Jonas. She likes it anyway!"
When
Sam learned that Jonas didn't rip it up but merely crumpled it and threw it
away, he and Jonas took off to dig it out of the garbage for me. They returned
to announce that the young men had already dumped the trash cans and when they
went out to the dumpster to see if they could find it there was dog poop in it.
(And I was thankful for the gift of children NOT covered in dog poop.)
Throughout the day I got so
many of those sweet "I love you's" from Soraya - those really good
ones where something just stops her and out of the blue she looks into my eyes
for a good second or two and puts her hand on my cheek or grabs my hand to
snuggle and says with so much feeling, "I really love you,
Mommy."
After we got home James
hurriedly replaced the exhaust hangers on the truck that we broke on our last
4-wheeling adventure, gassed up, and packed not only my comfy lounge chair, but
also the pop-up pavilion for a super princessy picnic (and also
because it was so cloudy it looked like it might rain!) We drove out past
Butte Meadows and Jonesville through an amazing amount of fog. James had
planned to take me to the top of the summit where there was a sunny open area
and a gorgeous view. As we got close to the top we did our best to 4 wheel
through patches of snow until we got high enough that the snow completely
covered the road and we decided to turn back. But we didn't have to go far. We
had passed a nice little flat spot near a creek that we doubled back to for our
picnic. We were starving by then and just ate in the back of the pickup since
we realized we didn't bring anything waterproof to put under our blanket and
the ground was very wet from the rain we'd gotten the last few days. The kids
were thrilled with their miniature sparkling cider bottles and giant boxes of
chocolates (as was I!) ;) After everyone had full bellies James took the kids
around to explore, and Jack and I lounged on my favorite chair (still in the bed
of the pickup) and I absorbed myself in the tail end of "East of
Eden." Jonas picked me a Dandelion to put in my hair. Sam found an old
bottle of Red Stripe Beer that made James and I laugh remembering the
commercials for it. Sam didn't know why it made me so happy, but he was
thrilled to be the one to have found it for me and bring it home so I could
have a new vase. The kids fell asleep on the way home and James and I enjoyed
the very foggy (and quiet) drive together in the dark.
Just so I don't gloss over
things and remember them too rosy, the kids were still their normal
selves.
We were asked several times
about the exact length of the drive to get to this mystical picnic. (Obviously
so they knew exactly how much they should plan to whine on the way.)
Sam was peeved that Soraya
got to sit in the front.
He and Jonas couldn't keep
their hands to themselves in the back and had to be reminded to not be annoying
every 7 1/2 minutes.
The drive was "too
long" and everyone complained about being hungry, but Jonas literally
thought he was going to DIE and was practically hyperventilating back there
until we'd gotten so far away from civilization that we let him sit in the pickup
bed and he forgot all about the fact that he was so close to death by
starvation.
Then Soraya was heartbroken
because SHE wanted to sit in the back, TOO.
"I won't fall out,
Daddy! Jonas can hold on to me! He's strong enough. PLEEEEAASE!"
After our picnic, when Daddy
was leaving on the first hike Soraya decided at the last minute that she wanted
to stay with me. After a couple minutes she realized she actually DID want to
go with Daddy, but they were already gone, so she whined and screamed and cried
during most of that time I was looking forward to as being peaceful alone-time
bliss. I, like the good mother I am, did my best to ignore her and just enjoy
my book and chocolates, while making sure she didn't wander off so far looking
for Daddy that she became bear bait.
Jonas had stinky gas, which
caused the inevitable speculation of ... "Who did that?" ... "Do you
need to go to the bathroom?" ... "That's stinky!" ... "Don't do
that any more!" ... "Jonas, not again!"
Somehow Sam decided that
the clouds gave him a headache and also made him car-sick, as did the smell of
the chips we gave to Jonas to keep him from dying at the hands of his cruel
parents who starved him.
Soraya jabbered and
peppered us with questions constantly to the point that it was obvious she
simply couldn't cope with not hearing the sound of her own voice.
Not that I'm complaining
about ANY of those things. It was literally one of the BEST days ever -
definitely my best Mother's Day ever. I just wanted to remind myself that my
children weren't body-snatched and replaced with perfect little stepford alien
children for the day. They were themselves. The same amazingly wonderful kids
they are every day. All those good things they did that I wanted to somehow pin
down and capture forever - they weren't unusual in any way. That is them. All
the time. Every day. All that thoughtfulness my husband oozed - that's him. All
the time, actually. Just having a day to label that it was all for me helps to
see it as a gift, I guess, when really he would do that and more on any given
day (and has many times.)
Anyway, just wanted to save
a little of it in some way, even though there were no pictures to put on
facebook and brag about the perfect life I somehow got to have.
Hashtag: "blessed" (or something equally obnoxious.) ;)
