This being my 7th mother's day, I am seasoned enough to know better - yet every year, I secretly hope that this year will be "the year" of the magical mother's day. Instead, my day yesterday was for the most part, very stressful. It wasn't Ryan's fault that he was gone taking his sister to the airport when the kids woke up and were demanding food despite my exhausted and sick state. It wasn't any one's fault that I didn't have time to prepare my Sunday school lesson the day before (if I prepare any earlier, I forget what the lesson was about the day of and I have to spend Sacrament meeting reviewing) because of company over, making it necessary to prepare it while eating the waffles Ryan lovingly made me. It kind of was some one's fault that I had to go to church an hour early to practice a song with the soloist at the last minute because she "forgot" to set it up earlier, even though she was going to sing it that day during sacrament meeting and then on top of that picked a ridiculously hard song. Then it was some one's fault that I had to take the other Sunday school class because the teacher didn't show up or get a sub, making my class (usually 15-18, now 12-18) a lot more to handle than usual.
So instead of coming home relaxed and happy, I was literally running to the car, ready to pass out on the couch (which I did). Now it's the day after and I have my hands full (mostly of dirty dishes). So what, you ask, did I get out of this mother's day? Well, I'll show you with some pictures taken just this morning:
Church bags unpacked and dirty church clothes, dirty dishes and stove top from the dinner I threw together at the last minute out of starvation and then was too tired to clean (by the way, I did not make that mess on the stove-top, that was another member of my family), and my lovely flower from church. Am I bitter? No. Disappointed? No. Amused by the ridiculous expectations and annoyed at the false commercialism of mother's day? Yes. I would love to hear your thoughts on this - does anyone else share my feelings or do you have other experiences?
4 comments:
Well David has been gone on mother's day for 2 years now. So I have not had any hopes for the day. It is all just a bit scam...retail stores and florists want our money. Then we usualy feel crummy for most of the day because we feel that we just want some sort of a break.
Hey, so did Ryan like his presant you left for him today?
Too bad things worked the way it did. Mother's Day should be on a Saturday when it is much easier to do something fun together as a family or so it is easier for Dad or neighbors to take the kids so you can have some alone time. I think that is what most mothers would like the most for a present - just a few hours of peace and quiet for them to do whatever they choose.
I am lucky to have Ben around- he really tries to keep me happy on mother's day. The difficulty with the day that I have, however, is that at church everyone talks about how wonderful mothers are and how they do this and that, and this again. Sometimes it depresses me, because it reminds me of everything I should be doing, but have a hard time fitting it all in. Why can't we talk about husbands and kids responsibilities on Mother's day for a change?
I have discovered that the less expectations I have regarding Mother's Day, the happier I am.
Sandy
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