Mother's Day

Oh Mother's Day. What a strange holiday you are. I'm sure the creator of Mother's Day had really great intentions. And I'm sure that most mothers in the world look forward to a day of pampering and honor. But in reality, I find, that Mother's Day is actually a day to remember that we mom's never actually get a "day off," and where my own personal inadequecies become blatantly obvious to me. I don't really look forward to Mother's Day anymore. Maybe I just have bad Mother's Day luck. On my very first Mother's Day Ben bought me an expensive-at-the-time dress that I made him return after our, purchased on credit, mo-ped was stollen from outside our apartment while we were at church. We had planned to sell the mo-ped in just a few weeks after our student teaching was over so that we could pay off the credit card. That plan didn't quite work out.

This Mother's Day was drastically better than that. Ben went with Eli to Colorado for my nephew Jackson's baptism, and although I did send the small camera in Eli's bag, Eli didn't tell Dad he had it, and we have no pictures to speak of. I think they had a great visit though. Eli was thrilled to be there and spend a little time with his favorite cousin. The girls let me sleep in after I made the sly suggestion to Meilani the night before. The kids brought me cute cards and gifts they made at school and tried to make breakfast in bed for me, but we had virtually no food in the house, so over done cold toast and a smoothie was what they came up with. I got up and made us all crepes after one bite of toast.

So even though I don't love Mother's Day, I do love Motherhood. My mom and I were talking recently and she made a comment that I really appreciated. She said "I don't think many women adjust to motherhood as well as you have." Such a nice sentiment! I think a mother is who I was born to be. It's my nature, my calling, my joy. Overall I think I'm pretty good at it too, even though in the day to day trenches it's so very overwhelming. I'm thankful for the amazing spirits who've been entrusted to me, and I pray daily that I can rise to the challenge.

Bookends we made for Mutti. Get it? They're "pushing" the books together.

Some for Grammy.

Sethie

Sariah's birthday dinner was canceled due to the awful stomach flu #2, so we celebrated her birthday and Mother's Day together.

Opening gifts. She quite like being the center of attention and made me take a picture of every single gift she opened. Her most prized possession . . . a new skateboard.

My Grandmom and my first born.

Dad and his mommy.

My mom, dad, and their grand-girls.