Mother's Day of the Past

If you have read the blog up to this point, you know how much I wanted to be a mom and you know how long I waited. I couldn't wait until Mother's Day. Finally I was a MOM! And then, like a brick house falling on me, I found out that Mother's Day was not about me. It was about my mom and my mother-in-law and I was not happy about it. I had visions of breakfast in bed made with love by Leo and gazing into my baby's eyes knowing that he/she made me a mom. The day would be filled with all the things I loved to do. We'd go to church and when the priest/pastor asked the moms to stand up, I'd finally be able to stand up. Then Leo would give me my gift that would be fabulous and something I always wanted. Instead, I have to split the holiday between my mom and Leo's mom. For years, we did breakfast with his mom at their house and late lunch at Amalfi's with my family. Then I took a stand and Leo took the kids to his mom's while I did what I wanted. Then we've had baseball tournaments (as much as I like baseball, that is not what I want to be doing on Mother's Day). If church has happened it's not without yelling and screaming and a mad rush to get out of the house. Instead of standing up proudly, I stand up really fast and then sit quickly hoping that I don't have a spit-up stain on me or bed-head from the three hour sleep I had the night before. Nico has tried to bring me Frankenberries for breakfast which I thought was adorable. Most of the time, the day was filled with getting ready to be somewhere that was not of my choosing. As far as gifts (Leo, if you are reading this, sorry), I can't for the life of me remember them. In his defense, Father's Day isn't much better. For the longest time, Leo had fishing tournaments so my gift to him was not complaining about it.

One Mother's Day in particular stands out in my mind. Leo and I had a few friends we wanted to see that lived in Texas so Leo and I decided to drive there. Nico had just turned 4 and the twins were 7 months old. On the way, we were going to stay with my friend that lived in Missouri and then we were going to drive together to see our other friend. It just so happened that we were driving back to Illinois on Mother's Day which I had reminded Leo of. After saying goodbye to my friend in Missouri, we stopped at an Osco Drug store for diapers and formula. When we got home, Leo asked me if I wanted my gift. He presented me with a box and a card. When I opened it, I saw that it was a bear candle. It was two black bears and a votive candle in the middle. I gave Leo a look that said, "What the heck?" It's not that it wasn't a lovely gift. I don't want to sound ungrateful but it was so out of left field. I mean we had a big fish hanging over our mantle (which was proof that I can sacrifice for Leo since I HATE that thing) but I wasn't looking to make it a "wilderness-themed" room. I was just about to try to kindly tell him that a gift like that only shows me that he doesn't know me very well and that it's not so much that I didn't like the gift, just that it seemed very much like an afterthought that no thought at all went into when Nico said, "Do you like it, Mom? I picked it out myself." I felt terrible for what I was about to say. I told him I loved it and kissed him. I opened the card that Leo told me he picked out just for me. I looked at it and asked him if he was serious. He was dead serious (so clearly he had not intended this as a joke) and went on about how he picked it out for me. I tried not to be smug when I said, "Really? Then you meant to give me a birthday card from a pet to its owner?"