Mothers Day. A chance to lay in. Scrambled eggs with smoked salmon and croissants for breakfast. An expensive and indulgent gift. No household chores to do. A lovely family lunch in a nice restaurant, where your children are beautifully behaved and you eat hot food. OK, I can dream. You almost believed me. Did I go to far with the restaurant idea?
Maybe I will get a mothers day like that when the kids are grown and before they have children of their own to contend with. But for now, I need to lower my expectations. Their idea of spoiling Mummy and showing their appreciation for all that I do, is somewhat different to my dream.
Firstly the lie in. Ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha.
Secondly an indulgent breakfast. I'm not yet at the stage where my kids are old enough to make me soggy Cornflakes for breakfast. I can only imagine the trail of destruction they would leave for me to clean up if they did! Whilst I love my husband very much, he is not the best when it comes to planning. To get the breakfast of my dreams, I would have to go and buy the supplies and leave them on the side with a not so subtle note saying 'make this'. And he would quite happily make it for me. The problem is that when my husband enters the kitchen, he enters a different time zone. Something strange happens whereby a 10 minute task will take him an hour. Have you tried delaying feeding the little people? It's exhausting and will only end in tears. Probably mine.
The gift? Lets face it, if we did get a ridiculously expensive gift, mothers guilt would kick in and we wouldn't be able to enjoy it. Chances are, your kid had just had a growth spurt and you've had to buy new school shoes, which basically eradicated any mothers day gift fund. You probably already know what you are getting because little people cannot keep secrets. They have been known to explode if they try. And if they are spending their own pocket money? You will probably get a Batman flannel. Because in their eyes, that's really cool, so how could you not love it. Whatever you get, there's no way you will be unwrapping it when there's little people around to do that for you. However, you maybe presented with something they made themselves, and that to you will be priceless. When you have a child who has inherited his mothers limited artistic genes, you will be used to being presented with masterpieces consisting of a single line drawn across a piece of paper. So something that they spent more than 10 seconds making for you, will leave you sobbing and wondering if they could be the next Mark Rothko after all.
Then there's the chores. My husband will do his best to give me a day off, and whilst I may not have to do any washing up or laundry, you can guarantee the baby will fill his nappy whilst my husband is in the shower. Then the big one will need bottom wiping assistance whilst my husband is feeding the baby. You never get a break from the poo.
Replace the nice restaurant, well-behaved children and hot food, with a soft play centre, very noisy children and chicken in a basket, and you are a lot closer to reality. The truth is you are only going to have a happy mothers day if the kids are happy. And that means doing what they love.
Alternatively you could check yourself into a spa for the day and go it solo!
But at the end of the day, the real truth is...
...You've got all you need already.
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