My Mother's Day 2013

I'm not going to lie. I had expectations for Mother's Day. Not anything unreasonable, in my opinion. I was hoping my husband would tell me "Happy Mother's Day, sweetie," in the morning, that he'd give me a Mother's Day card, and be a little extra helpful that day. I certainly wouldn't have turned down a present, either, but I wasn't expecting one. Considering it was my Mother's Day, I can't deny it felt extra special. Let's just say it seemed more special to me than all my birthdays combined, since having my son is, hands down, the most important and amazing thing I've ever done.

Was that wrong?

I want to say not, but apparently it was, considering how the day unfolded!

First, I wake up. I'm tired. Baby E wasn't particularly kind that night, and so I felt like I could have used at least another hour of sleep. This wasn't the end of the world, however. As sad as it is, I've more or less gotten used to feeling like I had almost enough sleep, but not quite enough.

I offer to make breakfast, but my husband, Jay, says he already defrosted bagels for breakfast. "Okay, that's fine," I say, thinking nothing more of it. Half an hour later, as my husband pulls the cream cheese out of the fridge, ready to smear it all over our everything bagels, he discovers there is hardly any cream cheese left. He gets irritated with me for not realizing there wasn't enough, and warning him before he made the bagels. I was the last one who touched the cream cheese, but I also remember thinking there was just enough for bagels the next time. Obviously, I had miscalculated. But I didn't think cream cheese was a reason to get irritated with me, especially on Mother's Day. So then I got irritated, mostly because he had been irritated with me, and he hadn't even wished me a happy Mother's Day yet.

Another hour later, Jay's mother calls him on Skype from France (where she has lived for the last 5 years). Immediately, he says, "Hi, Mama. Happy Mother's Day." Now, I'll admit, I am annoyed. I thought, perhaps, he'd forgotten about Mother's Day altogether. But, obviously he hadn't. His mother thanks him, but tells him Mother's Day isn't until later in the month in France (did anyone else have any idea Mother's Day isn't universally on the same day?). They talk for at least 30 minutes, and right after they say their goodbyes, my husband wishes his mother a happy Mother's Day... again. I couldn't help but think, what the heck?

The previous day, on our way to the garden center to pick up some seed packets, my husband said that for Mother's Day, I could pick any restaurant to go to. So after he hung up with his mother, he asked if I knew where I wanted to go to lunch. I shrugged my shoulders and told him not really. He asked four times more over the next hour, and also named some places we could go to give me ideas. I told him there wasn't really anywhere I wanted to go. I wasn't in the mood, and it seemed kind of insulting that his idea of doing something nice for Mother's Day was having me pick the restaurant, which means he put no thought into it. My husband has a thing about lines. Goodness knows not making reservations on Mother's Day means waiting an hour or so to get a seat anywhere. And, all things considered, I wasn't in the mood to go anywhere.

So I make pasta for lunch. While I'm making lunch, Jay plays with Baby E. He holds onto Baby E while sliding him across our slick hardwood floors. Baby E loves this game. About 5 minutes into this game though, I hear a soft bonk! and then my son, crying. He had jerked over suddenly, and Jay hadn't had time to catch him before he fell sideways from a semi-sitting position, hitting his head on the floor. I run to grab him, and it takes a minute and some nursing to console him. It's his nap time, so I take him to bed and attempt nursing him to sleep. It's apparent he's still upset he hit his head, however, so he occasionally pulls off and starts crying, before he latches on again and quiets down. Now I feel a sting in my eyes, and I have to try really hard not to cry myself. Not only do I feel completely unappreciated on my first Mother's Day, but my son hits his head and gets really upset? What a perfect day, I think.

Finally, Baby E goes to sleep. I leave him to finish up making lunch, and I don't say a word to Jay. After we eat, my husband is on the computer, when he loads a page that has a video ad and the video starts playing and the audio booms into life (I have no idea why the sound was that loud). Before Jay has the time to mute the computer or find the source of the video so he can stop it, it, of course, startles Baby E, waking him from his nap. Now even more irritated, I go to put him back to sleep, and decide to give up and just take a nap with him. The whole afternoon passes mostly in silence. Jay on his iPad, surfing the internet, and me, holding Baby E.

In the late afternoon, we decide to go to the dog park. I try to cheer up, reminding myself nothing that had happened that day was that bad, when one puts it in perspective. I even thought that maybe my husband would still say, "Happy Mother's Day!" before the day was over. Jay had, certainly noticed I wasn't in the greatest of moods. But he hadn't realized why, he commented that I seemed a little irritable from losing sleep. I didn't bother to correct him, since I didn't want to get myself worked up and end up crying.

Before dinner, we decide it'd be nice to have a pot of chai tea. So I put the kettle on the stove, and get our little tea pot ready with the loose leaf tea in the strainer. When the kettle boils, I fill the tea pot, and put the lid on. After it brews, I am pouring the tea into our coffee mugs, when there's a ploink! I look into my husband's cup, where the sound had just come from. There is something strange floating in his cup. It is so out of place, it takes me a moment to identify it as a sweet potato french fry. What on earth is that doing there? It had contaminated the whole pot of tea, and there were small bubbles of oil bobbing on the surface of our mugs. Great, one more thing to completely ruin the day, I think, tossing it out. Both my husband and I still have no idea how that got there. We had had sweet potato fries on the side of our burgers the other day, but it certainly hadn't been anywhere near the tea pot.

Once we turned out the lights to go to bed, that was definitely the moment I realized my husband wasn't going to tell me "Happy Mother's Day" at all. The whole day hadn't gone at all like I had anticipated. The saying, "We make plans, and God laughs," come to mind, even though I'm not religious.

The one nice thing I have from the day, is the photo below. I hope everyone had a much better Mother's Day than I! The funny thing is, I think if my expectations had been higher, I would have felt better about it at the end of the day. Because then I could reason that I expected too much, and it was my fault for expecting the sky, or believing that the day had to be perfect. But I didn't expect it to be perfect, I just wanted to feel at least a little appreciated. Don't we all?

I can look back and chuckle at it now, given that a week has passed. But it was still a disappointment. Luckily, I'll be near my mother again for my next Mother's Day. Her Mother's Day hadn't been much better than mine, so we've promised to spend our next Mother's Day together, spoiling each other, and ourselves.