Mother’s Day 2015 comes around, which as can happen in the great state of South Dakota became the second coming of a great October blizzard we had in 2013. I anticipated there would not be much planned by the male members of my house being snow and blizzard and all. I had prepared though by texting a link to the ever people pleasing 13-year-old of a possible gift idea. I knew he wouldn’t let me down. I arose that Mother’s Day morning ready for some type of recognition. Now don’t get me wrong, after 16 years into this journey of motherhood I am fully aware that I may not receive the cool little handprint cards or mini-flower pots. At ages 16 and 13 and the throes of middle school, there are no rock star elementary teachers who will be sending something home for me to “ooohhh” and “ahhh” over. And of course, my husband is no longer in awe of my mothering skills, and well I am NOT his mother. I had no grand illusions.
I went about my day, made breakfast waiting for some type of verbal acknowledgment. I started laundry, still waiting. I started putting laundry away, when the teen finally ventures out from the basement and haphazardly says, “Happy Mother’s Day”. By this time, it was three hours into the day, and I’d had plenty of time to become annoyed, sad, and just a little infuriated. I displayed very little self-control and let out a sarcastic, “Gee thanks”. This was met with a look and an off-handed “Well I guess I could have gotten you a card”. And there you have it my friends, you can imagine the rest of the day.
I continued to stomp around the house, dust-which only happens when I am really furious-the deadly silent kind, and cry in the shower. It is really hard to cry privately in a house when you are all snowed in together. All the time running through my head were images. Images of me sitting in a damn deer blind at four in the morning. Images of me finding container after container for snakes, bugs and crawdads. Finding REAL crawdads under beds in said containers and not being mad. First day and last day of school gifts, specifically chosen with love. Little notes under pillows and the list goes on and on of all the self-sacrificing things I had done to be a good mom, a rock star mom I thought, and all I got on this special day was a whole lot of nothing. My martyrdom felt good, and I wallowed in it.
It felt good until around three in the afternoon when by accident the younger child tried to pacify me with a movie-my choice, and he accidently found a video from his kindergarten teacher that she made for parents. The video shows all their happy faces dancing around to the LeAnn Womack song “I hope You Dance”. This then moved to watching other collage dvd’s-thank you Shutterfly, and then some more. As we are watching he turns to me and says, “Watching these makes me a little sad-like tears, but happy too”. And there it was, what I had been waiting for all day. In his one short random sentence he had summed up my whole damn life as a mom. A little sad and happy too.
It is now summer 2019 as a I rewrite this story and the children-lovingly called man-child 1 and man-child 2 are now ages 20 and 17, and I reflect on our most recent Mother’s Day. See, I have long given up asking, hinting, and of course dusting on Mother’s Day. But this year something magical happened. The now 17-year old people pleaser old texts me, “Where did you get that wind chime thing?”. I ponder, could it be someone might be GOING and planning something? The menfolk, including the husband mysteriously disappear for an errand when I ask them where they are going and then in true menfolk style come home and ask me for wrapping paper.
This Mother’s Day I receive a gift AND A CARD-you do not understand people what it means to get a card in my house from menfolk. The hub absolutely hates them, with a passion. Scribbled in the card were words I had been waiting to hear-I mean I know they feel them but sometimes SEEING them means so much. I immediately thought about the above story I had written for work, 4 years ago and felt it needed to be added to.
As a mom we give and give and give a little more. Outwardly we say, we are doing this for our children-it is all about them-it isn’t about us. But sometimes we want it to be, need it to be about us. I so wanted that Mother’s Day long ago to be about me. And the anger and annoyance and pity party felt good. But then I look at the long term, the little moments I have made and still make for my children I realize the end game is where it is at.
I chose it, CHOSE this, this game of mom and would choose it all over again. So, with that I will continue to sit in deer blinds, drive to Texas and leave my then alone 19-year-old to a new job and fly off. I food prep until I am super sick of cooking for a teen who wants to get “buff”. Answer late night texts of “should I be worried about this rash” and worse. I will text, question, send stupid quotes, and inspiring stories and links even when they aren’t appreciated. I will still cry in the shower, because that is what mom’s do. I do less stomping around and have learned to ask my soon to be adult children for what I want and need just like adults should.
I will get up each day and be a mom in the best way I know how, because it is what I believe in and want to do and it is what I CHOOSE to do.
