10 May 2011

Mother's Day - the truth in our household

Greetings all,
Anyone else completely ready to konk out by May each year??  I am, i think it's a combination of post-Easter-holiday-back-to-school mania & the chill in the Canberra air which makes my body scream for a cosy place to run & hide.  It's going to be single digits tomorrow, 9C, but still beautiful & sunshiney, that is what a love about Canberra Winter, icey cold but still looks like Summer with blue skies & beaming sun rays.  
Ok, so i thought i might share how my Mother's Day really went - especially seeing i had dinner with Julie from Handmade & i said "well, it's Mother's Day & i cried into the washing basket as the children didn't sort & put away the washing when it was the ONLY thing i wanted them to do for me all day" & she said "like you're going to blog about that".  Ha, called your bluff madam.  Not everyone has a glorious Mother's Day & having spent 10 of my 12 mothers' days with my husband away & not home ordering the children to be my enthustiastic slaves . . . it's really just like any other day - i cook, clean & care for my family. 
My Mother's Day started with my 3rd daughter saying "you really want to make pancakes, don't you" & batted those dinner plate blue eyes at me.  Then she presented me with her handmade card from school which had a poem inside . . . "Felice madri giorno mummia, amore si mumma. Non come buora cuoco come papa. Ma che e’ ok mi ancora sie grazie si" (FYI she's teaching herself Italian on the internet, hand wrote this translation into the card, then emailed it to me for good measure, as you do when you're 9 years old).  English translation . . . "Happy Mother's Day Mummy, love you Mum. Not as good cook as Daddy. But that’s ok i still love you. Thank you."  Nice touch, being told i'm a bad cook in two languages!!
My eldest daughter wrote a lovely card with some joke about housework & that i was the number one mother in the world, but her boyfriend's mother was the second best mother in the world.  She's keeping her options open.  
The middle girl had made some crepe paper flowers with straws & dug them up from the bottom of her school bag, squashed, along with a dozen school notes to sign.  At least she considers me useful.
My boy, well he made a beautiful card which read "Happy Mum's Day, why are there twice as many girls in this family as boys.  I love you anyway" complete with diagrams of boy & girl stick figures to emphasize his point.  Um, sorry mate.
So in a nut shell, i got 4 unsolicited opinions of what kind of mother, breeder & cook i am.  Did you fare better than me, be honest (or lie to make me feel better), love Posie

24 comments:

Linda said...

Nope, you win!

Though I did pick out my "surprise" (not) present at 4:45 Saturday afternoon in Target.... Forget the fact that I'd been dropping hints for weeks AND I let him know it was on sale!!

I did 6 years of solo Mothers days before I remarried, I know it sucks.. Looking forward to your next post when your hero is home again!

X

Sarah said...

Best I can offer is that today out here at Orange it will be just 6' degrees. So enjoy your slightly warmer day

Rhi@FlourChild said...

Aw, keeping it real! Kids have a warped and weird sense of humour sometimes I reckon...
Being a Mum is so hard.
I had a crappy day too.
It was Mothers Day in Australia, but I have no Mum to send a card to.. and it WASN'T Mothers Day in Belgium, because in Antwerp they celebrate it in August, and my kids and husband just ignored the whole May one. So I read a million blogs about people having lovely Mother's Days, while doing nothing nice myself.
Hope you have a better week. xx

Sindy said...

I can't stop laughing at those notes! Not quite what you imagined when they were such lovely, trusting, pretty babies was it? Ha ha. Luckily, not having any of my own, I was spared the agonies. However my big confession is that, since I live in the UK and my poor mother is in Australia, I didn't even know it was Mothers Day there until too late - ooops... If Hallmark is going to set up these holidays at least they could be on the same day throughout the world??

Brenda said...

I was up at 5.30 am to get the family organised for Rugby. We drove for two hours then I spent the day on the sideline freezing my ass off. Oh what fun that was!

There were a few little surprises before we left, I had to jump back into bed after the shower ( with wet hair ) and pretend I was asleep.

My day didn't turn out as I planned either, I think it's all part of being the fantastic mum's we are!

Becky said...

Mine was a complete wash. Possum wished me 'happy Church day' and Blue ran out and said 'happy birthday Dad'. If I didn't help them with Playgroup craft I would not have even had a card. The Mr did nothing :(

It was all about the Baptism on Sunday.

seabreezequilts said...

That was pretty sucky I would have cried into the washing machine too.

I did have to buy my own pressie this year .. again.. leaving it up to the rest of them usually means no pressie at all.

Michelle said...

Oh thankyou thankyou, for giving me the opportunity to say "I had a rotten Mothers day"!!! I didn't get to bed til 2am as we were at a wedding and I was designated driver, therefore dropped a few 'happy' people home. Then I was up at 5.40am to make my way into Southbank to run the Mothers Day Classic with daughter #2. Headache creeping on, but I powered on. Made it home in time to throw up then spend the day in bed with a bucket, yay!! Got out of bed to find the house was trashed = guess what my Monday was about? Daughter #1 gave me a present with a "here you go", d#2 said "don't have a present or card, sorry" d#3 very excitedly gave me her pressie from the mothers day stall (bless her xx) and hubby very unenthusiastically gave me present saying "didn't know what to get you", and it was something that I in fact have owned for a couple of years. The icing on the cake was the rip snorting arguement d# 1 &2 had over who was doing the dishes! C'est la vie! I will notch it up to experience and fondly remember the mothers day when my gorgeous family did treat me like a princess!

Seaweed and Raine said...

Hmmm. My mother's dy started out a bit wonky, but did get better. Hubbys says "Oh. I wonder when I'm going to get time to take the boys shopping to get you something" (While I'm thinking "I've been telling you mother's day was coming up - and bugging you to write in your mother's card!")...
Then after breakfast he decides that he wants more sunshine in the loungeroom and so the sewing cabinet has to go from in front of the window (where I sew cause it doesn't have a light), and then just starts shifting things around, taking things out, and putting them in other rooms... you get the idea. So I got a little miffed, and headed for the shower (by this time it was about 11am). But when I got out of the shower, Son #1 comes and collects me from my room to take me to the kitchen where I found a large terrcotta planter pot with baby strawberry plants and a sheet of paper with Happy Mother's day written on it complete with a flower that #1 drew, and a couple of strawberries by #2 (aged 3.5 and 1.5). Apparently they harvested the plants at my brother's in Canberra the weekend before while they were helping him pick strawberries. It's the first year that I haven't taken the smalls shopping to get something for mummy.
I think you have dibs on a crummy day though.
Hope your week gets better :)
S x

Tania said...

We are not far from where you are, so I share your feelings of the current weather! It really is cold.
Don't worry for mothers day, I had to push my hubby to push my kids to bring me some cake on a tray. I thought it would teach them to be thoughtful. Well, I got a cake with no plate and no cup of tea. Oh well, there's always next year :)

Jennie said...

Bet you still loved those cards tho!! Excellent!

Our MD sunday was going really good, till someone smashed their car head on into our fence , then driveway. The girls were in the front room - so glad the fence/concrete pillar was there!!

(its -2 here this morning!)XX

bron @ baby space said...

Oh dear! I did end up having a lovely day but there was quite a lot of frustration and 'negotiation' beforehand with the Mr and the teen, to 'set up' the day. So in other words, yes I had a great day but basically because I told everyone exactly what to do before the fact and then compromised (for instance, the Mr went surfing)hmm. Ah well, happy mother's day.

Christy said...

The reason I didn't blog about Mothers Day is that mine was kinda sucky too. Woke up early and did regular mum things. Husband was a bit of a turd. Tried to put him in place. He apologizes for lame effort. But whatever, that's what we deal with as mums. Could have been worse. I've negotiated three sleep ins to make up for his bad effort :) woo hoo!

Prim and Pretty said...

I vote to delete mothers day! We have 4 males and 2 females in our family normally I can rely on the other female (14) to play the game but this year I gave her the present I bought myself and she presented it back to me around the bed in the same brown paper bag I bought it in!The fake 'mothers Stall' lipstick and the grade 2 huge hug won the day. X

All For Love said...

Oh Posie, you make me laugh. Your kids are such characters, bless them! You're a fantastic Mum and they know it.
I love your son's comment, classic male interpretation!
Don't worry, I still did all the same old routine on Mother's Day too!
We don't do presents for Mother's or Father's Day, but hubby always does cards.
This year, the one he arranged from the boys was a card from a grown son to his mother... go figure?! Something about ...'even though I'm older, you're still there for me and you still mean the world to me... blah blah blah'. Then the card from hubby to me, was another "Mother style" card, not from a hubby.
Great selections this year... thank you hubby... we both had a laugh ;o)

Fiona said...

Oh this is sooo comforting.. while I am not one to ask for any gifts of any sort, I know my husband meant well (as he has been thinking of what to get me ?!?( but this morning (yep I waited THREE days to say something to avoid sounding like a spoilt brat)I finally said something - I told him that he should've at least taught my little 2yr old to give me something, a handmade card would've been perfect. That's all.. just a scribble - would've made my day! And after that conversation and to avoid crying at work - I went and bought myself some new trousers.. now I feel better :)

Jan Maree said...

Hmm. I have two teenagers who are classed as difficult/
oppositional. I am the one who is mostly home as for the last 16 years my husband has travelled away at least 75% of the year for work. That means I am the meanie, the one who makes and applies the rules. I have had Mother's Day when my kids have completely forgotten, sometimes deliberately. My husband does his best but if he is not here on the day he can't do much. So, my rules - on Mother's Day I don't cook - you hungry? feed yourself or take me out to lunch. Even little kids can eat tinned soup etc. Or take the little ones out for food that you like too. If my husband is away I plan things I like to do - read a good book, sew lots, eat yummy takeaway or bought stuff - no laundry, housework,no boring stuff. It's mother's day and if no-one else is going to pamper me and say thankyou then I will do it myself - let's face it -I have to do eveything else anyway!

Sarah B said...

Oh dear, I like to see a bit of hinest reality in blogland as sometimes it seems a little to perfect for me (though you always do a good job at keeping it real). Looks like you weren't the only one who had a dodgy day - Michelle's in particular wasn't a good one!
Hopefully your week is on the improve :)

Bron said...

Try to battle the expectations thing every year...popped out to the country town where we were staying and purchased my on gift at 4pm Sat (only store open -Reject shop) none the less had a lovely day ...just tried to keep the pace slow and manageable .

Anonymous said...

I can empathise with you - my mothers day, while it had some highs (achieving my goal with the mothers day classic) most of the day was spent arguing with my eldest, being cranky & being sworn at! Definitely not a highlight for me.

I am sure your lovely husband will make up for the disappointing day when he is next home.

Kelli

Naturally Carol said...

Every now and then you get a gem on Mother's Day..like my pearls this year..but I have been through many years of Mother's Days like yours. Even this year when Mr T came through, Mr S..in Taiwan would have no clue that it was M.D so didn't ring, Ms B rang the following day from Canada..not a card mind you, Mr M..no response from Brisbane and Mr P may have said a "Happy M.D" but that was all. All is sometimes not what it seems! Hehe! I am past being upset about it though and then it is extra great when one of them does something special.

Unknown said...

Real life is never quite how it is made out to be sometimes is it...I didn't blog about my Mother's Day because there wasn't really anything that special to say about it.

Sure I got lots of extra cuddles and some sweet homemade cards from my monsters, but apart from that the day was pretty much just like any other...the meals still had to be cooked, the washing still needed to be done...life doesn't really let up for us mummies does it? xx

Kylie said...

Yeap you win.

We celebrated Mothers Day and someones Birthday early. I scored a coffee machine this year - maybe the husby thinks that he might have more of a chance of havin two chickens alive after 4 months away if I have a cafe stle coffee every morning - must say it is helping:)

Hugs honey - In 13 years I have had one birthday with DH:( and one mothers day. I came to the conclusion that whoever descided on course and bush dates hated his mother and wife (that is how I justify it anyway)

Bless those childred of yours, wish I was there to give you a hug.

The House That A-M Built said...

Oh Posie, these are hilarious. They love you to bits, they really do. Keepsakes forever. :) A-M xx