Mother's Day 2016

The sad reality is that I never blog anymore.  I truly love it. It’s like therapy to unleash my inner thoughts and feelings with no one rolling their eyes, judging me or telling me to calm down. When I am stressed and exhausted, I have no energy to blog.  My brain can’t produce any intelligent thoughts by the end of the day. That’s basically been my daily feelings for the past year. Well, today is my day.  I have the mother’s day right to be in my bed, to not be productive and to lounge around doing whatever I want.  The kids are restricted from complaining and asking me to do anything and it’s pretty fantastic. Well, except Eddie who thought it would be a good idea for me to get him a prize for all the cleaning he did.  He is quite aggravated with this restriction on his mom slave.  

Bless Dan’s heart.  He always puts way too much effort into mother’s day despite the fact that I tell him EVERY year, that I don’t want gifts and I don’t want to go out. I want to sleep and have the kids clean the house only.  I nice thoughtful note from the kids thanking me for my hard labor would be a bonus.  He can’t help himself.  He always blows it out of the park to bless me with awesome gifts that I love and that I totally don’t need.  I think I disappoint him with my lack of social fun.  I always want to stay at home and not have to work hard to look presentable. It’s getting more and more difficult as the years tick by.  I have skin cancer scars, age spots, freckles to hide every day and gray hair that I have resorted to plucking.  I know nothing about hair dye and I am scared to try based on the freaky deaky fake red hair that I have seen. So tonight it’s the real deal, the real me with no disguise. Sorry family you have to suffer through…it’s mother’s day weekend!

People give me a lot of credit when my kids do something great or thoughtful or generally behave themselves. I honestly don’t feel like we can take any credit. Dan and I didn’t set out with parenting goals or skills. Day by day we are stumbling through this parenting thing and sometimes we are just awful. We say hateful things, inappropriate things, immature things, selfish things….I truly am thankful there are good things in all my kids. It’s only because of a gracious God who covers us and helps us despite our shortcomings.  Speaking of shortcomings…one cool thing that I didn’t plan or anticipate was the fact that because of the areas I lack, my kids have actually taken up the slack.  The fact that I forget about dinner many days and that 7 people need to eat has caused Maggie and Bonnie to be pro-active.  So many times, over the last year since I went to work full-time, my girls have meat frying in the pan when I come in from one of my kid drop-offs.  They are so much better at cooking and being creative in the kitchen than I have ever been. That was quite a surprise parent win.  I could pretend that I did it on purpose but we all know that’s not true. Accidental positive result from sucking.

Last night, my heart was flooded with shock, love and joy.  My house was a hot mess when I got home from a long day.  I had a busy week and was out almost every night.  Dishes everywhere, laundry and shoes scattered everywhere and I was totally wiped out.  I tried to will myself to get busy and to bust a move like I would normally do but my legs hurt so I opted to sit down for 30 minutes.  While I was at YQL, Bubba, Annie and Eddie went above and beyond and cleaned like I didn’t know they had the capacity to do. I am not sure they should have rocked it so much because now I know what they are capable of!  It was like a miracle when I opened the door, exhausted and ready for bed.  I stood stunned staring at a mother’s day sign made by 15 year old son…..what?  I didn’t cry but I should have. I am a little now writing about it. Moments like this make me so happy and confident that they are going to grow up to be just fine.  

The one thing I have tried to do right is to show my kids love, dedication, hard work, to love God and how to pray.  I truly believe that if my kids know God and depend on Him than the skies the limit for their futures.  God fills in the gaps that parents leave.  God makes up for our deficiencies and gives us His power to accomplish things we could never do on our own. God is the difference maker towards a life of success. Today while I am reflecting on my 17 Mother’s Day, I give a shout out to Dan for being the best unconventional Dad, by grocery shopping, making breakfast and lunches and being our kid’s biggest fan. I give an even BIGGER shout out to God for helping me get this far in my Motherhood journey.  Next year, I will launch my first baby into legal adulthood and I feel confident that they will all totally soar out of the coop with God propelling them wherever they go and that makes it the best mother’s day ever!