Remember last year when I had a truly remarkable Mother’s Day? This year was a little different.
My Mother’s Day started with breakfast in bed. Challah French toast which is my favorite. I got a handmade card from Harlow which was obviously made two seconds before she gave it to me, but that’s fine. Mazzy made me a bracelet, which I love. Per her request, I pretended that I had never seen it before even though I helped her put on the clasp the night before.
Breakfast was lovely, even if the thought of actually eating in bed seemed like a disaster waiting to happen and I ended up bringing it into the kitchen to eat. We all sat down at the dining room table and Mike asked the kids to each name five things they love about me. Harlow gave some good answers (I’m the best mom she’s ever seen in her whole entire life, FYI) but Mazzy couldn’t think of one.
SERIOUSLY???
Then she asked if she could watch TV. Sure.
My mother-in-law came over and hung out with the kids, which was nice. Although, I didn’t realize what time it was until she rang our doorbell, so we were all still unshowered and in our pajamas when she arrived. After rushing around to get everyone as presentable as possible in a short amount of time, we went out for lunch.
I got Thai-glazed shrimp with rice which was DELICIOUS. Mazzy drew Mike’s portrait in crayon, which was him with heart-shaped glasses and a speech bubble that said, “Be a crazy pants.”
After lunch, we packed up our things and drove into the city to meet my mom and sister for dinner. This turned out to be a bad plan because we got stuck in massive amounts of traffic.
MIKE: I told you this was a bad plan.
ME: I don’t want to talk about it.
MIKE: This is why your sister insisted on staying in the city. She didn’t want to deal with the traffic.
ME: I said, I DON’T WANT TO TALK ABOUT IT.
The traffic was really bad, which made Mike panic, the kids super antsy and we all thought there was a good chance we would miss dinner entirely. I texted my mother and sister to tell them this.
MY SISTER: This is why I stayed in the city.
I might have muttered the words, “this is the worst Mother’s Day ever” under my breath.
Then Mazzy, Harlow and I all fell asleep and woke up when we got there, which turned out to be only 15 minutes late. Woohoo!
After a lot of hub bub about who was sitting next to who and what was on the menu that the kids would actually eat, we ordered dinner.
The food was awful. I am not one who usually complains, but we sent three dishes back that were prepared wrong or inedible. A fettuccine pasta that was so hard you couldn’t even bite it, a bland fish taco with a tortilla that was way too thick and a totally overdressed Cesar salad. I actually didn’t send back the Cesar salad; I just mixed it together with my mom’s underdressed Kale salad and ate that. The staff was nice and took stuff off our bill. They gave everyone free ice cream and all the moms at the table (my mom, my sister and me) free shots of dessert wine, which was very tasty.
Despite the bad food (but excellent service!), dinner was fun because I was with all my favorite people. Also, the amount of food mistakes was almost comical. We even got a group shot taken by a stranger at the table next to us, where every single person was looking at camera.
Imagine that!
At the end of dinner, Mazzy turned to me and said, “I’m sorry this wasn’t the best Mother’s Day. I love you. I love your face, I love when you give me soft tickles on my back, I love that you take me to school, I love that you made me my Boo, I love when you give me hugs and kisses… There. That’s five things.”
And I said, “Well, it feels like a pretty good Mother’s Day right now.”
Then she said, “Every day has bad stuff and good stuff that happens, Mom.”
I agreed, because that’s what I’ve been saying on my blog almost every day since I became a mom eight years ago. That’s what I tell my kids too. We tell each other the best and worst thing that happened in our day every night during dinner. We call it our “boohoos” and “woohoos.”
And so, my fellow remarkably average parents, please share you Mother’s Day “boohoos and woohoos” in the comments!
—————————
To see my life in real time, follow @mommyshorts on Instagram. If you’d like to enter my Mother’s Day Instagram giveaway for an $1000 Amex gift card, you can enter here. It ends the 16th!
Mazzy’s comment to you was so sweet and also so mature. She’s really growing up! Glad your day had ups to go with the downs.
I felt completely the same about my Mother’s Day this year. Last year felt like I was on cloud 9 and this year it started out like I was falling off it. We started our celebrating on Saturday night with a nice sushi dinner. My favorite. The kids were pretty good despite that sushi isn’t their favorite. They indulge me on my days (birthday, anniversary, Mother’s Day). On Sunday, they just seemed to be over it totally. My husband was trying to please me and said ‘don’t worry you don’t have to do anything today’. Short-lived…in an hour I was doing laundry and washing the breakfast dishes and getting the kids dressed to go out for lunch. But we had a decent time together and putting things into perspective it was a nice day we had.
My 8 year old made/served me toast and juice in bed.. at 7am.. haha no sleeping in when he has plans. I got to spend some time relaxing. And my husband and children made homemade pizza for dinner.. it was as a decent day. BUT it did have its boohoo moment. I spent some time mediating between my brother and stepmother. They have a rough relationship. And my brother chose the wrong weekend to bring up bad memories..
My boohoos are that I spent Saturday and Sunday traveling for business and I was actually away for mother’s dayy. My woohoos are that I was away for Mother’s Day and I slept in a bed by myself and ate food by myself and watched tv by myself!
I tend to expect too much on holidays, so this time, I’m glad I expected nothing. I got cards from the grandparents, but nothing from my kids. Even when I suggested to my husband he help the toddler make a card from Grandma. My husband did send flowers the day before. But breakfast, lunch & dinner was what my husband wanted (lunch being ramen noodles, no kidding). I know it doesn’t really matter, but I had a baby 4 months ago and a little pampering and acknowledgement didn’t seem like to much to ask. My woohoo would be that the kids napped at the same time, so the house was blissfully quiet in no the afternoon.
I thought was ready for an awesome Mother’s Day. I was wrong. I’ve had some pretty crappy mother’s days, so this one wasn’t the worst. Woo hoos: my kids were very sweet to me & each other. My husband was incredibly patient & kind even though I was flipping out.
Boo hoos: I spent the whole day angry about my angel babies, but instead of admitting it too myself, I lashed out at those closest to me. Sorry family!
My woohoos were that my daughter actually picked out the gift this year without anyones suggestion. And my boohooss are that Mother’s day ended by taking my son to the ER for a busted lip that resulted in stitches. Overall it was a good ( yet somewhat stressful) day.
The good and the bad really is motherhood in a nutshell. My morning started with promise. Thoughtful gifts and cards, somehow getting a table for brunch at The Brunch Place in town by the skin of our teeth. In the afternoon my husband started coming down with the head cold that I just recovered from and ended up taking a nap while the kids played video games and basically ignored me for several hours, but we regrouped at dinner time with leftover pizza and streaming The Greatest Showman. Not our most exciting mother’s day but good enough and shared with my favorite people. This morning my 8 year old said she wished it was still mother’s day so she could spend another day showing me how much she loves me. I’ll take it. 😁
My day was a mix of it all
Boohoo…Got woke up early togo to the bank for my boyfriend, he need cash for lunch.
Boohoo…..Dog tried to drag me down the street for our morning
Woohoo……Boyfriend went to work and his daughter went to her aunts, so I got a few hours of quiet time.
Woohoo….met up with my son and his dad at the ZOO, had lots of fun seeing the animal exhibits about them.
Bonus woohoo….a random little girl walked up a gave me a flower that she had picked.
Boohoo…..My son had to go with his dad to a family celebration so I lost some of my time with him.
Woohoo…..Boyfriend’s daughter and her Aunt decided on a sleepover at grandma’s so I got a surprise night alone with my boyfriend.
Following morning Woohoo….I got to wake with here screams of “I want breakfast. I am hungry. Whens breakfest. etc”
Overall it was fantastic Mothers Day.
Caesar* sorry.
Boohoo: my husband is an executive chef. Which means he works holidays. Weekends. And everything in between. Restaurant so swamped I didn’t talk to him till almost 8pm. He left at 9am that morning.
Woohoo: had a nice morning at the beach with my daughter. Before she melted herself into the sand when I said it was time to go. That was grand. But all in all. It was a regular, good day.
My husband asked my kids to go back and forth and name things they love about me. My 3 year old said “no!” every time it was his turn and my 6 year old said really random stuff like “she takes me fun places” but couldn’t name a single fun place he was thinking of (I still don’t know what he meant, probably Target). But he wrote nice things about me on his Mother’s Day card that were unprompted by anyone else (I think) so I’ll take it.
It’s amazing how the kids always come through for us and make us feel 100 times better about being a parent and realizing that that’s your child who said those wise words, just when you thought they never listen to a word you say.
Whoohoo: I finally got photos for my locket. I had been walking around with an empty locket that I loved this whole time. And Ben made marinara from scratch. Lots of hugs from my baby.
Boohoo: I shared my mother’s day with my in-laws. I was hoping to have a solo mother’s day that was more relaxing. Instead we hosted. Maybe next year will be more low-key.