In Which We Have Mother's Day

So we had an extremely quiet Mother's Day today.  This is because Connor decided to celebrate it by not sleeping at all.  Since he'd gotten up at four in the morning the day before, that means that as of right now I've gone about forty-two hours without sleep.  I think it's forty-two hours, anyway.  I'm not wonderful at math at the best of times, and my brain is kind of fuzzy at the corners at the moment. 

So we pretty much stayed home today.  We did make one quick trip to the grocery store for food after I took a micro-nap and chugged a ridiculous amount of coffee, but the grocery store is less than a mile from our house so I figured I could focus on the road long enough to get there and back without putting us in harm's way.  However, church and the breakfast out we'd planned to do didn't happen. 

But barring the sleep deprivation, the day was lovely.  The kids gave me some very sweet gifts for Mother's Day.  Connor brought home a bookmark from school with his picture on it, and Eden wrote me a card that made me tear up.  She made it out of lavender colored construction paper and covered it in rainbow colored hearts.  On the outside she printed "Happy Mother's Day" in her best handwriting. 

On the inside she taped a picture of me tossing Connor up in the air and wrote: 

Dear Mommy, 

Thank you for everything you do for us.  You always take time to take me swimming and take Connor and me to school and P.T.  We Love you so much!  

Eden and Connor

So that right there made it pretty much the best Mother's Day ever in the history of everything.  Who needs sleep?

~Jess

In Which I Have A Lovely, Lumpy Mother's Day

Forgive me if this is a little disjointed tonight, but I'm on a pretty good dose of Benedryl right now so I'm a little wonky.  Turns out that I'm allergic to grass, which is a fantastic thing to discover when you are digging up a 225 square foot area of lawn. 

I'd actually forgotten that I was allergic to grass because it's been so long since I've had a reaction to it.  I used to have major problems with it when I was in high school and running cross country, but then I quit running ten mile races through freshly mown fields and the problem resolved itself; I figured I'd just outgrown the issue.  However, judging by the glorious crop of hives I've been sporting across my arms and torso today I seem to have resensitized myself to it over the past few days.  So it looks like I'll be digging out the last 60 feet of sod in full length gloves and long sleeves.  Hooray!

This is yet one more reason for me to get rid of all the grass in my yard.  Obviously the grass has it in for me.

Oh, and happy Mother's Day to all of you!  That's right-- it is Mother's Day, isn't it?  I probably should have talked about that first.  I'm telling you, Benedryl does a real number on me.  Anyway, Jeremy and Connor brought me breakfast, and Jer planted three rose bushes and a fatsia plant for me in the garden, which was exactly what I asked for.  Connor made me a beautiful butterfly picture at school-- his painted footprints are the wings.  It's going in a place of honor on the built-in shelves by my bed.  Oh, and I got out of the house for a little while, wandered around yet another plant nursery, and later sat and read a book while nursing a Thai iced tea.  Bliss!

So it was a great Mother's Day, other than the whole breaking-out-in-hives thing.  I hope you all had a lovely one too!

~Jess

In Which We Celebrate Mother's Day

Happy Mother's Day, everyone!

We had a very good day; Connor and Jeremy let me sleep in, and then Jeremy made me breakfast and Connor gave me his Mother's Day presents, which included chocolates picked out just for me, a massage gift card, and a flower he packaged at school.  Then we all took a walk together in the neighborhood and played at the local playground for a while.  After that, Jeremy watched Connor while I went to one of our local nurseries, and I got to spend the rest of the day mucking around in the garden!  It was a lovely Mother's Day, and I enjoyed it thoroughly.

This very well could be the last Mother's Day that I'm not sharing with someone, which is interesting to think about.  Our daughter will have two mothers.  I feel like it will be important to honor her birth mother on this day each year; I'm sure we'll come up with some way to do that with Sylvie.  We'll do the same with Father's Day.  I don't really mind the idea of sharing, to tell you the truth, and talking about Sylvie's birth parents certainly won't be relagated to two days out of the year in our household.  I don't think that love is finite; Sylvie shouldn't have to choose between us or feel like she's going to hurt our feelings if she talks about her birth parents.  But I'm absolutely sure she'll be thinking about her birth mother on Mother's Day, so we're not going to just pretend that this is a day only for me.  I think it'll be good for me to take a little time to celebrate not only my own mother, but the mother who gave me the gift of my daughter. 

What could be better?

~Jess