reflecting on Mother's Day

Saturday was spent watching the guys move dirt, preparing food for them to eat, and chasing a toddler around...with my mother's help, of course.  Because even I can't do that many things at once.  Heck, who am I kidding, I can hardly do two things at once these days, but that is beside the point.  So when Sunday, Mother's Day, rolled around, I was happy to do absolutely nothing.  Even though "nothing" for me involved being away from home most of the day.

I was greeted with a feisty baby early in the morning, who insists that I rise to provide her sippies of milk and age-appropriate cartoons daily...Mother's Day is no exception.  Luckily for her, she is very cute, and I obliged.  Ryan made sure to get me two cards this year, one from him and one from the babies...which I love.  He isn't big on words, but I can always count on a card from him.  Always.  Unlike me, who is only good for a card about half of the time.  The other half usually involves me coming up with a good excuse about why I wasn't able to make it to the store, or how the store didn't have any good cards, or how I'm saving the environment by refusing to buy a card.

After the morning card-sippy-cartoon routine, Laci and I enjoyed breakfast with my mom and sisters.  Kristina bought me the most amazing looking orchid, which I'm pretty sure I'm going to kill.  I'm pretty good with plants, but if you give me something fancy, like an orchid, it's an almost guaranteed death sentence for the poor plant.  I warned Kristina about giving such a beautiful plant to me, to which she said, "Oh, no you won't kill it."  Um, yeah, pretty sure I will, but I will really try NOT to.

Later in the day, Ryan, Laci, and I met up with Ryan's family for dinner where I enjoyed watching Laci play with the "big" kids and drank so much Crystal Light that the bathroom and I became very close friends.  Good things.

On a more sentimental note, Mother's Day is special to me and I spent most of my day just watching my not-so-little-anymore baby run around.  Literally, run around, because walking is entirely too slow for her these days.  It seems like everything she does is fast lately, not just running.  She's growing, and getting more teeth, and trying her best to talk, even though I have no idea what she is trying to tell me much of the time.  I hear parents say it all the time, but truly, they grow up way too fast.  And even as I say all this, I often still feel like a kid myself.  Some days, I look around at all the things Ryan and I have going on, and I wonder when I became a real grown up, because I certainly don't feel like one.  I still feel like a kid just playing "house," and I  wonder when it will be time to clean up and let someone else take over the decision making again.  I'm pretty sure that must be how my mom sees me too...just a kid playing grown up, which makes me appreciate her even more.  Motherhood means sacrifice, if it means anything, and to let your children go out and be their own selves seems like the biggest sacrifice of all.