A New Kind of Mother's Day

From this day forth, I declare that I will celebrate Mother’s Day WITHOUT the people who “gave” me reason to celebrate it, a.k.a my kids.

Now don’t get me wrong, yesterday was a nice day. But I had lunch with a friend today and her Mother’s Day consists of a brunch with the family and then she LEAVES and goes shopping with her friends! This was like someone telling me, “You can fly!”

All this gift making/giving stresses me, my kids and my husband out.

Me. I can receive only so many teacher-directed potholders, drawings and popsicle stick frames. My kids are forever coming home with “gifts” for me, Mother’s Day or not. My closet has enough of them. My garage has enough of them.

My Kids. They are supposed to spend, at the minimum, 8 hours not doing any of the things that come naturally to them but annoy the hell out of us. Stress enough to raise their blood pressure.

My Husband. He’s supposed get the right kind of flowers, take me to the perfect restaurant, and keep the kids in line so that at some point in the day, I’ll look loving into his eyes and think, “What a wonderful man he is to take all this time to make me feel special.” If he can’t make me feel special without the reason of Mother’s Day, I need to see a divorce lawyer.

So next year….I will have the perfect Mother’s Day by: 1. Sleeping in. This will be the only stressful part for my husband for he will have to keep the rogue child from slipping away and disturbing the sleeping queen. 2. I will eat breakfast with the family. 3. After breakfast, I will dawn shorts and hiking boots and a backpack, loving filled with wine/cheese/fruit, the scrumptious tofu sesame salad, and bread. 4. A horn will beep out front. I will leave the house and board a minivan filled to capacity with true mom friends. 5. We will hike in the Santa Monica Mountains. 6. We will toast to ourselves, to each other and yes, to our kids who allow us to celebrate this day. We will giggle over our husbands taking over, swear we will train them better next year and talk about what we will do for future Mother’s Days.

There will be no talk about the following: bad marriages, bratty kids, things we guilt ourselves over, and absolutely no conversation about loosing a few pounds or Botox. We will bask in our sincere enjoyment of the moment, and in each other’s company. We will relish our motherhood AND our womanhood.

So…from now on, I declare that I will celebrate Mother’s Day without said children. That is, until my kids are older, and I don’t see them as often and actually WANT them around for Mother’s Day.

But it will be Mother’s Day, so I can change the rules.