My Mother's Day

Mother's Day for me this year was quit interesting and once the day ended I had to laugh at how much it typified a "normal" mother's day!

The day started great with my husband making me a spinach omelet and the boy's cards. I had received flower earlier in the week and by Sunday they were beautiful!

This particular Sunday morning I was running behind getting us out the door on time. My thinking had been, get the boys dressed, get my hair combed and self ready then we'll get pictures of the boys and me.....don't ask me from where this "picture of mommy and children" tradition originated but from blogs and Facebook I see I'm not alone! But with trying to find matching Sunday socks and tracking down renegade shoes, cleaning up the kitchen from breakfast and a spill, and finding someone didn't have their shirt ironed so the whole outfit needed to be changed....I was running behind. One small detail was that I forgot to inform my husband of the previously mentioned traditional photo and so by the time I had myself together, he had very kindly put all of the boys in the van and strapped them in. ..... There went my vision of the ideal picture with well rested, well dressed children, non-frazzled mother!

We did arrive had church on time though still a little ruffled in spirit and I did manage to find a man in the vestibule, holding a child who offered to take the picture. We had one shot...and this is it!

It was a typical Mother's Day service with children's recitations and a special prayer (which is always appreciated!) and flowers for the mothers.

We had previously made arrangements to eat in the school cafeteria (which was nice since there is no prep nor cleanup!) but I forgot to take a change of clothes for the boys and by the time they were done eating there was no chance of a "well - dressed" picture. We weren't 5 minutes into the meal when Daniel made noises indicating that I needed to remove him immediately because things were about to get interesting and they did. We made it to the restroom in time and after getting him cleaned up I returned to eat my meal ... or what I had appetite for.

But there's always naptime .... alas, after 30 minutes Stephen woke up crying very hard complaining of  serious stomach pain and since this had been going on for three days but now was accompanied by a fever I spent the next two hours holding and rocking him with no seeming relief. After consulting with his pediatrician it was decided that Stephen needed to be screened for an appendicitis and off to the ER we went.

Thankfully it ended well and we were able to get him fixed up but by the time we got home, church was already in session and so I missed the going away gathering for some friends (and lots of good food :o(.

But as I sat quietly rocking Stephen and talking about puppies and dragons and "scooper diggers" reflecting on the past seven years - I couldn't help but be thankful for the gift of being a mother. There are fleeting moments of glory...periodically...but for the most part there's not a lot of glamor. It's day after day, line upon line, precept upon precept that has taught and stretched and grown me into the person God is wanting to make me. We asked God to give us only the children that we could raise for Him - the ones that He wanted us to have. I'm so proud to be "mom" to Allan and "mommy" to Daniel and Stephen!