On the day when I should have  been thinking about my own mother, I was thinking about myself.

I woke up already disappointed.

We taught 4's and 5's for Sunday school

4's and 5's for Church

2's and 3's in the evening.

Most of the day was spent wondering what it is about Mothers day that I feel I have a right to wake up and expect something.  That I should have a day off from any kind of work.

I think I can blame it on all the television commercials.

It is not at all that Steve disappointed me, it was that I was aware of my own expectations.

 
I am not even going to tell you how great Steve was on Sunday..like how he stationed a boy with a lightsaber in each doorway to keep me out of the kitchen while he made dinner, or anything else like that b/c you would want to smack me upside the head for being so selfish. I was given every traditional thing all women everywhere are given.

Steve was great, he is usually great, the problem is me. I wonder if other women can relate, at church most of the  moms that I asked how their day was,  looked down and mumbled something; one of them cried.  Other groups of moms stood in circles talking about their day like newly engaged women stand around and compare the size of their rings.

I think I resent this holiday because it heightens my awareness of what I think I am due, when on any other given day I am happy and content.  Culture is saying "Wake up, today is the day you are going to be noticed and thanked!"  And in return I feel insatiable and very ugly.

So most of the day passed with me being alarmed at my own selfishness.

But there was a wonderful moment where I thought with clarity how very happy I am to be a Mother and to have a Mother and to be a parent with Steve.

Sprinkled through the day were little acts of kindness,  the "Happy Mother's day" wishes I got that meant the world to me.

The stack of homemade and hallmark cards.

And then...the boys and Coco between them all smiling with their chests puffed out in the proudest fashion telling me that they know what they are going to do for me.  They said "We are not going to burp or fart all day, and if it does have to happen we will do it quietly and not giggle over it."

 Here is the part you know I really am a mother... I teared up. The sentiment got to me.

Steve was behind them with his hands up mouthing to me "It was all them."

And when we were done with the day Steve turned to me and said "I enjoyed working with you, we compliment each other in the classroom it was a lot of fun" and it was so much fun for me as well.

In the end I came back to this..

"There is no middle way.  We must refer everything back to God or to ourselves."

and this..

"It is not by painful reflection, and by continual struggle that we renounce ourselves.  It is only in refraining from introspection and from wanting to control ourselves in our own way, that we become lost in God."

---Fenelon