Mother's Day

This year for Mother's Day I felt like I had my ish together - grandson/nephew-illustrated cards in the mail on time, fun gifts for both my mom and my mother-in-law pre-planned and executed on time, and an enjoyable and relaxing family day brainstormed for our little foursome for Sunday.

I had been having energy-level issues for a few weeks, so when I finally felt like myself again for a few days that week, I cleaned, grocery shopped, and caught up on laundry. I knew I would enjoy an indulgent no-chores day more if these weights were lifted, so the surge of energy was perfectly timed. And then that Saturday, already feeling accomplished with my main chores caught up, I ran 6 miles with a friend (logging some miles for my 75-mile No Dessert (Subtitle: Hawaii Belly Prep) Challenge. I haven't eaten dessert since May 1st. Sidenote: I am going to punch someone in the face if I don't get to eat dessert soon. 18.9 miles to go - the chocolate chip cookie Frost gelato Hub salted caramel ice cream froyo random daily handfuls of chocolate chips end is in sight!), and then did a couple of hours of (necessary) yardwork, and then washed my car, all while J was on meal-and child-duty. Then I went to a baby shower, came home and rested, made "linner" for J and I and then we all went to see a community youth performance of Wizard of Oz (which was our Mother's Day gift to J's mom). I felt so accomplished and ready to enjoy the next day.

I woke up the next morning with an aching back, legs, head and feeling nauseous.

J surprised me with a sweet card with coloring and a hilarious interview about me with BB. We snapped this photo of me with my mother-makers:

and then headed out to breakfast, the first event on our Mother's Day agenda. I ate the cinnamon roll I had been dreaming of (it's a pastry, people! A PASTRY. C'mon, it was my only sweet treat in two weeks, let me stand on my semantics) and then I ate a big meal. And then I promptly ran to the bathroom thinking I was going to vomit. 

Thus effectively ending Mother's Day. 

I totally overdid it the day before and was rendered useless the rest of the day on Sunday, and Monday morning too! Oh, irony.

So this past Saturday morning we planned a do-over. BB and SS actually slept over at J's parent's house and J and I went on a morning date, run/hiking (which is so not an "us" thing to do, so it felt exotic) and then out to breakfast. Then we picked up the boys and all went swimming at a community pool, which was our original Mother's Day plan, so we got to experience the day we brainstormed after all.  Oh, and on actual Mother's Day we did adopt a Compassion child as our gift, so now BB is learning about his new "fwend" named Bahati, who is just a couple of weeks younger than BB.

Despite Mother's Day not going exactly as planned, I felt so loved by J, with his homemade card and his caretaking and humor when I was under the weather, and so blessed by my two beautiful, healthy children and our ordinary, regular life together - having a do-over day with a date and a family swimming adventure was just (raspberry buttercream) icing on the (moist, rich, ganache-filled chocolate) cake.