One Morning a Week....Mother's Day

I was imagining my Sunday morning all week.

Planned & Imagined: Braja and I had plotted to resume our One Morning a Week tandem posts and I knew that the particular morning we had planned on documenting would be special. It would be so wildly different from my normal mornings that it was bound to elicit a poetic, deep, and consuming essay that would illuminate all kinds of deep emotions that I myself didn't know I was feeling! That morning would be so unusual, not because it was Mother's Day (although I knew that would factor prominently), but because I was going to be alone.

Lived & Reality: My dear Daddy-007 brought all three boys with him to Iowa for the weekend to open our summer cottage and to give me some breathing room to get things done around the house, with my writing, and to just enjoy being in our home without the usual hubbub that seems to dominate every day.

A beautiful and thoughtful Mother's Day present from my beloved.

I went out Saturday night with one of my favorite gals in the world, helping her celebrate another year on this planet and helping myself to three martinis (!). I went to bed vowing that I wouldn't squander my impending glorious morning on sleeping in, even if I was destined to be hungover, and set my little internal clock to "reasonable hour."

Amazingly, I was not even the slightest bit headachey as I practically leaped out of bed at 7:30 am. (I think that I have to thank my "4th meal" tipsy stop at Taco Bell -after the birthday dinner, before home- for soaking up the last of the vodka. Although it hardly seemed worth the effort, or calories, at the time when I got stuck waiting for 14 minutes inside the restaurant for my food: Me, my sexy jeans, heels, and a horde of 17-year-old boys. Good times! Not.) I hadn't the heart or the head the previous night to grind the coffee beans, so I made myself a nice cup of English breakfast tea. (I am prepping for life over there, after all.) And sat down on the couch, with every intention of sipping my tea, looking out the window on the lovely Mother's Day sunshine.

Just then I got the call from my little men, "Happy Mother's Day, MOM!!!" said Capt. Chaos, "I love you!!!" Next came Destructo, "Happy Mother's Day, Mom!!!! I watched Indiana Jones last night!!!" And my darling Animal, last, "Happy Birthday!!! whisper, whisper MOTHER'S Day, Maaaawwwwwwmmmmm!" Sniff, sniff. I was going to miss all the hubbub, after all, it seemed.

I went back to the couch and instead of looking out the window, I looked at this:

This laundry, laid out before me on the coffee table, was the fruit of my labors of Saturday afternoon. I wanted to throw on my tennis shoes and go for a walk. Or check the yoga schedule at the gym and drop in on a class. I thought I wanted to do a lot of things, but I was not able to look past these piles of clean clothes and enjoy the morning as I imagined I would. I was, however, completely capable and willing to be a mom. And I did what moms all over the world do all the time. I sat back down, turned on the TV (Hello, recorded Grey's Anatomy and 30 Rock!), and started folding. Then I went downstairs to my laundry pit and got some more laundry:


And I continued folding. And piling. And sorting. And then I went and got the bin of extra clothes in size 3t and 4t and emptied out Destructo's wardrobe of everything he had outgrown. And sorted out all the worn-out clothes to be thrown away, divided winter from summer, 4t from 5t, and bagged and binned everything that would go to the UK with us and everything that needed to go to goodwill. And the piles grew. And spread. Until I was surrounded by this:


And I was still doing all these laundry-oriented things when everybody got home at 6pm that night. I'm not sure that I ever left the house. I didn't have terribly deep thoughts as I worked through the day, but I was surrounded by my family in a way that was familiar and satisfying. And the venue provided a quiet space to wander through my memories of when my little ones wore all those clothes; when and how I bought my favorite ones, which items were favorites of each boy, which ones were worn by all three boys, remembering how that particular faded stain had come to be or where we were when the knee got ripped out of those jeans.

So, even though it wasn't the morning that I had fantasized; I was perfectly okay with it ending up a not-so-glamorous, but oh-so-loved day of being a mom. Big hugs and props to all the moms and daughters out there.

Taken on Easter, this was (predictably) the best photo of the bunch.

Now go and read how Braja spent her morning in India.