Mother Dear

Believe it or not, but it wasn't until I saw the above drawing {courtesy of Sophie}that I really stopped and thought -- Dang!  That's a lot of kids!!!  Hahahahahaha.  Seriously, though.  Something about seeing them all drawn out just makes it seem like a lot.  {Although, yes -- I am aware it IS a lot.}  Mother's Day was several weeks ago at this point, but it still needs some recapping, so here we go.

This year, my Mother's Day was...good?  I think.  Although it does beg the question -- if you can't even really remember what happened, is it a good thing or a bad thing?  Hahaha.  My Mother's Day weekend was kicked off with an attempt at a date night on Saturday night to belatedly celebrate our anniversary as well as my motherdom.  It was a bust.  We couldn't leave the house until the baby was asleep -- which was well after 7, we didn't even get our food until almost 9 o'clock in arguably our worst Cheesecake Factory experience of all time, Grace was babysitting because Ethan was at a birthday party, and Alex and Jane refused to go to bed for her.  So that was fun.  Not. Hahaha.  Once we got home, it took some time to get the younger ones to settle down and go to sleep and it was probably 10:30 or 11 before they were all out for the count.

{My favorite part is what Sophie's lists as my best saying: "You never know til you've tried it on."  Hahahahaha.  I totally say this a lot.  And it's because for one thing it's TRUE, and for another thing, it's something that MY mom used to say ALL the time.  :)  }

{Ethan's gift for me -- one which he told me he put A LOT of thought into in the 20 minutes Scott had them picking out gifts for me at Meijer the day before.  It actually made me cry because I could tell he really meant it.}

Sunday morning dawned nicely enough, and the kids were excited to wrap and give me my gifts they had picked out the day before.  Unfortunately, the SUPER late night from Saturday started to rear its ugly head around this point, with Alex having a meltdown that he wanted presents, too.  I let him help me open mine, but it wasn't enough.  There's nothing like the juxtaposition of Alex screaming "I HATE YOU, MOM!!!!" right on the heels of reading sweet little Mother's Day tributes from Sophie and Jane, to warm the cockles of your heart.  Hahahaha.

Thank goodness for elementary school teachers, because they certainly are the driving force behind MOST of the Mother's Day surprises that make their way into this home.  Sophie and Jane both came home with adorable little projects -- the drawing and press release on the World's Greatest Mom above and the acrostic poem and coupon-petal-daisy below.  Jane pretty much nailed it with the "Over the top" line in her attempts to describe me.  Hahahaha.  I don't even think she knew exactly what she meant when she wrote it, but I thought it was perfect.  :)

Mother's Day

Over the top

Terrific

Happy

Exercise

Runner

Love, Jane

{Be nice to siblings, movie night, mommy daughter date, clean my room without being told, mini salon, pj day, massage}

Things started to slide downhill after the gift opening, when Grace's late night the night before combined with being worn out from our 5K race earlier that Saturday to produce a perfect storm of emotion along with an absolute refusal to go to church.  Around the time that she switched from screaming and raging with crazy bloodshot eyes to dejectedly sitting and crying with her head in her hands, I decided it was probably best for her to take a mental health day and stay home with the other train wreck of emotions in the form of Alex.  And you know what?  It was the right call.  She was a bit of a mess.  And the last thing I wanted to deal with at church on Mother's Day was a tropical storm Grace with a side of hurricane Alex and Jane.  {Once at church, Ethan and Sophie managed to hold it together fine enough -- in case you were wondering -- and having Jane be the only challenge made things much easier all around.  Also, once church was over, I was super shocked and pleased to come home to a Mother's Day surprise from Grace in the form of a cleaned up Family Room -- which had been a DISASTER when we left.}

My attempt to get a shot with all the kids after church proved semi-successful, as Jane was cold and hiding behind Sophie the whole time and Ethan was NOT having it.  Everyone else was obliging enough, but there wasn't a decent group shot in the bunch.

And that was my day!  I'd like to add for the record's sake, that this was the first Mother's Day in my memory that Scott's allergies have not completely incapacitated him for the big day, so that alone made everything great!  Hahaha.  To close, I'm including a picture of MY mom with her 6 kids (Jacob hadn't been born yet) on a Mother's Day (?) many years ago.  I'm the delightfully scowling and fussing oldest child in the back row, trying to rip Freddie's bunny ears off of mom.  Hahahaha.  :)