Mother's Day by any other name is just a day

This year on Sunday, May 13th I slept in, and that was quite a boon. I felt my luck. When I awoke, the kids were working on a homemade sign for me (our family designs banners for each other on special occasions). My youngest daughter, Gabriella, had made me oatmeal - not from a packet but with raw oats from a tub! It had no sugar, but it did have loads of fresh strawberries and bananas, and I really enjoyed such a healthy and hearty start to my day. My youngest son, Daniel, made me coffee from scratch. As it had been sitting around for some time, he heated it up in the microwave. I wish I had taken note of the time he punched in (two minutes!), because when he carried it to my chair, the cup was so hot, I couldn't hold it by its basin for more than a second. I thanked God that my little boy had not scalded himself with it while waiting on me.

Mother's Day is not my favorite holiday.

Do I still wield its power in order to enlist my family's help cleaning the house? Do I leverage it in an attempt to cut down drastically on arguing and whining? Do I demand the right to sleep in? Well, sure I do. Like many mothers, I'm desperate.

Do I want my own mother and mother-in-law every year to have the best possible day, to feel spoiled and adored? Absolutely!

But I don't like the day. A mother who doesn't like Mother's Day is like a romantic who doesn't like hearts. I'm both of those anomalies!

Reader, understand. I love my four children fiercely, and I love and feel intense gratitude being their mother. I don't credit myself entirely for their intellect, their talents, their hearts, or their good looks. I didn't design them (but I did choose their dad). I see the amazing masterpieces of God that they are, and I thank him, because I am a far, far better mother to them than I could ever be without his help.

But, quite simply, I do not like the pretentious pressure of one day called Mother's Day, and I don't enjoy all the hard-hitting reminders and advertisements that businesses pound us with for weeks beforehand.

What I want for Mother's Day will never change, because, essentially, it is what I desire every day: a clean house, peace in my family, and sleep. In fact, I want extra sleep for every holiday including President's Day! Will I always get these things? No, surely not, but I am not a "stuff" person. If tangible gifts come my way, I appreciate far more all the handmade cards, letters, and signs my children bestow over any store-bought article that I absolutely don't need.

When my kids are grown, they can just call me. I'll have slept in, my house will be clean, and I won't hear their petty arguments or their whining. My heavens, how I'll miss them! Please, God, may they come over early and bring the grandchildren!

Being a mother

A couple of weeks ago, on a particularly strife-filled day with the kids, I exclaimed, "Being a mother is the worst job in the world!"

At least, that's what I hope I said. I am still not certain whether I said "a mother" or "your mother".

When I confessed this to a priest I know well, he raised his eyebrows with a very surprised look on his face.

Yep. It's just something you should never say as a mother, and it's not how I truly feel at all - at least not 99.9 percent of the time. Most of the time I am very grateful that I get to play games with my kids in the morning and afternoon; have spontaneous conversations about important things and feelings during breakfast or on the way to school; goof around, talk in silly voices, and share our weird dreams; and to simply be there, smiling at their small or grand special moments while looking in their lovable, youthful faces.

But being a mother is a very hard job indeed. Here you are, a human with her own many imperfections and weaknesses, and you must raise little humans with their own imperfections and weaknesses. Somehow, they have to turn out more than alright, despite the fact that while raising them to be decent people, you're struggling all the while to be a decent human being yourself.

Sometimes...just sometimes, mind you...it feels humanly impossible to do this job. Like those times when all your children seem to want to do is tattle on each other, threaten each other with broom handles, say biting things to each other, call each other names and argue while doing anything at all together.

And you? Well, you're sick of hearing only a selected part of the story; telling your kids it is never okay to touch another person in a way they don't like; reminding them that family is family, and they should be grateful God blessed them with siblings; and that you will never tolerate them calling each other dumb, stupid or any other adjective that insults someone's dignity or damages their sense of worth.

All that tension and repetition is exhausting.

There are times when I wonder if working parents comprehend just what their children's paid caregivers, teachers or helping grandparents must do all day. All the boo-boos they must fix. All the sleep, nutrition and potty issues they must deal with patiently. All the arguments, temper tantrums and epic battles they must defuse. All the disciplinary challenges among different personalities they must confront effectively. All the repetitive conversations about right and wrong and making good choices.

The continual forming of children.

To be fair, they can probably guess pretty well based on the challenges they face each night, tired from a different sort of work.

Besides, we remind ourselves that the flip side to all that stress is found in the many gifts of the moment: the hilarious or revealing conversations, the laughter, the snuggles, the thank yous and pleases from a well-provided-for child, life in the moment of a child's excited, bashful, mischievous, grateful or grinning face.

Being a mother is a vital job. It's a vocation. A calling. It's essentially asking God for a share in his generative, life-affirming work and professing your dedication to it afresh each day.

It's based on Love. It has to be, or it would indeed seem like one of the most pitiable jobs in the world.

But it's not.

When you wistfully remember the adorable, helpless little creature your child was from the womb and recognize that with the important and consistent help of your flawed but nurturing efforts your child is blossoming and learning to become a kind, helpful, thoughtful and loving person, you realize yet again.

It's the best.

Summer's dream derailed and reclaimed (a little)

This summer has not exactly gone to plan. It started out much busier than we all would have liked, a continuation of the crazy school and sports year. And the kids got sick. Again and again. My youngest daughter is sick yet again. Because of the illness, I broke my long-standing summer rule that the kids must go outside and get exercise before any screen can be turned on. So the young ones fell into a bad habit of stumbling out of bed only to grab food to munch before one screen or another. And I fell into a bad habit of allowing it; it distracted them from their stomach virus symptoms and thus reduced whining considerably.

My eldest son reminded me of summers not so long ago, when the TV couldn't be turned on before a a certain time, when I made my kids play in the early morning sunshine after eating their breakfast at a table either within or out of doors.

He reminded me of this mainly because his younger brother adores video games, had the worst of the stomach bug and thus started playing video games at around 6 am daily. My oldest was pointing out the inequality, but it made me realize: boy, had my standards suffered!

So, after illness grew tired of toying with us, I jumped back on the better parenting bandwagon and forced all my children to play tennis and/or soccer with me in the back yard, and I got great exercise, too - was a superb role model of healthy habits, if I do say so.

We weren't quite living up to the ideal of the old, hot days. In my defense, though, there were less of them to haul outside in past summers; there was less complaining, less fussing at each other, and less resistance period.

Truly, I've tried this summer under persistently hostile circumstances that could turn Lord of the Flies at any moment!

Believe me, some days I have yearned to throw in the towel and take an eight hour nap until their father comes home, but I've done my time. I've played looooong stretches of poker with the kids during which I rejoiced with dancing, clapping and singing when my chips were finally gone. I've offered repeated games of mini pool, and then listened to my kids fight for the chance to play me first, nearly coming to blows with cue sticks and tiny, hard balls. I've read for hours and hours, and I have even forced my oldest daughter to read to me so that I could doze off and regain strength to face a few more hours of sibling warfare.

(Why don't my kids like each other? For years I made them watch all those PBS children's shows about loving your neighbor, being respectful and kind, using your creativity and helping your parents. And what did it get me? Children who fight with each other any time I force a shutdown of screens.)

Despite the initial busyness, I was grateful for my children's company after a rough first year at home with no little ones during the day. I felt like I had rediscovered my meaning in reading, playing, and laughing with them.

Then illness and infighting derailed us.

***************

I feel sorry for my city kids. I've felt this before. Earlier in the summer I was telling them about Paca's (my dad) rules for his kids about when we could start swimming in the creek (not before May) and about when we were to get out of the water for a break (when our lips turned blue). That creek was incredibly cold, but the stretch of it that ran under the culverts of Warf Road was all ours, a little slice of gurgling paradise beneath tall, broad-leaved trees. I reminisced about the rope swing, too - I miss it all still!

My kids don't have a creek or a rope swing. They don't get to run down a long lane and climb the bluff on Mr. Spann's property, or hike between his slow-moving cows to the blackberry patch. There are no nearby woods for them to explore, in which they can build forts from dead limbs or sit silently observing wildlife.

And I feel sorry for them. They don't have what I had, and I wish they did.

I tell myself that they have other things that come with being in the city - city pools with tall, twisting slides, more visits with friends, public parks, theme parks - but in my heart I think these are poor replacements for nature.

I wonder if they would agree?

Last week I took them out to recapture summer. We went to a riparian reserve in the city and saw dozens of bunnies and dragonflies, long-legged egrets and herons, and some beautiful, overgrown trees. And there was a cooling desert breeze that blessed our presence among nature's bounty.

And I saw them dig for "dinosaur bones" in a huge shaded sandbox. Even my 13 year old joined in, pitching sand over his shoulder as he cheerfully helped the little kids with their discovery. I smiled.

This is what it's all about, I thought.



Next, I'll write about how our family took a beautiful, if sometimes exasperating, hike to a lovely creek in the Arizona wilderness.