Mother’s Day in Hindsight

I hope you all had a fabulous Mother’s Day! It should be a day where all moms are made to feel special at the least in some small way. Too often, a lot of pressure is put on holidays. Kids feel pressure to find the perfect gift or outdo their siblings’ gift. Husbands are trying their best to make it special not only for their wife but also their own mother. I always tell my kids the best gift I could get would be homemade cards or something simple from the heart. In hindsight, Mother’s Day for me provided a smorgasbord of emotions!

I felt so thankful for beautiful sunshine on both days this past weekend. We were able to escape to the lake again and enjoy a change of scenery from our quarantine home and RELAX. That house is always filled with relaxation, games and family time. We came home to celebrate Mother’s Day and I had the bright idea of getting Cheesecake Factory carry-out. Considering we still can’t eat in restaurants, it seemed like the perfect treat for Mother’s Day. I didn’t have to cook dinner, everyone would be happy with their meal, and we’d all get a sweet treat. What a grave mistake that was. I should have known when the online menu didn’t offer either the meal I wanted, nor the flavor of cheesecake. We should have aborted the mission right then.

We stuck with it though, and I’m not even sure why – probably because it was my idea in the first place and at that point, I knew all the kids were looking forward to the cheesecake. Brian and Isaac were the lucky ones to go pick it up and I can barely write about the experience. They arrived to find about 70 cars in line!! I told them they should probably cancel and leave but they wanted to stay and fulfill the cheesecake desire. It was a sweet gesture and they were hoping it would only be about 60-90 minutes wait.

It’s almost embarrassing to admit how long they ended up waiting. It was one of those situations where you think “well, if we’ve waited this long, we might as well stick it out”. MORE THAN 3 HOURS LATER they got our food! I’m not even joking. 3 HOURS! Thankfully, they didn’t pull away because they didn’t receive two of our meals. Yep, only 3 of 5 meals were in the bag, but at least all the cheesecake was there J. So, they waited longer to get the other two meals. After pulling out and getting on the expressway they realized another important part was missing. I had ordered a veggie burger and it came with a side salad and the only thing in my box was a side salad. I can’t make this up. Below is what I found in the carryout bag. Anyone notice a glaring circular section that might fit a burger? Ha!

I don’t write about this story to dog on The Cheesecake Factory, although it did say our meal would be ready at 6:11pm and we received it shortly after 9:00pm. I write about this because holidays are rarely “perfect”. The boys walked in the door and I felt like they were heroes for sticking it out for so long but then I suddenly felt so sad that they had spent 3 hours sitting in a car and not being together as a family on a day like Mother’s Day. I literally opened up my gift from Brian virtually. I opened up my brand new Vitamix…something I’ve considered investing in for years…via FaceTime. Now, we had discussed this investment so I can’t say the gift was a surprise, but the boys had started feeling sad that they weren’t home, so we decided to go ahead and at least start celebrating virtually as they waited in the car.

After a long day and a bit of sadness, my heart was exploding with how special my kids made me feel. They each had picked out gifts they knew I’d love and would fill my heart. My sweet Ella even wrote me a song and sang it to me while she played her ukulele! Abby and Isaac’s gifts were straight from the heart too and took thought and effort. Their kind and loving words in their cards melted my heart. It’s interesting because some of the things they said they appreciated about me are the exact things I feel I struggle with the most. Patience being one of them. All 3 of them said they liked how patient I am. What!? I feel like I oftentimes show zero patience. Seeing ourselves through the lens of others, through the lens of love is astonishing at times.

I’m sharing these pictures that I don’t find necessarily flattering of myself. My face is a bit windburned and it was the end of a long day. I was in my baggiest sweatpants and had shed a few tears. I share it for my own memories sake but also because life isn’t perfect. In fact, life is NEVER perfect. Holidays included and oftentimes, ESPECIALLY holidays. Too much pressure is put on them and while I don’t feel like that is something I necessarily struggle with, I know so many of us do. It also doesn’t escape me that many of you don’t even have a mom to celebrate with anymore or perhaps your family is in a bad place right now. My heart goes out to you and I pray you were able to focus on good times and let the negative go.

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I found appreciation in the fact that I have a family that loves me, a family that is willing to wait 3 hours for dinner, one that will go to Target (the only store open right now) to try to find the perfect gifts, and one that makes me feel so special it makes me cry just thinking about it. I don’t take it for granted and am thankful every day. I hope you all had a smoother Mother’s Day than I did. I honestly can’t complain and it’s more comical than anything else right now. I can say it’s a day we won’t soon forget. Now I’m going to go see what I can make in my Vitamix! xo, Monique