Monday, May 15, 2006

Mother's day... It must have been a man

It must have been a man who thought up mother's day. I'm not even going to honor it with the correct capitalization. See, I'm a relatively new mom (I've only celebrated 5 of them). I'm rethinking the use of the word celebrate. I think the appropriate word would be SUFFERED. For the first few years Passionfruit would leave me in the evenings to go off to work. In that time I suffered temper tantrums that lasted for hours non-stop and constant bickering among the children every year.

I remember my first mother's day. Drama Queen spent the evening hours crying inconsolably for hours on end. She would drag her face across the floor. If I tried to pick her up and hold her it only made it worse. She would struggle and flail until I finally put her down. These were times that got me so worried. Was I missing something? Did DQ have problems with attachment disorder? I really didn't think so but this particular night I certainly wondered about it.

Finally, after trying everything I could think of, I joined her in the crying. I just sat down and bawled myself silly. I have no memory what Storyteller was doing that night but she would have been small enough not to have any memories of it. DQ doesn't remember it either.

After yesterday, my naive dream of mother's day getting better after the kids are older died. I got to witness my sister, "I don't get mad; I get even", tear my ailing mother down last night. I worry about "I don't get mad; I get even". She sooo projected all of her fears on to Sister, Sister last night. She really hurt Sister, Sister's feelings. Not to mention the fact that when I asked mom if I could borrow one of her cars I/I went and threw a temper tantrum because mom told her to give back the car they were borrowing. They've had it for half a year now. And, of course, my own kids spent the day fighting among themselves.

So instead of having a restive, peaceful weekend I am totally drained. I am not physically tired but I am exhausted. I feel like a wash rag all wrung out.

Late in the evening Passionfruit came to me and asked me if we could post pone mother's day. The kids apparently never got a chance to finish signing my card and of course, whatever he planned to give me did not happen either due to all the activity of the weekend. Like I've told my friends before mother's day is not for mothers it is for the kids.

Oh yes, "Happy mother's day everyone!" NOT!

1 comment:

Adjective Queen said...

I know exactly what you mean. All these commercialized expectations thrust upon us by the creators of Hallmark commercials. I want to boycott it the way I boycotted Valentine's Day this year. My boys did get me a card but they refused to help fold laundry after I asked them 6 times. 6 times! What the heck? It's not like I asked them to go hoe the back 40...