Celebrating Mother's Day

Mother's Day hadn't even crossed my radar til a friend asked, "Big plans for Mother's Day?" Uh, oh, damn, oops better get a card to my mother in the mail. About to remind to John, but then realize ahh no, for him, this year, the first time without a mom. I make it to the post office just in time.

Next up, the perennial, what should we do to make it special? The three April birthdays in a row (each 2 weeks apart to the day!) take a lot out of us. We're low level celebrators, not high party people. But we do like to eat. To me celebrations always involve a good meal, so ok, where to go this year?

Last year, in the endless go-around, "what do you want to eat? I don't know, what do you want?" I whined, "It's Mother's Day! I'm not cooking." My son Wyatt responded with some magical logic, "It's Mother's Day, so you should express your love to us by cooking." I think that's what he said. I'm sure we went out - and experienced what we always experience on Mother's Day - way too overcrowded restaurants with lots of waiting around time. So this year, with Wyatt's words in my head, I decided to cook. A simple meal, but one I know everyone likes (such a favorite I actually had to retire it from my limited repertoire because even I grew totally sick of it...but now it's been several months.) We'll gather here on the late side, after the kids' have enjoyed swimming on this broiling Texas May Sunday, and John and I have emerged from end of semester screenings. My own mother's response, "That kid is destined for great things - anybody who can convince his mother that she ought to cook for the family on Mother's Day is destined for a position of power --let's just hope whatever it is, it's legal!"

Twenty years into this life as a mother - so much to be grateful for.