Mother's Day is Everyday

My interpretation of Mother's Day is that it is a day designated for people to show appreciation to the people who have mothered them.  Mother's do so much for their children everyday, often putting aside their own needs and wants.  For a long time the children are too young to give formal appreciation and don't understand that their mother needs or wants to be appreciated.


I haven't always done the greatest job at giving my mom appreciation, but I try.  This mother's day  I wasn't able to see my mom, as she lives out of town and I don't have a car but we had a good chat in the morning and she told me I was doing a good job and that she was proud of me.  It meant a lot coming from her, she understands how hard it is to raise your children alone.  It was a sweet call even including BBJ2 growling at the phone and BBJ1 demoing a car/train accident for grandma.  I plan on doing better next year.

I also plan on showing my step-mother appreciation on mother's day.  She became my step-mom when I was 19, so she wasn't there while I was growing up, and it took some years for us to establish our relationship.  For a long time now, I often think of getting her a card or doing something, but I always feel like this might be disloyal to my mother.  I decided today that it won't be disloyal and my step-mom has helped me and guided me, and has really stepped up to help since exHusband left.

I had very low expectations for this Mother's Day, being my first as a single mom, and the boys being almost 1 and almost 3.  It was a fine day, but I realized that my boys show me appreciation in little ways every day, and that is better than just getting a card once a year.  I get random hugs, random "I lub you"s and random thank-you's and those mean so much.

The hardest part of the day was also the sweetest.  In the evening, I listened to my messages, there was a lovely one from my dad and another from my mother-in-law both wishing me a happy mother's day.  The hard part was listening to my step-son came on to say Happy Mother's Day to me from him and his sister.  I just started to cry, and cried for ages.  I really miss them and I had felt that they missed me too, but hearing that message just kind of cemented how sad I am that I don't get to see them very often now and how sad I am that my role in their lives has changed.  I am proud though that I was able to love them and create a home where they felt safe and loved and that as a step-mother I helped their relationship with their father.

I had another mother's day moment this evening.  I had managed to get BBJ2 down, washed the pots from dinner and then sat on the couch beside BBJ1,  I picked him up and put him on my lap.  He snuggled right in, and said Thank You Mommy, in his beautiful sweet little voice.  That is how I know I'm doing o.k.