Mother’s Day

Happy Mother’s Day to all the moms today. I had a fairly low key day which is just my speed. I’m missing my own mom because of physical distancing, but we’ll just have to celebrate extra hard when we can get together again.

I tried to teach the kids how to say, “Happy Mother’s Day” yesterday – Penny got it, Rory did not. With a little prompting, it was nice to wake up to her wishing me a happy mother’s day this morning. I pushed my luck by getting her to add “I love you so much it’s ridiculous” (that’s how she says I love you) and “you’re the best mommy ever”. By the time she got to the last phrase, she scream-cried it into my face. Right from the heart. I tried again this evening to get her to say, “you’re the best mommy ever” and she said, “You’re…the…bag…mommy…EGGS!” and then cracked up laughing. She’s just messing with me now.

Shamus bought me a present “from the kids” and I love it. A bracelet that says Mudder and a mug. Rory is obsessed with my bracelet and trying to hide it from him is going to be a TREAT. I’m pretty sure he can sniff out things to munch on.

In my opinion, the actual gifts from the kids today were when, at two different times, both of them sang out to me with “mommy!” which is not a common occurrence at all. Probably once or twice before. The second gift was when Rory let me read to him for the first time in forever (he, in recent months, would only let Shamus do that). It meant I had to read him the same Dr. Seuss story about 10 times today, but I’m totally okay with that.

I actually put on makeup and tried to get some nice mommy/kid pictures, but the kids were not having it. The best picture we ended up getting with the three of us was when we got Rory ready for bed and both kids came to cuddle me for a few minutes. I swear for the the first 5 years of parenthood there is hardly a picture to be found of me with a youngster that isn’t a selfie. This year Shamus is getting better at taking my picture more and I now have about 7 billion shots of my children hanging off of me. I love it. They’re not always my most flattering looks, but I like having them anyways.

Speaking of children hanging off of me – Rory has decided that if I sit down, he must sit in my lap. If I eat, he must eat my food (or if he hates it, he must feed me). If I’m occupied, he has to be within 5 feet of me, and I must look at him upon demand (demand meaning: when he yells in my face). I know a lot of kids have probably done this from birth, but this is new to me. And holy F’ing exhausting.

One of the harder things to explain about parenting my kids sometimes is that I don’t always get to experience what I would think of as the “regular” parenting annoyances. You know, like them singing out “mom” too much; them wanting to play with me too often; siblings fighting with each other; and in this case, a kid who feel he needs you 99% of the day.  Except then sometimes they start doing those things, and I’m like, “I am not equipped for this!”

So, this is my way of saying that after 6.5 years of momming, I have no idea what to do with a very clingy 4 year old. I’ve settled on pulling a chair up so he can sit next to me at the table and trying to enjoy all of his attention when I can. It’s kind of funny to me that I can handle an intense sensory meltdown like a boss, but an increase in affection has me rattled.

I hope all the moms out there were able to relax a bit and enjoy being celebrated. Being a mom is both the most stressful and most rewarding experience and you’re all amazing!