Happy Mother’s and Others Day

If your a Mother or mother figure, happy Mother’s Day! I hope you had a great day filled with lots of love and joy and peace and everyone waiting on you…but let’s be real here.

My day started with Mr 5, who’d been sleeping with his face smooshed into mine, asking excitedly ‘Is it Mother’s Day?’

‘Yes’ I grumble ‘It is but remember you promised I could sleep in as long as I wanted today?’

‘Yes,’ he agrees ‘I’ll just go and get your present and put it in the door way so when you get up you’ll see it’

Okay good. Off he goes back with the present. Back in bed. I pass him my phone so he can watch YouTube until I’m ready to get up. But now I need to pee.

‘Mum are you gonna open your present after you do a wee.’ Asks Mr 5.

‘Sure bud’ I say. What the hell I’m up now.

It’s a cute tiny bear holding an even smaller little cushion that says ‘I love you’. I love it but also wonder where the $14 his dad gave to him went for the Mother’s Day Stall. And how much ‘change’ he spent at the canteen after.

I make Mr 5 and I chocolate milk like I do every morning and insist we watch ‘anything but YouTube’ while we drink it. My Little Pony it is, which is one of my favourite kids shows.

Hubby is still sleeping but he left me a stack of ‘Live the Life’ scratchies. Spoiler alert, I win a total of $32, so turns out I’ll still have to live my current life.

I do some washing and use the dryer ‘cos Mother’s Day’. I use this same excuse to get takeaway for dinner even if I do have to use the Birthday money I got from my mum.

I promised to let Miss 8 sleep as long as she liked but at 11 am, and with us supposed to be at lunch with my mum at 12 pm, I delegate that duty to my dear husband. But she’s still out cold when 10 minutes later I go to check. I know how this will end but still she has to get up.

‘Just leave me here.’ She cries after many failed attempts to rouse her. Tempting. But she’s too young to be home alone. Besides, she actually really wants to go and would be devastated if she missed out she just also really doesn’t want to get out of bed.

I won’t bore you with the details but let’s just say she needed me to give her clothes but also disagreed with all the clothes I tried to give her. She was loud and rude and took every ounce of my energy trying to stay calm and not turn it into a big screaming match. And then I had to stay on the lounge and wait while she wrapped my present. By this time it was 12 pm already. We agreed I’d open the present at my Mum’s.

Right before we got out the door Mr 5 decided he needed to bring some lollies with him, the same ones he’d been eating all morning because I was too tired/busy to stop him. Whatever dude, just hurry up, we’re late.

Miss 8 then also decided she needed lollies because it’s ‘Not fair’. Easy fixed I just give her a handful right? Wrong!

Mr 5 decided Miss 8 got more than him which is equally ‘not fair’ and he also decided he would fight this to the death. This triggered my ‘fight to the death’ reflex and I argued that ‘life, is in fact not fair and you get what you get and don’t get upset…’ and so on.

Mr 5 lost his mind. Hubby went back inside. I sat in the car with both the kids who were now starting to settle down and texted my mum. It was now 12.10 pm.

I texted my husband. He needed to come. We must present a united front. We must take a peaceful stand in front of our tiny oppressors. They may interruptus our coitus but they cannot divide us!

Lunch was great. There never was any real pressure about getting there and certainly none about being perfect, I love that about my family we’re always on each other’s side.

So this Mother’s Day let’s raise our glasses to Mother’s and those doing the job of mother carers, aunties, stepmums. And let’s also toast to all those who help us to mother, the besties who listen to us, the aunties that give us a break, the childcare educators and school teachers who care almost as much as we do about our gorgeous little psychos.