Happy Mother’s Day Memorial Weekend Holiday

I don’t know about the rest of you girls out there, but I love me some Mother’s Day. It is hard work being a Mama.

It’s up the stairs, down the stairs (warning: really long, run-on sentence ahead), up the stairs, down the stairs, hold on to the back of a bike for two blocks while crouching slightly, up the stairs, get a band-aid, down the stairs, stir the pot on the stove, unload the dishwasher, bring in a load of dry laundry, hang a load of laundry, spell “bologna”, explain about silent g’s, down the stairs, take out trash, up the stairs, pot on the stove is boiling over, load second load of dishes, down the stairs, answer question about God’s plan for ladybugs in the grand scheme, up the stairs, phone call about past due library books, scrub the stove top, draw an almost perfect circle, hold a funeral for an obsessively much loved ladybug, magically recreate a meal from the mess stuck to the stove top, down the stairs, put on a movie to keep the kids in one spot for crying out loud, and so on, and so on, and so on.

And then Eric gets home and asks what I did all day, to which I respond-

-wait for it-

“Not much.”

This is why I have, for the last two Mother’s Days, quietly celebrated what I now call “Mother’s Day Memorial Weekend Holiday”.

Sometime around noon on the Friday before Mother’s Day, I take off my apron. I take it off and I don’t put it on again until sometime Monday afternoon. I still do light housekeeping and cooking, just nothing real heavy duty. Eric has supported me in my little at home vacation and takes on the children any time I ask. (Why yes, he is a doll. I know.)

It’s not that I never ordinarily take breaks, it’s just especially nice to have three full days of being at home without the work of home.

While he supports me, Eric still doesn’t know how to pronounce the name of my holiday. A few hours ago I absentmindedly donned an apron while I made a quick batch of cookies. Eric saw the apron and admonished me saying, “Baby! What are you doing in an apron? Did you forget that it’s Mother’s Happy Day Anniversary Holiday Weekend Extravaganza?”

Whatever you call it, Happy Mother’s Day.