Mother

I have found it strange, that many times when I have heard women speak of Mother's Day, they speak of it with distaste, or dislike. I have heard women claim that Mother's Day is a difficult day for them, because it reminds them of their inadequacies and shortcomings. This makes me sad. I have been thinking about my feelings on Mother's Day a lot today. I have shared some really basic, tender feelings and experiences with my children and my mother today as well.

My feelings are this: I love Mother's Day. I love everything about it. I love how excited my kids have been for days, the anticipation just killing them. I love sacrament meeting on Mother's Day. I love special dinners and flowers. I love little hugs from tiny arms and listening to my daughter pray and express her love to her Heavenly Father for mothers. I love waking up knowing it's Mother's Day and knowing that there will be kind thoughts and words expressed to and about so many wonderful women.

So much in the world degrades women. So much tells us that we are less. Or that our value is placed in our clothes, looks, or some other benign quality. But on Mother's Day, millions of people acknowledge that being a Mother is important, beautiful and valid. Not only valid, but crucial. People actually stop to think about what influence a wonderful mother can have. And I love it.

I remind myself every single day of how inadequate I am as a mother. Every night I go to bed thinking, "Did I love them enough? Did I teach them enough? Did I take enough opportunity today? Did I feed them right? Did I acknowledge them enough? Was I too impatient? Was I too short-sighted? Did I validate them today? Do they know how special they are? Did I groan when they asked me a question for the 100th time? Did I hug them before they went to sleep? Did I respond the right way in every moment today? Is Heavenly Father pleased with what I'm doing?"

But on Mother's Day, I feel nothing but gratitude. I put the doubt and fear away. I stop thinking about my shortcomings. Instead, I just think about how grateful I am that Heavenly Father saw fit to give me these three beautiful souls to tend on his behalf. For whatever reason, good or bad, He knew that it was in my home that they would have the experiences they needed to bring them back to Him. And everyday I pray and hope that the good outweighs the bad.

So today I am grateful for the Olive-press that is Motherhood. I am grateful to be a woman. I think all women feel sadness over motherhood. Whether we are mothers who experience depression. Or mothers who suffer a disability. Or mothers who haven't had children in this life yet. We are all experiencing this journey called Motherhood that comes with being a Daughter of God. I love how the scriptures remind us that being a mother doesn't just mean that a child came into this world through our body. Being a mother is an attitude. It is a gift of the Spirit. It is attributes that are far greater than anatomy. I have seen woman 'mother' my children in Primary classes or kindergarten. I have seen woman 'mother' their nieces and nephews. I have seen woman 'mother' the youth in the hallways at church. I have seen woman 'mother' their friends. I have seen woman 'mother' their mothers. The errand of angels is given to woman. Eve was called the "Mother of all Living" even before she had the physical ability to bear children.

I love being a mother more than anything else in the world. (well, equal to that of being a wife). It frustrates me to no end. I have never prayed more often or more earnestly than I have since I became a mother. Tears come from a much deeper place now. So does anger. So does patience. So does love.

So this Mother's Day I celebrate my life. I know that tomorrow I will remember how hard it is, and how bad I am at it...but today, I just celebrate. Because it is the opportunity and blessing of an eternity.

Now, a bit about my Mother's Day experience today. Because these things just have to be remembered:

On Thursday, Lucy came home from school with a special 'package'. Her class had gone on a field trip to a farm where they got to visit a number of different greenhouses and learn about the different stages of plant life (side note: I love Lucy's teacher...she is the best!). The little package she brought home was a gift for Mother's Day that I was not allowed to know about. So it sat neatly wrapped in a plastic bag on our kitchen counter. It was quite obvious that the bag contained a plant...but I didn't let on that I knew. On Friday morning, I thought to myself that this plant probably wouldn't last until Sunday if we left it in the plastic bag unattended, so I asked Lucy very casually if there was anything we needed to do with this special package or if I could just leave it sitting on the counter until Sunday...thinking that this would jog her memory and cause her to want to give the gift early or something like that. What happened next was completely unexpected.

She burst into tears.

"Oh Mom! It's probably ruined! It needs something VERY badly, but I can't give it to it without you seeing!!"

"Ok Lucy, let's calm down and see if we can figure this out" (knowing full well that she is thinking that she needs to water the plant. "Do you think you could give this present what it needs without me seeing? Couldn't YOU just take care of it?"

"But mom, there are two things that it needs. And one of them I can give it, but the other thing I can't. It can't get 'through' the bag!" more tears. (She speaking of sunlight, in case you hadn't put it together).

"Hmm. Maybe you could just give it to me early, if you're so worried about it?"

"No mom! It's supposed to be for Mother's Day! It's probably dead already!" (very dramatic, but completely legitimate in her mind)

"Well Lucy, we're going to Grandma Bourne's house today, and we will be going there again on Sunday for Mother's Day. Do you think you could bring this present to her house and give her the instructions on what to do to take care of it? She could take care of it until Sunday when we come back and you can give it to me. And then I wouldn't see it."

lightbulb.

"Ok mom. But I better give it one of the things it needs before we go, otherwise it might not make it to Calgary. It's very fragile. And I will have to tell Grandma how to take care of it."

So Lucy gave her little plant some water and we drove it to Calgary. It survived the trip, by the way. Grandma was told to water the plant everyday at noon, exactly. And that it needed lots of sunlight. "Can you handle that Grandma?"

I was very excited to open my plant today. A Teddy-Bear Sunflower I think she called it. It doesn't have any blooms on it yet, but we will be excited to watch it grow. I'm not much of a green-thumb, which has me a little worried, but hopefully I can keep this thing alive. I can manage to keep 3 kids alive, but plants...that's a different story.

Now to Max. He was feeling a bit disappointed that he didn't have anything to give to mom. I tried to explain to him that sometimes gifts can be nice things that we do for people. Or something he has made for me...but he wouldn't have it. He wanted to buy something, and with his Dad out of town, that was a difficult thing to orchestrate without me knowing about it. We thought about him going out with Papa, but Papa was in Edmonton all week, and then on the ward temple trip on Saturday...so that left him out of options.

I happened to have a $5 bill in my wallet, so while we were out doing errands on Saturday, I passed him the money "just in case he needed it" and happened to point out a few things in the store that I really liked (that were less than $5) and then I would move on to looking at something else.

He had his own lightbulb moment and decided to use the $5 I gave him to buy one of those things I had pointed out. It was so funny to watch him and his sister trying to be sneaky about picking out one of these items and hiding it from my view (without looking like shop-lifters) and paying for it all by themselves. All the way home, he kept going on and on about how excited he was that he got something for mom ALL BY HIMSELF and it was going to be a great surprise. They wrapped it in some pink tissue paper and tape as soon as we got home. Regardless of what the gift was, listening to his excitement was enough for me.

Of course these sweet, precious moments are always brought back into reality by a screaming fit here and there soon after walking in the door...but it's the thought that counts. Even if it only lasts for a few seconds.

So this morning as I was getting ready, Max gave me a beautiful necklace that I got to wear to church. So sweet.

The kids had also been going on all week about how the Primary was going to sing in Sacrament Meeting for Mother's Day and that I would be so surprised about the song because I didn't know the song and it was going to be a great surprise. (They are unaware that my experience in primary has led me to know pretty much ALL the primary songs).

Sacrament meeting comes. We listen to two talks on Mothers, and then it's time for the primary to go up. I scoot my children into the aisle and tell them I'll be listening carefully. Max hesitates for a moment like he doesn't want to go up, but his sister and a friend take him by the hand and pull him up on the stand. As he's walking away from me I hear him faintly say, "I don't know the words!" But it is too late and he's already up there amongst all the other primary children...standing right at the front next to his sister.

The piano starts and his little face turns bright red. I can see him trying SO desperately to hold back tears of frustration. Everyone else is smiling and he has got this terrible scowl on his face. His little fist comes up and he shakes it because he is trying so desperately to not loose it. And I am sitting in my spot in the congregation feeling so helpless as my little guy is up there having to work through this on his own. I keep trying to catch his eye and smile and give him the 'thumbs up' but it's not working. His sister smiles and puts her arm around him through both songs. People in the congregation see him and giggle because it does look funny to see one little grumpy boy in a sea of happy faces. I keep thinking to myself, "Please don't laugh at him. Please don't laugh!" It was horrible. The songs were beautiful. I was SO proud of him for standing up there, controlling his emotions and not making a scene. I wanted so desperately to rescue him. He came back to our seat and sat on my lap for the rest of the meeting. He told me he didn't know the words. I reassured him that it was ok and that sometimes just standing up there with the other kids and smiling is enough and that he didn't have to sing the song. He seemed to get over it pretty quickly, but my heart still hurts for him. What a sweet, sensitive, strong little man. I felt so terrible, because usually when I know they are going to be singing in Sacrament, we practice the song throughout the week so they can feel confident going up there, but they wanted so much for it to be a surprise. I just assumed they knew the songs. I guess I should have had Lucy practice with him a few times on their own. I wonder if he'll even remember this experience? I feel like I will never forget it.

After church we went to my parent's house for dinner. We had a nice evening with my mom and all her daughters. My two brothers and their families were unable to make it. My older brother and his wife were visiting with her family, because she has a sister on a mission who would be phoning home because of Mother's Day. My other brother and his wife were just released from the hospital today after having their first baby. So they went home to rest. She also has a sister on a mission, so she was looking forward to a phone call today too.

My mom gave me a book that she picked up at Time Out for Women. Logan slept good in the play-pen, which is always the best present I could ever get...and we had score-bar trifle, which is quite possibly the BEST dessert ever created. I missed having my husband around on Mother's Day, but we got a chance to text back and forth for a bit and Skype this evening. He said it was pretty lonely going to Sacrament Meeting on Mother's Day by himself. I imagine it would be.

Max made my evening when he ran through my parent's house and then stopped suddenly to say, "Whoa! I can feel my hair blowing in the breeze when I run!" This is especially funny because his hair is about 3 millimetres long right now.

Awesome Mother's Day.