Happy Mother's Day

Happy Mother's Day to all of you women out there; especially to my own mother and mother-in-law. In preparation for Mother's Day this year, I couldn't help but recall my experience from just one year ago and take steps to avoid a repeat...

Allow me to paint the following picture: One year ago today I was about 38 1/2 weeks pregnant. I had gained about 50 pounds during Tosh's pregnancy and was very much at that 'always uncomfortable and not sleeping well' stage. Burke's (5th) birthday fell right on Mother's Day last year and so the night before I had stayed up past midnight decorating his birthday cake, wrapping presents, etc. I did some dishes, but didn't finish them and ended up going to bed with a fairly messy kitchen. Our church began at 1:00pm and although Rob was usually in meetings, he was actually home for most of the morning because of Mother's Day (he was just supposed to be at the church about an hour before it started). So Mother's Day morning came and we were up early (as always) and started off the morning with breakfast and then let Burke open his birthday presents. After the presents were opened I began to clean up the kitchen and was told by my husband, "Go back to bed...I'll take care of this." I happily went back to bed. I took a lovely nap and then took my time showering, doing my hair and getting ready for church thinking all the while, "this is turning out to be a nice Mother's Day." About 15 minutes before Rob was to head out the door, he ran upstairs to shower and then took off for his meetings. I came downstairs to find that absolutely nothing had changed downstairs--with the exception of additional dishes waiting to be done and wrapping paper and bows all over the floor. What I didn't realize was that when Rob said, "I'll take care of this," he must of meant that he would take care of helping Burke build the entire LEGO fire station that he had just received for his birthday. So, I now had about an hour before church was going to start to:
1. Feed the kids lunch
2. Find/prepare all the church clothes
3. Get the kids dressed for church (this is dreadful as my kids hate and fight this)
4. Get the church bag ready
5. Clean up the dishes
6. Make the salad that Rob was assigned to bring to his mother's house for a family dinner immediately following church
7. Get the kids hair combed, teeth brushed and loaded into the van

Now, on a good day, a very good day, I may have been able to do all of this in an hour. This was not that day. No one would eat their lunch, the boys were having fits over getting dressed, and I spent about 10 minutes alone looking for Burke's church shoes (I finally found them under some laundry that Rob had put on the floor). I started to grow more and more upset with my husband as if everything that was going wrong was his direct fault. When we were ready to head out the door it was about 12:55 and I knew that I was going to be late. Late for 1:00 church, just great. We headed out the door walking past the very full trash can (I had purposely set it there thinking that Rob would see and empty it on his way out) and discovered that the car seats were not in the van (they too were right in front of the door so that Rob would see to do it). So in my very pregnant body, I installed the car seats which involves literally sitting in the car seat to make it as tight/safe as possible. I finally was ready to load the boys (now 1:00pm) into the van and as soon I went to put Hewitt in his seat I realized that he needed his diaper changed. I took him back into the house, changed his diaper, and then loaded him into the van. I went back inside to put the diaper in the trash can and when I bent down to pull out the trash bag, the bag was so full that it spilled onto the floor--and it was one of those messy garbage spills. So there I was standing in my kitchen about 5 minutes past 1:00 with garbage all over the floor and now I was mad. I think I actually kicked the trash can and started yelling (my kids were already buckled in the van and couldn't see/hear me). I was tempted to just leave the mess, but of course couldn't, so I bent down to begin picking up all of the garbage (picking things off of the floor is the absolute worst when nine months pregnant) and then, RrrrrrrIP! My dress literally split right up the back (clear up to my bottom)! Now, I was officially at the point of having to wear "tent dresses" as my button-down maternity shirts would no longer fit over my big belly and I had no other easy clothes option (the only other tent dress would have to be ironed). So, I took the garbage out, washed my hands, grabbed my sewing machine, pulled off my dress and proceeded to sew up my dress while my children sat buckled in their car seats. I threw the dress back on and we drove to church. When we finally arrived (I can't even remember now if we missed the actual passing of the sacrament or not) Rob looked very confused as to why we were so late but seemed genuinely worried. I didn't dare say a word but just sat there. A friend sitting behind me leaned over the pew, put her arm around me and said, "How are you doing?" It was then that I burst into tears. I sat and had a good cry and then was able to laugh about it all shortly after...

Needless to say, I did a few things differently this year: On Saturday night I had every little sock and shoe in its place, the Sunday clothes were ironed, the church bag was packed and ready, I made sure the car seats were installed, and most importantly I clearly communicated with my husband, "Just so the expectations are clear, I don't want breakfast in bed (big breakfast = messy kitchen in my mind) but would really like you to feed the kids breakfast and get them in their church clothes before you leave for your meetings." This seemed to work well and the boys and I were actually sitting in our pew about 8 minutes before the church meetings started. More importantly though, I've had some time to reflect this weekend on how grateful I am for my mother and how grateful I am to be a mother! I wouldn't trade even my most crazy and challenging "mom" experiences for anything in the world. I love my boys so much and am humbled at the opportunity to be their mom.