My first mother's day

First, the negative bits: I have always hated Mother's Day.  I think it's a cheesy, made-up, commercial holiday that preys on guilt, and I end up feeling manipulated.  My feeling is that if your relationship with your mother isn't great for 364 days out of the year, a card and flowers on the 365th isn't going to fix it.  (And while maybe in a few years I'll want someone to take my kid away for a day, I'm not really sure I like the message that conveys, either.)  The overtone that Mother's Day is a day for the other half of the parental outfit to act as the dominant caregiver also bugs me.  I mean, shouldn't he be doing his part the rest of the year, too? 

So this is where I was when Mother's Day rolled around.  I announced to Matthew that while I think it's a cheesy, made-up, commercial holiday that preys on guilt, a gift was not optional, and that I was partial to the idea of a digital picture frame so that I could have an all-Peach, all the time slideshow.  And I also decided I was going to take the Peach to the zoo, just the two of us, because I wanted Mother's Day in our household to be about spending quality time, alone, with the Peach.  Maybe next year she and I can go to the beach or something similar. 

Anyway, that was the plan.  We rolled up to the zoo at 9:12, and it was cold, windy, and threatening rain.  For an hour I tried rolling her right up to the viewing spots -- within inches of some animals -- and took her out of the stroller, pointed, cajoled - but no luck.  She was having none of the zoo.  Finally, just as it was starting to rain, we left.  It was a nice trip for me - with few people around and crappy weather, the animals were very interested in us - but not so much for the Peach. 

At home, Matthew was sleeping.  He'd caught some virus from the Peach, and was sleeping it off.  (He  spent most of the day sleeping, then went to work this morning at 4:30 because he was wide awake.)    She didn't go down for a morning nap at all, but finally crashed at 12:30.  This was the amazing on-off Mactyre sleep day, which went something like this:

05:30: Matthew up with Peach.
07:30: Peach asleep, Shelley awake.
08:30: Peach awake.   
09:00: Matthew asleep.
12:30: Peach asleep.
13:30: Shelley asleep. 
14:00: Matthew awake with Peach.
15:30: Peach asleep. 
16:30: Shelley awake.
17:00: Peach awake.
18:00: Matthew asleep.
19:30: Matthew awake.
21:00: Peach asleep.
22:30: Shelley asleep.
23:00: Matthew asleep.

Productive, no.  Restful, yes.  Needless to say, this came on the heels of Peach's latest daycare virus.  Sigh.

Comments

[Law Student Hot Mama]

Heh - the weather Sunday sucked an egg.

[LC]

I'm so there with you on Mother's day--at least from the daughter's POV. But it is nice to have an excuse just to hang out with my daughters and enjoy a day doing whatever we wanted.