Here's to All Fellow Moms

So it was Mother's Day yesterday. I wanted to wish all moms a happy belated Mother's Day.

A few years ago, a friend of mine disdainfully sneered at what he called these "Hallmark Card holidays". (Of course, this was before his wife gave birth to their three kids, so I'm sure he might have changed his tune a bit). In any event, I absolutely love the idea of a special day devoted to paying homage to mothers.

Not to pat us moms on the back, but ... parenthood can be hellish sometimes. Like when our kids come home with these impossible assignments involving popsicle sticks and oddly shaped cardboard pieces with the unrealistic expectation that we will be able to decipher their teacher's instructions. (I felt like writing the teacher a short note stating that Iassumed the assignment was an astronomy project and that she was welcome to take the popsicle sticks on a short visit to the planet Uranus).

I am fortunate to have three wonderful, happy and healthy kids (healthy is the universal mom code for "I haven't killed or maimed my child yet). They are amazingly bright (even if you subtract the mom bias) and immensely energetic. The combination is absolutely exhausting. I don't get a moment to even think quietly on my own. The questions that my eldest son comes up with are fascinating in their scope and quite well-formed. Unfortunately, they are also difficult to answer in ten words or less, if they can even be answered at all -- especially when he wakes me up before the crack of dawn to pose them. (In the expression "nip and tuck", who is winning, nip or tuck? Why can't panhandlers just get a job? If the Weather Network says that it feels like it's 35 degrees when the temperature is actually 30 degrees, how do they figure out the temperature in the first place? With all the water rushing at Niagara Falls, how come the basin never gets full?)

I have to say though, despite all this false complaining, I can't imagine life without my kids. My days are spent chauffering my children, cooking for them, overseeing homework, mediating in daily arguments, answering endless questions and generally trying to recover from the combined effects of all of the above, but I wouldn't trade in a second of it. Children force you to use every single skill in your possession. They chip away at your small mountain of patience. They push and pull you every which way. They make you think about sterilisation.

But then along comes Mother's Day and they wake you up eagerly to lavish upon you a shower of gifts which they spent hours making for you. My eldest son made me a card which contained a poem he'd composed. It actually brought tears to my eyes (not hormonally induced this time around). My daughter proudly handed me her card which held a coupon redeemable for one car wash, along with a sun catcher she'd spent two whole days creating. My youngest son handed over a beautiful painting and wind chime he'd made, with solemn instructions to bring in the wind chimes during inclement weather.

Later, my eldest son hugged me and whispered that I was the best mom on earth. You just can't buy moments like these. I wish I could bottle yesterday and uncork it one day when my kids are adults and will have long flown the coop. (Or for a day when my adolescent children will be shrieking at me, declaring their hatred for me and their conviction that I've ruined their lives).