Hitting all the boxes

Mother's Day hit all of the boxes for me:

     1.  Already Mother's Day took on a different feel, since I wasn't waking up in hotel room instructing everyone to carry something to the car for the long drive home.  Not only did I enjoy waking up in my own bed, but I also somehow managed to sleep until 8 am.  This never happens.  I heard the older boys leave to caddy around 6:30 am, but then I snoozed some more.  Bliss!

     2.  We attended mass as a family - minus Eddie, who was the only caddy to score a loop.

     3.  We stopped by my folks' house and I gave Mom her cards after mass.  I had already delivered a couple of huge planters of flowers from Costco for her patio.  It's a tradition now.  I seek out the arrangements with the most blue in them - her favorite color.

     4.  I was served breakfast in bed.  This was a bit amusing (when isn't it?  I feel weird eating in my bed with kids staring at me while they eat nothing.  My kids are always eating something!).  Reg made my oatmeal all by himself.  He followed the directions on the gluten free bag.  Where I use a 1/3 cup, he used a whole cup.  My cup runneth over - seriously.  I asked Coach to bring me a Pyrex bowl to divide it into two portions.  Coach made me an omelet, too.  He didn't include any cheese, because several weeks ago the dietitian suggested that I try no dairy in my diet.  We were experimenting because of some new developments and we were trying to pinpoint the culprit.  Tossing out dairy for a bit made sense.  Um, that was weeks ago.  Dairy and I are friends again.  Coach did toss some veggies in the omelet.  It was fine, just exhibit A in my belief that no one listens to me EVER.

     5.  Laddie got home Sat. night.  I mumbled 'Come and give me a hug' from where I was asleep on the couch.  Coach totally called my couch sleeping position when he left to get Lad at 9:30 pm.  I wanted to spend some time with him organizing his room.  Because it was Mother's Day, he had to oblige.  Ed's stuff was everywhere.  That kid is knee deep in AP exams followed by finals.  He had stacks of paper everywhere.  His days are numbered though.
Lad usually leaves for school in a whirlwind.  After he leaves, I get frustrated looking at all his heaps of clothes and crap that he leaves behind.  I insisted that he stand there and tell me what he was done with and what he wanted to keep.  (Also because he had only been home a few hours -he was still in the honeymoon phase of being home.  Very agreeable).  Oh how I love to organize a room - even if it was only partially.

     6.  A nap.  No explanation here.  I crawled back in bed for 20 minutes.

My salad servers while in freak mode.

     7.  More food.  The girls slept late.  They were ticked they missed the breakfast festivities, so Coach instructed them to make me a salad for lunch while he was working out.  Tank joined in, which means my salad became comedy.  There was babbling brook music and formal speaking, and awkward hand gestures.  I struggled to eat with them standing at attention and made them go back to normal and rid the room of the white noise music.

There are always MORE pictures!
These are sitting on my dining room
table waiting to be
plugged into a frame.

Ta-da!
 I call this one 'Funny pictures' -like the time the boys
 stuck over ball we owned inside of Min's footie PJ's.
 She came upstairs looking like an umpa lumpa.

     7.  I spent the afternoon and evening hours organizing yet another enormous frame of photos for the basement while


watching Fixer Upper episodes followed by Blindside.  The kids joined me in the TV viewing.  They only poked fun of me a bit for watching Blindside for the 100th time.  I wonder how many of these arrangements it will take for Coach to lose his cool and demand that some walls remain blank.  I am definitely pushing the envelope and running out of space, but I have stacks and stacks of photos at the ready.

    8.  Our deck still hasn't been rebuilt, so our grill isn't connected.  We have the cheap grill that the construction people bought for us, but it only worked a few times.  Coach thought it was out of gas, so he decided to surprise me and grill steaks for dinner.  He bought a new tank.  Before he mowed the lawn, he tested the grill and it lit.  When it was time to grill the steaks, it wouldn't turn on.  Coach was fit to be tied.  We never eat steak and the kids were upset.  I sensed something was up when he put the shades down that face the deck.  Finally Coach shared the dilemma with me.  I suggested he just use the oven.  He wasn't happy, but he cooked the steaks in the oven and they were delicious.

Our deck.  They haven't reattached
 the boards to the deck. 
Our grill is laying on its side
over by the red riding toy car.

     9.  Gifts.  I told Coach no gifts.  Hello, kitchen?!  No gifts necessary.  I usually get some homemade cards from the kids.  This year the cards were a step up from usual.  Coach must have told them all to write me a poem.  They were hilarious.  Two of the kids incorporated my tendency to cuss in their poems.  They also hit on my sleepy nature.  Ed called me a baby whisperer.  Lad admitted that he has grown fond of coming home after being away at college.  Coach had them read them to me in age order while he videoed.  They were sweet, funny, and honest.  It showed that despite my constant harping to get things done, they actually notice things about me and enjoy having me around.  I don't think there is a better gift than that.

If you read the post prior to this one, then you know that reality hit hard when Mother's Day ended.  We should definitely extend the celebration of mothers to a week.  I don't think my kids could hack it though.