Mother's Day

After my mom died in 2001, I did my best to avoid Mother's Day. The first year was actually the easiest, as Brian and I spent all of that May traveling around Spain. I didn't look too closely at a calendar before we left, so I wasn't even entirely sure which Sunday it was. The only other Mother's Day I remember in particular was one a couple of years later, after we'd moved to Washington, when we decided that spending the afternoon at a bar near our house watching NBA playoff games would be fun, and that the bar was likely to be free of people celebrating Mother's Day. After all, who takes their mom to the billiards bar to watch basketball on Mother's Day afternoon? The bar was fine, but getting there wasn't much fun, as we walked down the row of restaurants where families were sitting outside enjoying the sunshine and their late Mother's Day lunch.

For six years I indulged a rather Grinchy feeling on Mother's Day. I didn't get to celebrate it, and I didn't want to watch others celebrating it. I told myself it was a fake holiday, one created (or at least marketed) by Hallmark to sell more cards, made sure Brian got a card and flowers to his mom in time, and then did my best to ignore it.

But now I am a mom. This weekend Brian brought me home a bouquet of gerbera daisies, my current favorite flowers. He gave me a card and a bird guide, and after going out for brunch (french toast and a bellini--yum), we drove to Mason Neck for some bird watching. It was an altogether perfect day, with my perfect little family.

Now Mother's Day doesn't seem so bad. I mean, dude, it's totally like getting my birthday in May. And I love my birthday. I should have a baby every year.