What a Mom Wants

I still don't know how I feel about Mother's Day.  I'm not super comfortable with people making a fuss and asking me all the time, "what do YOU want?," even though I pretty much always want people to actually do what I want.  I just don't want them always asking me.  I feel the same way when people call me a "super mom" because I have seven kids.  Just because you wear the cape doesn't mean you can fly, you know.  I am muddling through like everyone else, I just have to make more food.

But, I do know this.  My kids love Mother's Day.  Like lu-huuuve it.  They also love Father's Day and Valentine's Day and Groundhog Day and Arbor Day and National Hot Dog Day (July 23rd) and Talk Like a Pirate Day (September 19th) and so on and so forth.  They like to have little commemorations of the things they love through the year.    Don't we all?  Isn't that what we Catholics do with our feast days and holy days?  On a much less secular level, of course, but the party's still there.

So because my kids love it and they want me to be excited about it, then I'm excited about it.  There is so much I am curmudgeonly about, I figure I can take on for the team on Mother's Day.

I had a quick takes post halfway finished for Friday, but then a well-baby checkup with immunizations happened and grumpiness ensued.  Septimus wasn't too pleasant either, so the post got derailed.

No matter, though.  I'll save the draft for another Friday and in its stead I'll do The Mother's Day Wrap-Up List.

Dear sweet Sally was a major architect of my Mother's Day festivities.  She left me a note under my pillow and she wrote and performed a song, a duet with her father, in which she extolled my virtues.  This song declared, among other things, that I was more precious than a diamond and better than television.

She also made me this card in school and carefully hid it in her room until the appointed hour.  This is my favorite kind of Mother's Day gift.

One day, this kind of focus will serve him well.
Or land him in on some kind of watch list.

Bun did not give this to me specifically for Mother's Day, but I do get something like this from him nearly every day.  He taught himself to read and write and he never looked back.

He is currently teaching himself the states and their capitals, and he likes to write "songs" about them. His sense of humor is so zany that the results are often hilarious.

In case you don't have Superman vision, here is the translation (invented spelling intact, of course!):

The Olklahoma Song 

Olklahoma the capatl is Salt Lake City.  No that is the capatl of Utah. OLK-La-homa newest city ever. You no what? Olklahoma has a lot of trains. No it doesn't. What is the capatl? The capatl is Jefersin City. No that is the capatl of Mossori. Ok the capatl of Olklahoma is Olklahoma City.   OLK-la-homa! Salt Lake City is the capatl of Utah.  I already said that is correct to-day. olklahoma star of the united states, all of the united states.  olk-la-homa, olk-la-homa, olk-la-homa.  city's, city's, city's.  plain's, plain's, planes.

He's a little nuts about Oklahoma.  I showed him the "Oklahoma" song from the musical and blew his mind.  Now he wants to know if all the other states have their own musicals.  I've created a monster.

We also had the school May Procession.  I love May Procession and the crowning of Our Lady.  It was one of my favorite nights when I attended school and I love that my kids get to do it as well.

The first communicants.  I don't even have one in there this year
and I couldn't take the sweetness.  I will be a mess next year
when it's Sally's turn.

Sal (and her bff, K), processing to church.

Fiver, finally realizing that I was standing right next to him
with the little ones.  

Francie, the May Queen.  All the 8th graders wrote essays, and the author
of the best essay about the Blessed Mother got to crown her at the
May Procession.  Francie was so excited.

Crowning Our Lady (at Queenship of Mary Church)
 while the student body sang
"Bring Flowers of the Rarest (Queen of the May)."
Yes, I cried.

Yours truly with the people who have allowed me to
celebrate Mother's Day.  They are the best.