So, let's talk about Mother's Day.
Hubs asked me a few weeks ago if I wanted to do something in particular to celebrate and I told him that all I wanted was a pleasant day. Just a day that was free of toddler meltdowns, clothing battles, and attitude. Just a simply pleasant day.
Yesterday started with attitude from the three year old and escalated to a meltdown over what she was going to wear to church, all before 8 am. Hubs left for church and we continued with our morning, getting ready and watching cartoons. I started to grab my keys so we could join the hubs at church and ... they were locked inside my car. When I finally got ahold of a friend at church who flagged him down to come get us, well, we were really late to service.
I should have just put my pajamas back on and climbed back into bed at this point.
After N's second meltdown mid-afternoon, I threw in the towel on my expectation of
a pleasant day and lost my cool and some tears. What I
really wanted was a perfect day and yesterday was far from that. Unrealistic, much?
my first Mother's Day in 2010
How can we expect to have a planned perfect day when the other three hundred sixty four never are?
It sets all of us up for failure, I think, especially those of us who are still parenting through the delightfully insane season of toddlerhood. The sparkly unicorn covered commercials and the whispy dreamlike visions we have in our heads are not always real life. Real life is messy, even on Mother's Day.
So, if you had a less than stellar Mother's Day (or three in a row like me), take a deep breath and know that you weren't alone. There's always next year and maybe, just maybe, we'll expect a little less than perfection.