Mothers' Day

I made a fatal error, sometime around 10:30 this morning.

I was newly out of bed, newly done with breakfast and gifts and SJ's famous breakfast-in-bed latte. I wasn't even dressed. I surveyed the debris on my bed, the clothes tossed about the home by our entire family and obviously a few vagabonds passing through, the toys flung hither and yon, and I sighed.

The little voice inside my head dared to whisper, "All I want for Mother's Day is to clean my house."

You'll note I didn't even All I Want for the house to be cleaned. I was willing to clean it myself.

All I Wanting is probably the most direct path to Crushing Anger-Making Disappointment. All I Wanting is just begging the universe to fuck with you as far as I can tell. All I Wanting is a terrible habit to indulge.

What followed over the next several hours was predictable. I picked one thing up and a small moved three more to fill its void. Our guest room, the one matchy, tidy spot in our empire was wrinkled and toy strewn shortly after lunch. I wiped a table and juice promptly spilled.

I left and did the grocery shopping.

I called Karen and complained for half an hour.

I checked facebook compulsively, and stayed up to the second on Twitter.

I glared at my smalls and made myself be kind to my beloved who was feverishly finishing what can be finished in our basement before his mobility-wrecking surgery tomorrow. Even though he was making a mess. I reminded myself that he was the most likely to clean that shit up when he was done.

At 4:30 I confessed to my own self that I had created my own problem. I forgave myself for All I Wanting and thus wrecking a day that had started with sweet, generous kid love and the pleasure of being a mother. I cleared the kitchen counter. By 5:30, the kitchen, the living room and the dining room were restfully clean. Enough. The bathroom and the bedrooms were still eye-crossingly unpleasant, but I could live with it.

I fed my children a dinner they would eat, and if they didn't, that wouldn't make me mad to throw out. I saved the fancy dinner for when my beloved is finished downstairs. I bathed the smalls and tucked them in and threatened to lose my mind if they didn't fall asleep. I gave them kisses and reminded them that they made Mothers' Day awesome and they sighed and gave me kisses and rolled off to sleep. Or to feign sleep - I'm blissfully unaware.

And now it is almost fancy-dinner time and I will sit across from my sweet love and sip wine and be so thankful that Mothers' Day was salvaged and that at the end of it all, my heart is only deeply grateful that today is indeed a happy day, and not even my All I Wanting could wreck it in the end.