Happy Mother's Day

Mom.

There are many things I did not inherit from you. My height, for example, totally came from Dad. As did my temper. And my vampire teeth. In certain ways I'm more like Dad than your other kids. That said, I had a disturbing revelation this afternoon on my first official Mother's Day.

(In previous years I enforced a Step-Mother's Day modification, but this year being F's first experience with the Mother's Day situation, I thought we should just stick with the traditional celebration. I'm rainchecking my Step-Mother's day for sometime in November when I'll really need it.)

First of all, it was an awesome day. P and I took the baby to church with us, where she was greatly admired. On the way out, a stranger called out me, "She wins the best baby award!" Nevermind that holding her was like holding a two cats that don't like each other (scratching included). At least she impresses the strangers. That's really what life's all about.

When we got home, HC had prepared my favorite breakfast of ALL TIME: toasted mini-bagels, cream cheese, smoked salmon, capers and diced red onion. P made mimosas the size of the Pacific Ocean and I drank the whole thing. And a half.

Then I even had presents!

They're totally stereotypically Mom presents and I couldn't be happier. HC wrangled F into making little hand- and foot-print decorative stones for my garden! They're so small I'll have to find someplace awesome to put them so they don't just get lost amid the foliage.

Luckily, they're covered in gold glitter glue, and every little bling helps.

The day continued with such lovelinesses, but I digress.

The point is, Mom, I concluded the afternoon by mowing the yard. When I was a teenager, I was SHOCKED and FLABBERGASTED and incredulous and generally alienated when you told me that you "sort of liked" mowing the lawn. Mowing the lawn was the worst.

And yet, this afternoon, with the (admittedly, loud) white noise of the push mower giving my imagination a smooth lake to swim in, and dusk slowly descending on the spring blooms and my blood flowing in satisfactory way...I related.

It was peaceful in its cacophony, creative in its destruction, restful in its exertion. I sort of enjoyed it, my Mother's Day mow.

Does this mean I'm going to start grinding my own wheat and gleaning leftover animals from various farms and streetcorners? Because when it comes to heredity, I'd like to draw the line somewhere.