Mother's Day

I was a little nervous leading up to Mother's Day. For the last few years, it's been a hard day. Ours wound up being pretty much like a normal day. My husband got me a lovely baby birthstone gift and did the first bottle in the morning so I could lay in bed for an extra hour. That part was great. :) Then we hosted his family for the afternoon. I was feeling a little ragged because first we had to spend the morning cleaning the house. Then, while hubby grilled and then half-napped in exhaustion on the couch and the relatives passed the baby around, I did laundry because it just piles up. The only time I got to see the baby between lunch and dinner was to clean up a spit up/pee/poop explosion and I was feeling very grumpy about it. Basically I was like dude, it's Mother's Day, and everyone is having fun except me! But I worked really hard at trying to remind myself that it's Mother's day ... and I'm doing mother things. Dealing with bodily fluids and never-ending laundry is being a mom.

I started reading this blog awhile back, when we started the IVF process... the point where we were 2 cycles away from knowing for sure if our kids were going to be biological or not. She was then in the process of adopting, and now her little guy is home with her. She has better words for how I was finally feeling by last night.

http://www.addingaburden.com/2013/05/mothers-day.html

Year 3 - Day 134 - May 13

Last year, we hosted Mother's Day. This year we went to my brother and sister-in-law's house to celebrate with her family and siblings as well. It was nice not to have to clean our house for a get-together. :) I gotta say though, today kicked my butt. I was totally not expecting that. I mean, last year we celebrated with Mike's mom and family and it was nice. I was a little sad because I had recently had my miscarriage, but it wasn't like I would have been a mother yet on the actual day. This year I would have been. I guess that snuck up in the back of my brain or something because it was a rough day. But we had lots of moms at our party and I hope they enjoyed their son or son-in-law grilling their dinner and the opportunity to not clean THEIR houses for a get-together! :)

In other news, I can't figure out our rose bush. Every year it is green, leafy, and beautiful after the winter is over. Then, it gets little tiny rose buds everywhere. THEN, all the leaves turn yellow, get black spots, and fall off in about 72 hours. The next day, the roses bloom and the leaves are all gone. It's the weirdest thing. I'm sure it's some kind of rose fungus because of the black spots, but I find it fascinating that it all happens the day the flowers bloom.So here we are, nice and pink, with a few leaves peeking through the back on branches that haven't produced blooming flowers yet. (Oh yeah, it happens by branch. Even weirder!)

Year 2 - Day 127 - May 8

If I were a good photo taker I would have remembered to take a picture while we were actually celebrating mother’s day today.  Mike grilled a thousand pounds (give or take) of shrimp and meat.  It was quite the dipping day – his mom brought chips & salsa and his sister brought fruit salsa & cinnamon chips for dessert!  But I was busy all day and didn’t think to take a picture – so this is a shot of our completely clean table from just after they all left.  Boring, yes, but unique because our table NEVER looks like this!