Post Mother's Day Blues

I would like to put a word into the management that the Monday after Mother's Day should never be gloomy. Already feeling a little...what's the word?...ooglety about the whole "my mother is dead and my children are ingrates and though my husband is exceedingly generous with flowers and dinner at fab restaurants, that's not really a reflection on me as a mother", I could have used a bright sunshiny day to coax me out of doors to do some gardening, exercise and put the whole fabrication of Mother's Day behind me.

Here's the thing about Mother's Day, it is just an opportunity to be disheartened over your children's general lack of enthusiasm over you as a mother. At least when they were littler, they would bring home some sweet confection of handmade love. In fact, Mother's Day comes just before or after "Teacher Appreciation Week", so in a reciprocal agreement of mutual understanding, Moms and Teachers ensure that elementary school age children never fail to send strong signals of enthusiastic gratitude to each side of this partnership.

Somewhere around Middle School, the blush starts to fade off the rose. I have a child in sixth grade and she symbolizes for me that last tenuous strand of Mother's Day enthusiasm. On Friday, I walked by the computer and she quickly shut the window of a young child and mother in silhouette and put a hand over the paper she was drawing on. I pretended that I was upset with her for hiding what she was doing on the computer, telling her "That will not fly in my home. If you're ashamed of what you're doing on the computer, you shouldn't be doing it." She seemed to want to keep her card-making a secret so I thought I would play along....after all, this might be the last time we get to play this little game. On Saturday, knowing she would be playing an early morning soccer game on Sunday, (btw who made that schedule?) she tried to make me a Mother's Day Breakfast. Although I wasn't hungry, she made me a lovely fruit salad, desperate to find some way to express her love in some material way.

I'd better enjoy it while I can because just two short years later, my eighth grader is completely disinterested in the overt displays of "I Love My Mommy" expressed in construction paper and glitter. I have it on good authority that she and I are grand friends and yet I could tell by the block lettering on the stark white sheet of the card she made me that Mother's Day is no longer a priority. Seriously, I have seen her put more creative effort into a note she passed in science class. Where are the coupon books filled with unredeemable promises? Where is the flower yanked carelessly from the garden outside? Where is the hand-painted yardstick that can never measure our love for each other? In her defense, she did give me a rock. "Ooh a ring?" you say? No, a ROCK. A Mexican River Rock that she took from her sister. Why a rock? Does it have special significance? You are my rock, Mamá? Not so. The rock was chosen because it was within arm's reach when she was quickly searching for something to hand me on Mother's Day.

And it just gets worse. My boys didn't even say Happy Mother's Day to me on Sunday morning as they were preparing to go to church. I know they thought the fabulous dinner that their father had taken us to the night before was sufficient HMD for the weekend but they thought wrawng. I feel guilty thinking complaining thoughts as they get ready, on their own, to participate in the musical worship at their church. "Really, I have so much to be thankful for", whispers into the back of my mind as I yell, "HAPPY MOTHER'S DAY TO YOU TOO!!!!" to the space around the boys who have failed to greet me properly after several pass-bys in the hallway, kitchen, den and bathroom.

Here's my ultimate problem with this day of opportunity for mutual failure between mother and child: Have I not done enough to teach them to be grateful and gracious? Have I coddled them too much, making them spoiled and unable to count their blessings? Am I such a shrew that they actually don't like me enough to use this day to tell me how great I am? Am I losing them as they grow up and grow away? Why don't they spontaneously want to clean my car for me? It's just another opportunity for me to analyze in a gillion different ways, my failure to produce the perfect children. GRRRRRR.

On top of everything, my Mom is dead so I can't call her and tell her how much I appreciated (too late) everything she'd ever done for me. I can't commiserate with her and make up for all those years I didn't buy her an orchid corsage from the Bellport Florist that she could wear proudly at Mary Immaculate Church on Brown's Lane. I can't hear her assure me that, one day, my own children will call me and be in awe of what an awesome Mom I was and still am. By the time they realize my awesomeness, I might be dead!

My husband, knowing I have MD issues, tries to do his level best to make it a beautiful weekend. You should see the flowers he bought me: they were absurdly extravagant (try as I might, my photography skills fail to capture their beauty). But here's the thing of that: HE'S NOT MY CHILD. So basically his wonderful behavior just highlights what a good job of mothering his mother did and again how I have fallen short in the teaching of graciousness. Frown. Not to mention, my kids think that everything he does is credited to their account. Not even close. I know I shouldn't be keeping accounts but that's the insidious nature of Mother's Day. I didn't make the rules.

So basically, despite a reasonably lovely weekend, I am happy to have Mother's Day behind me. Except the gloom of the Monday after has left me sulking on the coach, minding and reminding my feelings of inadequacy and marginal sadness. I guess I'll just have to break my blog silence and purge this particular bit of bleccch.

There, I feel much better. Maybe now I can get something done today.