I love Mother’s Day.  Any holiday that involves me being left alone in bed with coffee is all right by me.  But like many holidays – say Valentine’s Day or New Year’s Eve, Mother’s Day came wrapped in some pretty big expectations at first.  Naturally this led to some minor – okay major, disappointments.

Mother’s Day #1

I look fairly normal, but I assure you I was anything but.

June was only a couple of months old, so Peter is too tired make any real effort and I’m too tired to care.  Nevertheless, there is a little thing called INTERNET SHOPPING.  Peter gets the cute idea to take the baby to a local vintage store to “select” my gift.  Since our child is 8 weeks old, this actually involves dipping our baby into a pile of bracelets and jiggling her around until something snags onto her hand.  It’s much like something you’d see at a dirty carnival – or maybe Chuck E. Cheese.  What catches is a hideous orange bracelet from the Avon catalog circa 1980.  I’m presented with the gift along with a much appreciated pain au chocolate from my favorite bakery.  I’m equally charmed and horrified.  We move on with our day and don’t speak of it again.

Mother’s Day # 2

Based on last year’s carnival games it’s clear to me that I have to be specific with the gift thing (even though I know motherhood is a gift in itself!  Hahahahahhaha!!!)  It was a tough year.  I decide I want the following:

• Pancakes
• Bacon
• Coffee
• Orange juice
• 3 magazines
• a black Longchamp shoulder bag

The bag is easy peasy.  Hello!  Internet shopping!  Breakfast not so much.  My husband is a perfectionist.  This means that in addition to the above he aims to include a cloth napkin folded in the shape of my favorite flower, a rose in a vase (naturally hidden in the back of some god forsaken cabinet), and he sweetly decides to serve said breakfast in our wedding china which is covered in dust because it hasn’t been used since the week after we returned from our honeymoon.  These extra steps result in complications.  Bacon burns, fire alarm goes off, baby freaks out.  Need I say more? However, the bag is great.  I still use it almost every day!

Mother’s Day #3

We are on vacation.  Family is asleep.  I go down to hotel buffet and procure my own Mickey Mouse Belgian waffle and a giant coffee.  I cannot wait for these people to get up and get my coffee!  Have I mentioned I’m in god damn Disney?  However, husband buys perfect gift.  Progress indeed!

Mother’s Day #4

Mother’s Day 2011?  I’d have to give it an A+!

Peter does ask me what I want (we’re kind of over surprising each other with gifts) and I tell him.  I wake up, and there are chocolate croissants!  And they’re warm!  There is a pretty big difference this year, namely that we’re not crammed into a tiny apartment.  And we have a yard.  It’s nice out, and I sit outside with my family, and as awful as this sounds it’s easier to like the people you live with when you’re not standing on top of each other all the time.  Don’t misunderstand me.  I always love them.  But when Peter offered to take June away to the playground for awhile so I could be alone, I didn’t want him to.  I was happy just watching him cut our grass with our new lawn mower – and watching our daughter get filthy in our dirt.  We have dirt!  And as much as I loved my new crocs (the cute ones that look like real shoes), and my sun hat – I was thinking that freshly cut grass, a husband with a lawn mower and a dirty kid were the best mother’s day presents a girl could get