"E" for Effort

John thought he'd surprise me with flowers for Mother's day. They were supposed to come tomorrow. They came yesterday. Not that I get hung up on little details like that, but when you add it to the big picture, the whole thing becomes all the more laughable.

When I ripped open the box, and took a big whiff of what I had hoped would be a heavenly scent, I was disappointed, and couldn't hide the disgust on my face from John's view. I was pretty shocked. They smelled pretty bad. Worse yet, half of them already looked dead. Petals were actually falling off.

I read the directions, carefully cut off an inch of the stems, filled the vase with water, added the flower food, kept them in their plastic sleeve for support while the stems drink the water for the first couple hours, then carefully cut the the green plastic sleeve off and tried to arrange the flowers in a pretty bouquet. Only half of them were already dead and gone, and bent over in half. Their stems all mangled and petals still falling off. Those went directly in the trash. This is what was leftover.-

By this morning (less than 24 hours) they look as if they've been sitting on my table for a week or two.

Poor John. He gets points for trying. At least we can both laugh at those stupid flowers. I told him next year if he insists on getting me something that he can never go wrong with books. Or a gift card to Williams-Sonoma.

I think I should also mention the fact that for an "early mother's day present" he bought me some jewelry in Malaysia, but the necklace broke before I was able to try it on. So in desperation, he pulled out the Godiva gift card he picked up and asked me if I wanted to pick out my own chocolates or did I want to be surprised? Unfortunately my reply was along the lines of "Thanks, that's really sweet, but I'm trying to be good on Weight Watchers right now, I'll just save it for some other time."

So if we're keeping score:

flowers- dead

jewelry- broken

chocolate- rejected

At least I know I'm loved and appreciated.

Mother's day

So is it wrong to say that I love mother's day? I'm not one to generally get too jazzed about a whole day celebrating me, I even went so far as to give Madison my birthday, so I don't even have one of those anymore. I am 24 forever.

However, I do love mother's day. But it's the little things. Really. I think I will cry when the kids are too old to make homemade presents and any cards I get say "Hallmark" or "American Greetings" on the back. Here's some of the little highlights that made my day.

- Zach bringing up in conversation every day for the past two weeks, the fact that I am going to LOVE the present he made for me, and I would beg and beg him to tell me, but he did a really good job keeping it a secret.

-The kids waking me up at 6:00 this morning because they couldn't wait a minute longer. Believe it or not, this was a highlight as their excitement was infectious. Ideally if I had any say, (which, I don't) I'd sleep in til like 10 or so, be really super lazy, but I didn't really have a choice and since church is at 8:00 sleeping in on Sunday isn't really an option anyway.

- Finding a homemade card hidden in Zach's underwear drawer a couple weeks ago. (It totally cracks me up that he thought that was a good hiding place.)

- Madison's Happy Mother's Day banner she made.

-Cinnamon rolls and eggs waiting for me when I came down to breakfast.

- Tickets to see Les Mis in London from "Christopher"

- And I really really loved the presents they made at school. I got a cute flowerpot from Zach that he decorated with bugs and it says "Thanks for helping me grow" and it has one of those pens turned into a daisy, and a picture of him. Both he and Madison had one of those "fill in the blank" things that they filled in about me.They were a little different, but the idea was the same. They both had a line which read, "My mom is ____years old." they both got that right. My favorite part of Madison's is when she said that I weigh 48 pounds. How did she know? And Zach said I was "as pretty as a star". Isn't that seriously the sweetest thing? Madison had another card she worked on at school, as well as other pictures she made for me, and Nick wrote me a really sweet poem. He also made me a scarf that I wore to church today. I got compliments.

-John being the thoughtful guy that he is flew my mom down with some of his frequent flyer miles (he's been racking them up lately) just for the weekend. Then he kicked us out the door to do some shopping while he cleaned and did laundry and took care of the kids. It was nice to spend some time together, and mother's day isn't such a big deal where she's from, so it was a treat for her. Since my mom reads this blog, out of respect for my mother on this day, I wouldn't post a picture of her because she generally hates them all, but since I seem to be scanning anything that will hold still long enough, I found one she probably won't object to. It's one of my favorites.


-But always, always, on mother's day, I am renewed with the desire to both appreciate my own mother more, but also to be the person I see in the eyes of the ones I love the most. To be "The best mommy in the whole world" as one of my cards so eloquently put. I'm not fishing here, but I always wonder if they look at me through rose colored glasses, but I like the way I look in those glasses, and I want to be that person they see, and today at least, I am trying.