My first Mother's Day

So I had a lovely first Mother's Day. Mark and Ben both gave me lovely cards, beautiful flowers, and breakfast in bed. Plus I got a substantial break from my mothering duties for a good chunk of the weekend. All in all, quite wonderful.

The weird thing though, was being in the malls this week and seeing all the Mother's Day stuff and thinking that I'm the one that's supposed to like these things. Boxed sets of bath gels and powders, low quality diamond jewelry, gift certificates for manicures. All I could think was "Gak, there's few things I want less than that!" Plus, some of the advertising pissed me off. There was one ad that read "For my mother, your selflessness is inspiring." Um what? I don't want my son to see me as selfless or to emulate selflessness. I want him to see my as self-ful, someone who was able to care for others and herself, not instead of herself. I want him to see me as someone with a strong sense of self, not a self-sacrificing, identity-less mother.

But I will take the pretty flowers.

Oh my god, I never blog anymore. It's partly laziness and partly the lack of anything compelling happening to me or passing through my brain. Ben and I spend are days together, some suck, some are awesome but they're hard to write about. There are many funny moments, like when Ben tries to eat my chin. He wraps his mouth around it, creates a seal and then bites down as hard as he can with his little gum ridges. And it's hard, believe me. And there's his new habit of pushing against us over and over in a rocking motion with his mouth wide open - we think it's a gesture of happiness and affection but we're not sure. And there's the incredible, incredible amount of drool (no, he's not teething, just DROOLING). Baby drool is a substance all to itself, slimy and viscous and mixed with regurgitated milk to give it a stretchy but milky consistency. Divine.

And my brain is jelly. I'm trying to get on the dissertation train but the most intellectually robust thing I've said lately is, "That's right Ben, get those fartsies out." I don't think they'll give me a degree for that. lol

But that said, life is pretty good these days. The weather is awesome. We go for walks and lounge in the backyard. We even braved the streetcar and went shopping along Queen St. W. the other day. Very big deal for me as I've been afraid of the stroller/streetcar sitch for a while. And Ben is just so cute these days. He loves us and reaches out for us and interacts and loves to roughhouse. It's just awesome. But hard to blog about. You just kind of have to see it.