the nagging feeling i have about mother’s day

I’ve been working on a Mother’s Day post for this blog, because I usually write something sweet or funny or encouraging for Mother’s Day. But this year I’ve had a rough go of it.

Lately, I can’t help but wonder about Mother’s Day. What exactly is Mother’s Day? It’s very confusing for me.

Granted, Mother’s Day has always been a challenge for our family. Sundays are inherently “sticky” for ministers and their families. The first few Mother’s Days were a rocky road for us, as Morgan tried to figure out how to do his job all day, find ways to make me feel his love, and create a fantasy world in which our tiny babies had some level of appreciation for me. (You know, because babies totally get what Mother’s Day is all about. Pshaw.) But I got presents, and I love presents, so for the most part all was well in my world.

As the kids got older, the Mother’s Day situation improved, because the children could talk and be forced to sign their names/scribble scrabble with a marker on a whimsical Hallmark card. This was cute. I still got presents and sometimes a sloppy kiss from a toddler. Adorbs.

The older the kids have gotten, the more they have tried to do special things for me. They’ve made me breakfast in bed, sung me songs, and made some awesome presents for me. Even so, I have always felt a nagging feeling about Mother’s Day. Like it wasn’t quite enough, or like there was some important bit of information missing. This forced celebration of maternal women didn’t make sense somehow. But it seemed terribly selfish and ungrateful to say anything critical about a day that was supposed to make me feel appreciated and adored.

This year, though, I finally figured it out. All because Select Baseball has happened to our family.

Select Baseball means my son is playing in a baseball tournament for the first time on Mother’s Day this year. And this fact has caused me to be able to see all things so clearly right now. I practically have X-Ray vision.

Side note: Baseball tournament organizers are soulless people who do not even like mothers. There are exactly 7 moms in the the USA who actually want to sit for six hours on another Sunday watching their sons play baseball instead of going to brunch after a spa day. I bet I could convince those moms to let the rest of us have our day. I’m actually really good at talking to women. Just put me in that game, Coach!

 

 

However, as it stands, my son’s team is going to wear special pink jerseys on Sunday in honor of their moms. I heard a rumor they may put the moms’ names on the boys’ jerseys.

My son may be staring down batters and slinging curve balls while wearing a pink shirt with my name on it. I can’t even deal.

I know this is a very sweet gesture. I know it’s an attempt to highlight to these kids that their moms are special, and to make it up to the moms that the day that’s supposed to be all about us is actually all about our sons. I appreciate the heart behind it. But I also kind of feel sorry for my son. Wearing the name Carrie on his hot pink back all weekend seems like a great sacrifice of pride and cool-factor for a thirteen year old boy.

That pity I feel lets me know there is no sacrifice any of my kids can ever do to convince me that they have one tiny iota of an idea about what it takes to be their mom.

Never. They will never know. Not until I have gone to see Jesus and they realize how many ways I have filled the gaps in their lives and saved them a million times over from their own foolishness.

My children do not know the truth because they can’t fathom their life without me.

Most days, I love all the mom stuff. I really do. I think my kids are the most amazing people with the funniest problems and the quirkiest failures and the shiniest futures in the whole wide world. There is no one I would rather hang out with, talk to, or watch grow up.

There are only 4 people on this planet I would allow to take me for granted as much as my kids do, and that is why there is nothing they can ever do on Mother’s Day to show me that they get what it takes to be their mom.

Nothing. Not even playing baseball in a pink shirt with my name on it.

So, buy the cards, send the flowers, and take us out to lunch. We really love when you do all that stuff for us. Tell us you appreciate the sacrifices we make, the safe place we give you to land, the tough love we aren’t afraid to wield in your life, and the advice we force on you whether you like it or not.

But don’t be surprised when we stare at you a moment longer than is comfortable, or accidentally make you feel badly for not calling us more often.

We’re deeply invested in this motherhood thing, and you’ll never really understand what it means to us to be your mom.

You’re the best, hardest thing that ever happened to us. 

We’re not in this thing for one day of glory on a Sunday in May. We just love you for forever. You did nothing to earn our love, and there’s nothing you can ever do to make that love go away.

For you, Mother’s Day is about showing us you love us. For us, it’s another day in the sun, watching you become who you’re meant to be.

And, really, we wouldn’t change a thing. (Except maybe that pink shirt type-thing. We’d love to spare you that one. Bless it all.)