Our Mother’s Day Post-Mortem

Well, we survived another! My secret: I changed my expectations! I’ve spent the last week reading tons of blogs, posts on listserves and emails from friends who seem to have a very hard time coping with Mother’s Day. No matter how you slice it, motherhood is full of pitfalls. And whether you’re a birth mom, step mom, adoptive mom, foster mom, widowed grandmother living away from your children, childless due to infertility…well it can be less than a perfect day for any of us.

So what’s an exhausted mom of special needs adopted children to do? Have realistic expectations of your family and your situation. Now maybe I’m saying this because our Sunday School lesson was focused entirely on having patience and mercy with others. Or maybe I’m saying it because I have been reading Dr. Ross Greene’s Collaborative Problem Solving. But if you’re prepared that your dreams of a blissful Mother’s Day are not going to be totally met, then you could be pleasantly surprised. For example, I expect:

1. That LuLu will melt down somewhere during the day. Mother’s Day is stressful for adoptive kids. Even those who don’t deal head-on with birthmom issues totally understand that the day is about honoring mothers, and that they have lost one. Think about adults who have lost their mothers and how difficult this day often is for them. Our emotionally-challenged special adoptive kids have the challenges tenfold. And sweet LuLu did not disappoint…she had a doozey of an explosion!
2. That Super Dad will buy me a funny card. And again this year he didn’t disappoint either. It had a detachable magnet that is now hanging on my fridge, and is pictured above. What a nice way to remind me that we are on the same team and we’re counting down to surviving until they are grown!
3. That whatever my gift is, it probably won’t fit. This was true again this year, as three out of the four blouses LuLu and Super Dad had acquired on Saturday were the wrong size. But this worked to my advantage when we returned them after lunch yesterday and I netted even more goodies!
4. That I won’t have to cook. This is the one expectation I hold on to, that Mother’s Day will include someone else preparing the meal. And I wasn’t disappointed…fresh guacamole and yummy margaritas…who could ask for more!
5. That whatever type of celebration/sermon they have at church will somehow fall short. Preachers who deliver Mother’s Day sermons should get combat pay. There is no way they can not get wounded or inflict wounds when traveling through such a landmine. This year it wasn’t too bad, no syrupy sweet sermons or indictments of mothers not parenting correctly. No portraits of the perfect mother for us all to compare ourselves with and fall short. Instead a message of women and prayer…a message to encourage us to pray more.
6. That the other kids may be absent or snarky as well. Mother’s Day isn’t the celebration around here that Father’s Day is, because I am the step-mom to some of my kids, and they are off spending the day with their mom (which is as it should be). And this year, for good measure, Kay was a bit agitated about school work and life in general, reminding me that she’s in the middle of her teenage angst and even seemingly “healthy” kids have a hard time on Mother’s Day.
7. That the true gifts of the day occur unexpectedly. For me, the greatest gift yesterday was the 2-hour nap that LuLu and I took after her explosion had subsided. And the weekend was filled with other unexpected blessings, including several hours in my house alone while the clan was out shopping on Saturday, and Friday night when Super Dad cleaned the kitchen from top to bottom.

So, Super Dad eyed me suspiciously when I thanked him last night for a great Mother’s Day. But I truly meant it. It was so much more than I expected.

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