My First Mother's Day

I kind of saw Mother's Day as like a bonus birthday. (I always wanted my birthday to be in May. Nice weather, school wasn't out yet but really close, no major gift-giving holidays right around the corner.) Then, it occurred to me that I'm not the only mom around here. In fact, we have four moms this year: me, two grandmothers, and a great-grandmother. So my thoughtful other half gave me Mother's Day on Saturday instead. While one set of grandparents watched the baby, we went out for breakfast, shopped at the mall, rode bikes, and generally lounged about the house. For my gift, I got some lovely flowers planted in a hand-painted coffee mug, which he helped the baby "carry" in.

Now Mother's Day itself felt like mission impossible. Despite the fact that we'd gone shopping on Friday, it occurred to us Saturday evening that oh, yeah, we have our own mothers and his grandmother to buy gifts for. I'm not kidding, we managed to walk all around a mall that advertised Mother's Day everywhere and not once did it cross out minds. We were so on top of it last year, we spent ten minutes just picking out the perfect cards.

So, here's how it goes down. I got the idea to get our mothers each an anthology that corresponded with the theme in JT's room at each of their houses. My mom would get Winnie-the-Pooh (that's her theme) and my mother-in-law would get Curious George (jungle theme). My grandmother-in-law would get a picture frame, with a set of photos. The bookstore opens at 10am, we're meeting for brunch at 11am.

8:30 Baby gets cereal
9:00 Hubby orders photos for 1-hour pickup online.
10:00 I go to the bookstore and buy the gifts and cards. (Thank you, reserve-online-pick-in-store thingy! You're a lifesaver!)
10:15-10:30 I get home and put gifts in gift bags (leftover from baby shower). We change the baby, put the baby in his car seat, toss a can of ready-to-feed formula in his diaper bag, and we're off.
10:45 Pick up the photos
11:10: Congratulate ourselves that we are merely ten minutes late and we actually have gifts and cards with us.
11:30 Remind ourselves to shop more than two hours before going to see our mothers. Wonder in JT will be any more cooperate at the restaurant when he's a toddler.