My Mother's Day Fantasy

Aha!  Finally the day comes I’ve been waiting for all year…Mother’s day; a day that is dedicated to THANKING me for the tireless and sometimes thankless work of being a mom.  Today my friend asked me what my plans were for the day and I allowed myself a few minutes of unbridled, uncensored mind candy of what my obscenely lavish mothers day wishes would be…. Here are a few excerpts from my fantasy…

(I recognize they are LAVISH and EXCESSIVE and unlikely EVER to come true…but please, humour me…)

1.  A Guilt Free Day

For one day, JUST ONE DAY. I would like to choose a daytime activity that takes place between the hours of 9am and 12am and do it GUILT FREE.  (Just writing that makes me cringe).  For just ONE DAY I would like to do something that doesn’t’ immediately make me think I’m going to piss my husband off, garner criticism from my mother, or turn my children into disadvantaged hellions.  Just one day.  All day.  No matter what I choose to do.

Cause here’s what I’d choose to do…

2.  Sleep

I can’t REALLY imagine what it would be like to just sleep until I woke up on my own.  I wonder- how late would that be?  Would I MAYBE sleep all day?  Could I POSSIBLY make it till 9am without the influx of noise, guilt or routine interrupting me?  Doubtful.  But yet…an interesting thing to try.

3.  A Quiet Breakfast

I’d like to eat breakfast without having a child on my lap or without having to get up 5 times to get someone more cereal, a glass of juice, a cloth to clean up a spill or wipe a poopy bum.  (Toby ALWAYS manages to have his morning poo right as I’m about to take my first bite of  breakfast…)  And hey, while I’m asking for it, how about a breakfast in which no one cries over the colour of their cereal bowl or deems life completely unreasonable and unfair because their brother got the placemat with the frogs on it and you got stuck with the placemat with the rabbits on it.

4.  Two minutes of Private Urination

I’d like to pee in private.  Demanding, aren’t I?

5.   A  Shower in Solitude

A leisurely shower, perhaps with the luxurious time frame that could allow me to shampoo AND cream rinse my hair and…wait for it…shave. All at the same time.  Of course this would be GUILT FREE (see ludicrous request #1) and without having to carry on a conversation with EITHER kid OR husband at the same time.  I MIGHT have to accommodate this request immediately after #4 to maximize my chances of it happening…

6. A Chance to Read the Newspaper

I know I’ve been living under the proverbial “parental rock” for the past 5 years so I’m not sure that this is still an up to date request.  Do people still read the newspaper or is it all on line?  Cause I’d like to sit with a cup of coffee (or 2) and peruse the paper cover to cover, not just skimming it for the task of acquiring the-basics-needed-to-still-understand-what’s –going-on-in-the-world but to actually read an article just because I can and potentially MIGHT find it interesting.  And I’d like to have dark black smudgy fingers at the end of it just to PROVE it.

7.  A Change in Radio Stations

How about a change from Raffi and Serious Satellite Kids channel “the Animal Farm”.  Instead of listening to a pretend Llama share his woes about his neck and his fears about being touched how about the CBC.  Jian Gomeshi and Q would be just perfect…

8.  A Snack that I don’t have to share.  Like maybe a CHOCOLATE bar or a tall glass of JUICE or a handful of chips that I can grab whenever I please without having to endure simultaneous whining that I am not sharing it with THEM. 

9.  A bitchfest with the girls

Cause you know, there ain’t NOTHING more refreshing than a girls’ night bitchfest.

10.  Bedtime Exemption

Can you even IMAGINE the luxury of just SITTING there while someone else puts BOTH of your kids down?  Not because I had to work late and not because I’d done it on my own 4 times the week before.  But just cause.

Sigh.  As I look back on this list I realize that these requests are COMPLETELY unrealistic. Well, most of them at least.  Maybe the fact that the world grants you a day named after you make one feel the need to think up the most lavishly ridiculous things.  Perhaps if I was single and without kids and it happened to be “Single Lady’s Day” I’d envision equally unreachable things like hiring a private jet to go to France and drinking Dom Perignon for breakfast at the top of the Empire State building.

But just PICTURING that scenario it kind of makes me feel a little lost.  Cause really, how great can those things be if you don’t have a house full of loud, imposing rugrats to come home to? 

I guess that’s why we’re mothers.  And I guess that’s why the world names a day after us and doesn’t WORRY that there will be handful of abandoned children and angry dads around as we ludicrously lavish in the confines of our bathrooms in guilt-free-bliss for 24 hours.

And I guess that’s why this year, like every year, I can’t actually think of anything better than waking up to a chaotic, messy and loud attempt at breakfast in bed, complete with home made cards that I have been shown 5 times already (out of sheer excitement) and wet dirty faced kisses and smiles that accompany me all the way from bed, to the bathroom, to the shower and back. 

Being a mom means sacrificing a few basic human rights. But It also means being loved like you never knew possible.  I guess in that way every day is Mother’s day…