And the Best/Worst Mom goes to...

Mother's Day was pretty good: Milo gave me his first wholly hand-written card "YOU ARE THE BEST MOM IN THE WHOLE WORLD". Awesome. This was THEN, of course, followed immediately by a major fit during which he screamed "you are the WORST MOM EVER if you don't find me a chocolate croissant for breakfast".

Did you catch that? Double SCORE! By doing NOTHING I get Two Championship Titles!!!

Zel only called me stupid a few times, in honor of my special day. Because that kid? Is 3-years-worth-of-crass. She tells her loving family, friends, and - to my immense pride - complete strangers that they are poop heads. Or stupid. Or that they can poop on their stupid heads. Or stupid on their poop heads. Which is basically a barrel full of awesome.

I keep hearing (and practicing) the "ignore it and it will stop" philosophy. We've tried the other stuff, the "we don't talk to other people like that", and even the "I think you need to spend some time in your room, young lady" stuff...so now I'm trying the ignoring it route. Sorry, people at the grocery store/park/school/doctor's office. She's just a little er, I don't know. Mainly, just don't cross the 3-year-old.

Jamie made me a pretty amazing breakfast in bed, and then we all went for a family bike ride on the river esplanade in Portland AND a hike in the hills. More awesome.

I also contacted my: adopted mom (she liked the flowers I sent her), birth mom (hope she liked the song Zel half sang on their answering machine), birth grandmother (very nice, and even SHE has seen Avatar - I am completely alone in my Avatarlessness, and yes I know it's overrated, but still...), birth step-mother (another message, because she is a very awesome, very patient, complete workaholic), and mother-in-law (ditto flowers).

The person I couldn't call, of course, was my little mama, my oldest sister and mother stand-in. But I spent some of the day thinking about her and all the ways she did a lot of de facto parenting of me. And thinking of/reaching out to her kids on what must have been a day similarly full of bittersweet.

For maybe the first time in my life, I think about Mother's Day as a holiday for me as a parent, and not strictly for the many many mothers in my life. Not that I don't celebrate them, but I think I finally see myself as a member of their ranks. I'm not sure why it took me 6 years of being a mother to get here, but woo! Apparently I'm the Worst Mother Ever, but DEFINITELY it was MY day to shine at it!