He's here because he wants to be

This last week has been an odd build up to today, Mother's Day.

I was supposed to be off on a driving trip today with my husband. This meant any MDay celebratory activities would need to be taken care of early. My stepson and daughter-in-law came Thursday to do Chinese food with us and brought me a great card and very thoughtful gift, a bag of trip related things-to-do, crosswords, magazines, and a trip agenda book. I was thrilled. I love gifts that are thoughtful and my stepson has a way of just pegging me when it comes to gifts.

I did pedicures with my mom on Wednesday and bought her dinner after. The pedicures were a gift from my daughter-in-law and stepson from Christmas so mom and I decided to use them together (like this was ever in question). I'd had a long day at work so although the pedicure was nice, the company was trying, especially when I stupidly announced that I'd heard there was to be a big announcement May 5th that some celebrity was going to come out in a well planned media campaign. Ahh, yes, I bring it on myself. This of course led to my mom talking about how there's too much homosexuality on tv these days, why even on her favorite show now they have a bunch of gay men, and, oh the men are so much worse than the women......which leads me to feel compelled to embarrass my mom as much as she's embarrassing me and say, "oh c'mon mom, admit it, the guys bug you more because two women kind of turn you on".

After we (not my mom) had a laugh at that, the beautiful young woman doing my pedicure assured me that she could hear her dad saying just the exact same things as my mom.

When we were done and kinda dry but not dry enough to put shoes and socks on I realized I'd not brought sandals so shuffled out to my car in the big, dumb, disposable sandals they'd given me hoping my nails would be dry by the time we got to the restaurant. They weren't.

As I fussed and fretted about wearing these ridiculous sandals into the restaurant my mom assured me it was fine, it would be dark, nobody would notice, so I sucked it up and shuffled my way on in. Immediately upon entering, the young woman seating us eyes darted down at my feet (yes they did, YES they did, YES THEY DID!) but quickly looked back up and led us to our table. Upon sitting, my mom announces she'll be right back, she really must get to the bathroom and PUT SOME LIPSTICK ON. But...it's dark..nobody will notice....

After ordering, our waiter tells us to help ourselves to the soup bar...what!?!? I have to get up and walk around again?!? Mom assures me it's not so bad, nobody will even notice, it's dark, blah blah blah, so I'm hungry and let her talk me into it. We head over and make our selections, I'm slower and mom has already headed back so as I turn to shuffle back to our table as inconspicuously as possible there's mom, chatting with some guy. As I walk toward them with the intent of movin' on by without stopping they both look at me and the guy says, "ahh I see both you and your daughter got pedicures". Sigh.

So back to today. I'm still here, and, it's still Mother's Day. After telling my mom yesterday that we were not going to be able to leave today, that the stuff she's sending with me to give to my sister can be brought today and why doesn't she stay and have pancakes since it's MDay. Needless to say she's thrilled, "it's just not right that you be away on Mother's Day". When I reminded her that SHE'S been away on Mother's Day, that I packaged up a bunch of special treats for her to open and have on her special day one particular year she was away she replied, "oh, I guess I should go out and get you some stuff for your trip" to which I said no mom, you don't have to do anything for me on Mother's Day, I'm not your mother. She'll bring me something anyway.

The delay in plans was helpful to my son, for which I'm glad. I hate people doing things for me out of obligation or missing out on something else because they had to do Mother's Day early for me, because of me. He and his girlfriend had plans yesterday which they were able to keep and now he'll be here with me, my husband and my mom pigging out on pancakes and bacon. He better not spend a bunch of money that he doesn't have on gifts because for me the true gift on Mother's Day is having my son look at me with love and truly knowing he's there because he wants to be, not because he has to be.