Mother's Day is NOT for the birds

For the birds-a saying that suggests something is meaningless or trivial

To all the mothers out there: Happy Mother's Day! 

Today, I enjoyed a full day with my children. We watched cartoons and cleaned the house. We went to church and played outside. We dug our hands in the dirt of our garden and replanted the pea plants so that they could climb along the fence rather than knot themselves together on the ground. We marveled over the little pods already growing on the vine (ok, truth be told, I did the marveling while Madeline and Lily collected snails and Aidan tried tying them up with dental floss) and I thought, "Wow, we grew those peas from seeds and look at them now!" And then I skipped inside with the tune of Smurfs la-la-ing in my head, wildly waving a pea pod in the air to show Hubbie Smurf and his brothers because I was THAT excited about our teensy weensy success, (knowing that when they are finally ready to eat, it will be all of ONE meal's worth of peas, minus the one I already pulled off, of course) and Brainy, after giving me a smurfy high-five, says, "You shouldn't pick them because they aren't ready yet." ...and just then I heard a little fizzle as the joy started to slowly deflate from my soul...

But then, on my way back out, it hit me that, wow, I grew these four beautiful children, far more impressive then at least a dozen green peas (that I am guessing the kids will spit out anyway), and look at THEM now! And then Hubbie Smurf redeemed himself by pointing out Lily: on her tip-toes, diaper hanging low from the weight of the sand in it, swinging a broom 3 times her body length at our make-shift bird feeder (a.k.a. Tupperware hanging from the tree) as if it were a pinata. I then noticed Aidan, squatting in his underwear to dig up dirt that would later find its way into Lily's mouth causing her to upchuck all over the yard and Madeline prancing around in her pretty, pink, velvety princess nightgown, holding a snail, and I smiled inside and out. Why would I want to spend Mother's Day in any other way?

To me, the greatest thing about being a mom is knowing that your life has meaning...sometimes you just have to dig a little deeper to find it.