Mother's Day

It's Mother's Day, and a time to reflect on how much we appreciate our mothers, and mother figures in our lives. Now that I'm a mother, I truly do appreciate my own mom, and my grandmother (who passed away almost 5 years ago) and all that they did, and still do, for my siblings, for me, for my children. Being a mom is darn hard work. There's never an easy day. There's never a day off. There's not a moment's rest. (Even when I attempt to have five minutes of peace and relaxation in a bubble bath, there's a often a child or two who comes up to join before long.) And most of the time, much of our efforts go unnoticed.
Or so I thought...
It's been a rough week with Aisling. I swear my kids tag team each other on who will be the naughty child for the day or week. Aisling got tagged. She has been extremely difficult, between not eating dinner, to talking back, to not participating in dance class. Never mind the efforts to get her to use an "indoor" voice. That's not to say that Devlin and Ceilidh have been absolute angels either. There was the incident with the garden hose with Devlin. Ceilidh stomping around about something. Quinn is also starting to get in on the action. His latest? Throwing himself on the ground and cry to protest being brought indoors.
Like I said, it's been a not-so-quite calm time in our zoo.
At one point, over the din of the crying/screaming/whining, my ever faithful partner in this asylum stated, "You and I need a vacation, away from the kids!"
"Hah!" I answered. "Like they'd let us out of this place!"
Well, that started a whole other commotion.
Aisling wanted to know who would pack her lunch? Make her cheese sandwiches and put cookies in her lunch bag?
Aisling then wanted to know who would prepare her breakfast? I stated Devlin could, since he's started preparing breakfast for himself and his sister Ceilidh lately. (It's only toast, so let's not get too excited.)
Devlin protested he couldn't pour the milk. So we volunteered Ceilidh for that job.
Well, who would take care of Quinn?  Who would change Quinn's diapers? We told Devlin he'd have to learn, and he wasn't on board with that idea. Devlin also quite astutely pointed out he could not breastfeed his baby brother, so there was no way his mother could leave.
Ceilidh quietly took in this scene, saw the panic on her siblings' faces and loudly declared, "I'm making a new rule - NO ONE is going on vacation. That means, Mommy and Daddy can't leave us!"

So, maybe our kids do appreciate the little jobs we mothers and fathers do for our offspring. Maybe they do understand the sacrifices we make on a daily basis. Like, instead of watching television, we are chauffering them to dance, hockey, Cubs, and the like. Instead of going to bed, we're baking a batch of muffins to pack into their lunch box. Instead of getting caught up on the news, we're loading up the washing maching with yet another load, while signing permission slips and wracking our tired brains for a suitable (acceptable to picky palates) meal the next day. Do they appreciate that I spend my lunch hours at work running around the stores to pick up twisty cheese, birthday party gifts, and pyjama pants?

Maybe? One can only hope.

Oh well, at the end of the day, it's the big hugs and cuddles and declaration of undying love from our monkeys that make it all worthwhile.