The Leatherkid Chronicles: My Mother's Day Gems

If I've learned anything in my 5+ years of being a mom it's that MY DAY just will not live up to the sun-is-shining and everyone's-smiling expectations that I may have for it. While I want my kids to enjoy planting flowers with me, I know they might "help" me for a short time only to discover that planting flowers doesn't just mean digging in and flinging dirt. I may look forward to a dinner at "B-Dubs" but am certain it will be tense throughout as we try to keep the kids in their seats, happy, if we even make it out to dinner at all.

Really, my expectations are that it will be like any other day, complete with timeouts and hugs, poor listening skills and small successes, big messes and surprising cooperation, tattle tells and best friends, sharp tongues and kisses, tears and smiles.

My Mother's Day, 2014, was pretty nice, really. Sure, it was comprised of the mix of the good and bad I described above. I also had breakfast in bed. I planted flowers and herbs in the yard and in planters. I went for a run on the prairie path with Cal and then shared a post-run PowerAde and cookies on the bench near Walgreens. I enjoyed a glass of wine. Yes, I was pretty content for most of the day on Mother's Day, except for a brief moment after I conceded that we would not be making it out to dinner due to misbehaving kids and a couple of parents not wanting to reward the misbehavior in any way (except that Dan did go pick up some "B-Dubs" for us to eat at home instead).

The best part of my Mother's Day, though, was being on the receiving end of these gems (below), hand-made cards and booklets from the kids. I absolutely eat these things up.