Moms Only See The Rainbows

It was my mom's birthday on January 31. She's an angel on earth. Anyone who has met her would agree with that 100%. And for that I am blessed. The earth was given a gift the day she was born. She has taught me so many things and I bet she doesn't even realize how many. Her approach to life is to embrace everything with love, kindness, understanding and hope. She aches for her family, even still, even as we age. Our choices aren't always what she would want for us, but she loves us all with more heart than a body could hold. Always wanting life to be just a little easier for every one of us. And yet, she sees all the good, even if it's covered in dirt and pain and frustration, she sees it there and picks it up every time. Stuffing it in her pocket, not making any noise about it, but knowing that just by being in her presence it will be saved and made whole again. I all too often hear people complain about their mothers and how annoying or bothersome they can be and I just can't imagine not having this sweet and wonderful woman as my mom. I look at my boys and see the closeness we share everyday and it's hard to imagine myself even in those shoes as a child. Sharing that kind of bond with someone and then I realize that I did share that and I do share that. The wholeness of the relationship I have with my mom has just become so much a part of my makeup that I don't even recognize it as a conscious act. It just is. I love her so very much, she is my queen. I hope she always knows my undying devotion, admiration and respect for her and I can only pray that I am the mom to my boys that she is to me.

Knowing my mom as well as I do, I knew that all she would want for her birthday is time. So I took my mom out for lunch and some shopping the day after her birthday. We talked a lot about her upbringing. She was also blessed with an amazing mom. But she told me more about their migration to Ontario, Canada from Mexico in the back of a 3 ton truck, when she was just a young girl. Her and her whole family were brought here to essentially work as slaves in fields. They even lived outside for the first couple weeks, in that field, sleeping around a fire at night. Their parents staying awake at night to make sure the fire wouldn't go out. I asked her if they were not discouraged. "Nope. It was an adventure for us kids. The field was beside the dump and that meant we ate better than we ever had in our lives." Wow. Again with the rainbows. I aspire to be like her. I also think it might be time to dig into our genealogy.

Here she is with my boys. They absolutely adore her.

I volunteered at school today, like I do every Monday and was kind of having a revelation of my own. Every Monday, like all Mondays, was filled with "how was your weekend?" And as I was saying fine, I was trying to recall my weekend. Then I did and I remembered that during the weekend, I had many many moments of utter despair but at that moment and when I woke up this morning, I felt refreshed and hopeful, remembering a fine weekend. We really didn't do much. We definitely didn't do what we expected to do.

Saturday we went and got some new snow helmets for the boys and some skates for Jake. Aaron spotted a bicycle in Canadian Tire and before we even knew it he was on it. He can't ride a two wheeler yet. He doesn't trust himself enough. We have tried and tried and it just isn't worth the fight anymore. He will when he is ready. So he rides with training wheels very well. He's scooting down the aisle and not listening to us. We get upset. He freaks out and is way off the deep end. What should just be a quite little correction from us, has resulted in a huge blow up from him and plenty of looks from others. Always fun. I got a lovely judgemental, your kid is an ass look from one man. I don't pass those by anymore. I gave him one back and said, "My son has aspergers." I saw a lady smirk and shake her head at the man's insensitivity, then she gave me a knowing smile. She knew what I meant and possibly what I was dealing with. That's all it takes.

So, in an effort to recover the day we planned a pizza and movie night at home. But, as it turns out, there was too much fighting and we watched the whole movie in 10 minute spurts because someone had to pee, someone had to whine, someone needed this, someone needed that, the dogs needed to go out, someone wanted a blanket, someone needed a drink, mommy was frustrated and done. There was fighting and carrying on and I kept thinking, why do we have to fight even just to have a nice evening? Why are we forcing them to enjoy themselves? Bedtime was no better. Whining for this and that and the other thing. Ugh.

Sunday we were going to go skating, but the boys could not focus enough to just get ready. Then Adam got it in his head that we should go swimming instead. Which was out of the question. This momma hadn't shaved her legs. Wow, did he scream. And when he has his mind set on something, he sees nothing else. So, we calmly told them one last time, "We are ready to go skating. If you don't get ready now, we aren't going anywhere." They didn't get ready. We didn't say another word and we didn't go anywhere. The looks on their faces about an hour later when they discovered that we weren't going anywhere, was absolutely priceless. It was a victory on our part. They were pissed off, but they saw that we weren't backing down and quickly dropped the subject. We had dealt with enough from the day before that we just weren't going to put up with anything. They instead resisted many other things last night and fought us tooth and nail on a few. When bedtime rolled around, we were very ready to say good night.

Then something magical happened. They went to sleep perfectly last night. Hugs, kisses, snuggles, love all around. And that's all it took for me to see the rainbow. I had a great weekend.