A Perfect (to me) Mother's Day

It's funny how your perception of a perfect day can change from year to year. Before I had kids, I pictured the perfect Mother's Day being breakfast in bed, a gift and/or flowers of some sort, a meal at a nice restaurant, perhaps a little pampering. Now that I have a three-year-old and a newborn, my list was a bit, well, different.

First of all I was thrilled to start off the day by sleeping in until 8:30 (after being up multiple times feeding Lucy the night before and being woken by Violet at 7:30, at which time Kev got up with her) At 8:30 Lucy gave me my second wake up call, but like I said - thrilled to have gotten that extra hour. Then I got my second gift of the day when I came downstairs to find that my first born had been bathed (yes! clean toddler - I didn't have to sit on the bathroom floor and wrangle a squirmy wet slippery kid who just wants to play unhindered while simultaneously trying to de-grime her! Seriously, toddlers are really the stickiest people ever.)

I did end up getting flowers (thanks Mom and Kev!), so there's that, but to be honest, that was just gravy - it wasn't on my must-have list. The best thing was to see the look of delight on Violet's face when she showed them to me:

At that point Kev dressed Violet and whisked her off to see the alpacas who were visiting the local fairgrounds last weekend. I was in heaven and tweeted about how happy I was to be showering alone. Then I realized that a) I hadn't peed yet that morning and b) I now considered showering with my newborn in the carseat next to me and reaching out every five minutes to replace her pacifier as being "alone".

When they got back we all went to the local Mother's Day street fair together. It's nothing super special - just a lot of fair food, random crafty vendors, and some kids' stuff, but it's become a tradition for us for the past three years now. Actually three years ago I was hugely pregnant (a week overdue) and walking the streets of that same fair trying to encourage Violet to make her appearance so that I wouldn't have to be induced (and went into spontaneous labor that night!), so it felt pretty special to be there with Violet and our newest addition.

The highlight of the fair was getting Violet's face painted. We shelled out ten bucks for this swirly (red and blue) eye, and we weren't entirely convinced she was even going to stay still for it, but she was literally LIKE A STATUE. Didn't flinch. Didn't move a muscle. We were sooo proud and she was ecstatic when she saw herself. (She sat in the back of the car the whole way home gazing into my little makeup mirror and singing Snow White songs to herself. Oh, and she's still wearing her makeup...two days later. It pretty much looks like we punched her in the eye at this point.)

Lucy hung out in the Moby Wrap the whole time and slept like a champ. Seriously, that thing is magic. And more magic: Violet actually ate a pit pork sandwich and more importantly liked it and managed to hold her pee until Kev could run to a nearby restaurant to find out that it was closed, run to a police officer to ask where to take our kid to pee, and finally run waaaaay down the street to another restaurant that thankfully was actually open. All in all I'd say it was a successful outing even though it ended with me carrying her (with Lucy still in the Moby Wrap) back to the car crying and screaming because it was past nap time and she wanted to "do more games". (We hadn't played a single game other than getting her face painted and putting her in a bounce house for about two seconds before she came out crying that it was "too bouncy")

Luckily after aforementioned singing to herself in the mirror, she fell asleep in the car before we got home and Kev managed to transfer her to her bed without waking her, I nursed Lucy to sleep, and we all took a well-deserved evening nap. Well, except for Kev who ran out to get us blue nail polish for our first Mommy/daughter pedicure, chocolate chip cookie dough, and a hot, gooey pizza for dinner (thanks honey!)

That night Kev and I laid in bed whispering about our two beautiful girls and perhaps someday adding another beautiful babe to the family. The perfect ending to a perfect day. It might not sound perfect to some I know, but perfection is in the eye of the beholder, and even though I've traded in my list for clean kids and cookie dough, I wouldn't change any of it for the world. xo, Lauren