I spent about 4 hours last night and this morning setting up a digital photo frame I purchased for my mom for Mother’s Day. (It’s a safe bet she’s not reading my blog regularly… turning on the computer can still be a bit of a challenge for her on some days…) I have pictures loaded and I am going to send it “ready to plug in and play”. I can add more pictures using my laptop or digital memory cards when we visit in the future. This picture of her is one of them that I put in the digital frame.


Mother’s Day is, as I mentioned previously, a good holiday for me. I love celebrating my role as Mom, and I love my mom and celebrating her. I asked some of the moms on ATN’s listserves what Mother’s Day meant to them, and here is what they said:

* I have one of those wonderful Moms who pressed the slightly wilted wild flowers in her Bible and taped my lopsided finger paintings to the refrigerator. She treasured my gifts and I learned to feel treasured and blessed.


Later, Mother's Day connections grew to include my own children. I learned that a daisy squished inside a crayoned card is fine art. I taped their gifts to the refrigerator door and I felt really blessed.


When the grandchildren began to arrive, the Mother's Day connections got longer and even more beautiful. Mother's Day celebrations began to include 5 generations! The display of cards and posies grew too big for the refrigerator door. I learned to feel really really blessed.


A few Mother's Days later, the Bipolar RADish popped up. Now the refrigerator door features reminders of mental health appointments, a note to call the detention teacher, "I hate you" scribbled in permanent marker, today's behavior chart, and a daily grooming checklist I'm trying to get him to follow. This year I probably won't have a lot of time to feel the blessing. But I do know that I am indeed blessed and that, strange as it seems, he is an important part of that blessing.


Excuse me, I need to close now. There are blue flashing lights in my drive way ... yet again.


* A day of jumbled emotions; feeling proud of what a strong loving mom I am, thankful that God has trusted me with my daughters, sad that my daughters cannot embrace my love, and hopeful that someday they can...I am ever hopeful for that day.


* I remember my Mother who for the first 36 years of my life was NOT a good mother. However, this awesome woman changed. She spent the last three years of her life apologizing and validating what had happened to my sister and me when we were at home. And with those sincere apologies, my sister and I healed. And we learned to trust and we learned to love, adore, and respect our mother.


* I used to hate Mother’s Day...after all I wasn't a mother. After I got the kids, it seemed I was suddenly in a club. I didn't fit in though. My kids were far from "normal", I wanted to fit in, so I tried to pretend everything was great. After all, I was the only one who saw the bad side of things. Once I found Little Zebras (one of ATN’s listserves), I finally felt like I fit in. I still feel like a fraud on Mother’s Day though.


* Tough question you have posed! I have to say that Mother’s Day seems more important to me now with my emotionally troubled kids than it ever did with my 4 bio kids. I guess I got so much back from my bio kids that I didn’t feel I needed special acknowledgement on Mother’s Day (though I of course appreciated it). Now, I feel like I NEED to be recognized on Mother’s Day for all the stuff I put up with through the year. It is bittersweet though. On one hand, my kids are pretty good about making the day positive for me, but on the other hand, it makes me feel sorry that my relationship with them isn’t better by now. After four years, there are still too many days where I have to fake it and/or get up the energy to go full throttle therapeutic mom. It is exhausting. So, to answer your question, what does Mother’s Day "mean" to me? It's a day to thank my mother for all her love and support over the past year, to wish I got the same from my mother in law, to take a moment and catch my breath, to thank God for my blessings while asking Him for healing for my family.

Here’s wishing you a happy Mother’s Day, whatever that means to you!