Mother's Day

We had such a fun Mother's Day weekend, I'm sad now that its over.  The holiday kind of snuck up on me this year.  In all honesty, Mother's Day wasn't even on my radar until embarrassingly close to the actual day and then it was just me panicking about getting something to our moms...

Fortunately,  a couple weekends back, the husband took the boy to our university's art museum for a "Mother's Day Art Project"  and they made a gift for his mom (and for me, although I didn't realize it.)  So that was covered.  For my mom, I had Otto paint a sweet picture and then write his name on it (I know! He's writing his name!  Squee.).  I framed that and sent it off with a homemade card.

For me, however, the boys really went above and beyond.  On Saturday, we drove down to Denver to the Butterfly Pavillion.  It wasn't as impressive as say, the Zoo or the Downtown Aquarium but for the money, it was a wonderful thing to do together.  They had a room with live exhibits of tarantulas, cockroaches, millipedes, centipedes and other bugs from all over the world.  It was equally gross and fascinating for me.  Otto, of course, loved it.  He was especially intrigued by a tarantula named Rosie that an employee was holding in her hand and allowing (older) kids and parents to touch. 

The butterfly rain forest was one of the most peaceful indoor spaces I've ever been in.   So many beautiful butterflies and flowers and water features. 

They also had a big, open play area with a special section just for kids under 5.  There were coloring activities and things to climb on and more cool bug/worm/spider exhibits.  Otto pretty much ran around willy-nilly like he was on crack and/or copious amounts of sugar.

After that, it was lunch out and then some shopping at Whole Foods where we carefully chose sea bass steaks to grill that night.  Of course, when we got back up to Wyoming, the weather was too shitty to grill (i.e., cold, windy, and generally disgusting) so the husband improvised and pan seared the sea bass.  It was, of course, awesome.

Oh, and he bought me flowers.  Aw.

Sunday morning, I slept in, woke up to an empty house and discovered that the husband and the boy had taken the grocery list and the shopping bags and were doing the weekly trip.  Yipee!  I lay around like a woman of leisure, sipping coffee (that was already made and waiting for me) and reading the paper.

Later that morning, we had a trip to the park, a picnic in the front yard (because the weather decided to cooperate for a couple of hours), a gift of a painted flower pot from Otto (from the before mentioned Art Museum Day), a family nap, and another amazing dinner cooked by my man  (pork satay, jasmine rice, and salad). 

Oh!  And we also went to Otto's first peer birthday party.  A little girl in his class at daycare invited him and a couple others on Sunday and it was really fun!   I wasn't sure what to expect and I was really worried I might have to make small talk with other parents (oh the horror!) but the Husband went with me.  The theme and trinkets were little over the top for my tastes (Disney themed complete with Mickey Mouse ears, balloons, games, favors, cupcakes, pinata, buffet...etc.) but the gathering itself was super enjoyable and surprisingly relaxed considering it was a bunch of 2-3 year olds and their parents.  It helped that two of our friends are related to the little girl and were there to take the pressure off having to talk to strangers (scary!!).

And that, in a (very large) nutshell, was Mother's Day.  I do realize that I'm so lucky to have the family I do.  I know that Mother's Day is hard for many women for many different reasons.   And also lucky, I realize, to have such a good relationship with my Mom and that she's here.   (She lost her own mom to stomach cancer when she was pregnant with me).   We may not live physically close but we talk at least once a week and she's always there for me.