I've been looking forward to blogging today. But this is the third try because somehow I can't seem to capture the essence of Mother's Day. I've decided to tell two stories that seem to capture it pretty well.
Both of these stories took place at "our park" which is our nickname for the park in our neighborhood. It's a great park. The equipment is just OK, but Sarah always seems to make a friend there, and I do too.
-Story #1 - A family had brought some bubbles to the park and the dad was making big bubble storms for all the kids to run through. (Another perk of "our park" is that everyone in the neighborhood has an unwritten rule that everyone should share everything. Most people just leave their sand toys there all the time for everyone to use. The bubble storm was for everyone.) Another mom and I started chatting and, within about two minutes, we were in a deep conversation about what would be the ideal schedule for working vs. raising kids as we pondered the possibility of a life without mom guilt. We both shared that our husbands were probably better suited to being the "mostly stay-home" parent but that isn't how it worked out.
This woman was a total stranger, but also sort of not after a minute or two. One of the absolute best and unexpected joys of motherhood are these new instant friendships, and most especially the new instant friendships that have become lifelong friendships.
-Story #2 - There was a man at the park hitting golf balls. This is not a usual activity for our park because the park is rather small if it seems highly likely that you could bonk a small child on the head. The mom from Story #1 and I theorized that the man had been sent to the park with his kid and brought his golf stuff along thinking it would be boring at the park (which it sort of is but suck it up, dude.) This theory was confirmed by the bubble-dad who went over and asked after he had to stop blowing bubbles because he was getting lightheaded.
After a while, golf dad's kid got bored and started to run after the golf balls. Sarah joined right in and ran over to get a sand bucket to help gather up the balls. As the kids ran around with the bucket collecting the balls, I thought to myself "I hope this dad doesn't decide it would be a fun idea to try to chip the balls into the bucket while the kids are holding it" which is exactly what happened as I'm sure you predicted right along with me.
So - I went over and got Sarah and said "Come on honey, this is not a good idea." I think she must have agreed because she followed me right away. At this point, golf dad walked over and wanted to demonstrate that the golf balls were made of plastic and would not hurt. He emphasized this point by throwing a golf ball at me and saying "See? No problem." In what felt like an out-of-body experience, I let him know that if he hit my daughter with a golf ball, we were actually going to have a very, very big problem.
Nobody messes with my child on Mother's Day. Or any other day for that matter. It wasn't until hours later did it occur to me that he had actually hit me with a golf ball but somehow that seemed OK in comparison to him hitting Sarah with a golf ball.
We had a great day, Sarah and I. Even thought I did think it would be nice to have a day to myself, I am very glad I got to spend the whole day with my wonderful daughter instead.
Happy Mother's Day.
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