A Mother's Day

Our neighborhood is a neighborhood in transition.  Most of our immediate neighbors have lived here for 20 to 40 years.  Their kids are grown and most of their grandchildren are grown too.  Their houses are quiet, clean, and well kept, the lawns pristine. 

They don't have boy made stick forests enveloping their back yards

 or sticking wielding boys terrorizing the neighborhood.

I'm certain they don't have socks stuck to the side of their fireplace because their kids thought it would be a fun way to pass the time.

 And those well manicured lawns that are cut regularly on Mondays and Thursdays don't look like a tornado touched down overnight.  And I'm pretty sure we own the only mailbox in the entire subdivision wearing a pink dress because a certain 3 year thinks it looks pretty.

 No the neighbor's kids no longer get off the school bus wearing a marker mustache

 or run barefoot

 They are well past the princess stage

 and onion grass bouquets

 I've never seen one of our neighbors kids drag around their own "chair ladder"  so they could scale a castle wall

 or call for help when the castle wall is a little higher than they thought.

 They are past the swing phase

 The school art shows

 Preschool concerts.

 Sometimes I am too.  But then those same neighbors with the quiet, perfectly clean houses and manicured lawns and years of wisdom and experience behind them lament how fast the time went and how they miss those socks in unexpected places, those barefoot, stick wielding boys and little princesses and then I want nothing more than to savor these ordinary days when my kids think I am amazing and funny.

 I want to capture the love put into these homemade mother's day cards and sign.

 I want to remember waking up to breakfast in bed, everyone gathered on our bed and trying very hard to be kind to each other because after all it is Mother's Day.

 I want to remember the beautiful flowers and the kind words and the lovely gift of  white bowls and water pitcher that make me smile.

I want to remember the sweet song that our sweet 9 year old wrote and sang to me and that at least for today my kids think that I "make the stars look dull because I'm so bright, an amazing mother a beautiful light."

  Happy Mother's Day to all those Beautiful Mother's who make the stars look dull and here's to more ordinary days of barefoot kids, princesses, and stick wielding boys.