Mother's Day trauma

Well hello March.  At last I am starting to feel warmer, spring is definitely in the air and the sun is shining here in Scotland.

I love the month of March.  Jack was born in March, on Mother's Day in fact. Since he was born, Mother's Day didn't fall on his birthday again until two years ago.

Since my mum died, I dread Mother's Day.  When I get a calendar at Christmas time, that's the first date I look up so that I know what date it is going to be and I get any march birthday cards early so that I can avoid the stands containing those dreaded cards.

This year when I looked at the calendar, no mother's day date, anywhere, at all!  Then I came to the conclusion that it must be because I have an Anne Geddes calendar and since she is Australian, maybe the dates are different there.

So I searched my diary and still no date!  Confused or what?  Now I am peed off cos how can I avoid the dreaded date, when I don't even know when it is!

I mentioned this to my friend Kathy who then informs me that "guess what? Mother's Day is in April this year!!".  I am totally gobsmacked! WTF????  How can this be, it's always been in bloody March!

I have to admit, since my mum died, I have noticed that the date for mother's day has been a bit erratic.  It always used to be the third Sunday in March but over the last 5 years it has been at the beginning of the month, half way and even near the end.  I mean, what is going on?

So this is my question people.  Who decides?  Is there a wee guy/lady in a wee office somewhere with a giant calendar trying to mess with my groove?  Is it just pot luck, as in they blindfold themselves and just wave their finger around, just point to the damn calendar and where their finger lands is where mother's day is? Or is it to do with the planets? Or is is science?  Tell me cos I need to know!  Is it connected to Easter cos again that used to be in the middle of  April and now it is at the end of March.  Seriously, whoever has the job, I just want you to know that you are seriously f**king with my chi!!!!

source

Anyway, I digress.  I was going to tell you about two years ago when Jack's birthday landed on Mother's Day for the first time since he was born.  My mum's birthday was the day before, 21st and Jack's birthday/mother's day was the day after.

The day of my mum's birthday, Saturday, was spent running around buying supplies for his birthday party and collecting the cake.  I had ordered an ice cream cake cos he was really struggling to eat at that point but when I went to collect it, they had ordered the wrong size!  The cake was lucky if it would feed 6 people as opposed to the 10+ people who were coming to his party.  Eeeek! Panic set in but then Kathy, who is a chef, calmed me down and said that we could give the ice cream cake to the kids and she would make a Baked Alaska for the adults. Phew!  Thank god for friends!

the very small birthday cake!!!

We had been so busy, had been in and outta shops/supermarkets all day and we were just driving home when  I realized that I had forgotten to buy flowers for my mum's grave.  Kathy was all for going back to to the flower shop or the supermarket but I had truly had enough of shopping by this time so as I was driving out of Forres (a town 12 miles from Elgin), I spotted some wild daffodils growing by the side of the road.

Quickly I pulled in and Kathy looked at me as if I had gone mad.  I explained that we were going to pick these daffodils, cos they were my mum's favourite flower and lets just hope we don't get caught!  As we set to work, a bus full of passengers pulled up on the opposite side of the road and people were giving us a good eyeballing but I was so intent that I didn't even notice them.  Soon we both had quite a good bunch of daffodils each, so we dived back into the car and sped off.  As we were driving along, Kathy commented that "she was sure it was against the law to pick wild flowers by the road side" and I laughing said "I'm not sure, I know it is!!!!" as I cracked up laughing.

We both giggled all the way to the cemetery in Elgin, like a pair of naughty school girls.  Kathy, who had the daffodils on her lap, soon had a lovely wet patch there and we figured it was a wee bit of Karma for stealing them.  We both agreed that my mum would have found this highly amusing and probably would have done the same thing herself if she had been in my position. All this laughter meant I was able to cope with being at her grave on her birthday.  Three years had gone by, at that point, since she had died and I still found it really really hard.  Instead of being sad that day, I was giddy from the laughing at the thought of her reaction to her 'stolen' daffodils.  It turned out to be a really good day.

Myself and Kathy, partners in crime

The next day, Jack's birthday/mother's day we were up early preparing for Jack's party.  Kathy took this opportunity to inform me that she had never made a Baked Alaska. Eeeekkkkkkkkk! So we looked up the recipe on the internet and she had a go anyway.

it turned out pretty good eh

The day went really well, his cake was yummy and the Baked Alaska even better.
Jack was pretty flat for the first half of the day but he rewarded me with the biggest smile and it just melted my heart.

getting ready to smile at me....

A big cheesy birthday grin!

The two days I had dreaded were not so bad after all.