Reflection on a Mother’s Day Weekend

I asked for one thing for Mother’s Day. I find it ironic that I would ask for such a thing. You see, right before the trusty husband and I got married my soon to be MIL asked for one thing for Mother’s Day. A load of dirt. (I would now call said dirt soil, but that is for a Tuesday post.) When the truck arrived the dirt my soon to be MIL squealed with delight. This young teenager couldn’t figure out why someone would actually ask for a load of dirt on a day that is supposed to celebrate Moms. For years I pondered why she would ask for such a thing. My FIL is very good at gift giving. He is a regular at a local jewelry store. It wasn’t until this year that I realized why she would ask for such a gift. Dirt is expensive. When you don’t have hoards of disposable income you ask for such things at gift giving opportunities. If your significant other is going to buy you something it might as well be something you really really want. Thus dirt.

I asked for a load of bark for Mother’s Day. Honestly. I told the trusty husband the one thing I want for Mother’s Day was a load of bark for my garden. My garden hasn’t been mulched in 3 years. I didn’t get the bark.

Like dirt, bark is expensive. Especially the amount I need. In all honesty I need two dump trucks full. That’s 20 yards of bark. That much bark is not something that we truly can afford right now. More so since we had to buy my plane ticket to Alaska instead of using the free one as originally planned. So I didn’t get the bark.

Saturday I was pissed about it. I asked for one thing. I didn’t want extravagant jewelry. I wanted a load of bark. As we pulled weeds in the garden Saturday afternoon I bitched under my breath that I didn’t want to pull weeds, if I had a load of bark I wouldn’t have to pull weeds as often, blah blah blah. I was slowly but surely beating my husband down and making him feel bad that he couldn’t afford to buy the much coveted bark. Some wife I am huh?

By Saturday night I had forgotten all about the bark and Sunday morning I woke up a much happier person. The husband tried to teach the little boy how to say, “Happy Mother’s Day Mama.” He eventually got it. That was all the gift I needed. We spent the day together at IKEA looking for bookshelves and big boy beds (neither of which we could find). We feasted on a lunch of meatballs and lingonberry sauce and I can honestly say I didn’t need much more than that.

The trusty husband did take some time to go out and buy me a few gifts and over our lunch he told me my gifts had an abstract theme. He’s a little nerdy like that. As I started to open my gifts I tried to figure out the theme. From my little boy I received a handbag that I slobbered over in the window of a downtown store. From the trusty husband I received a new pair of jeans and two (RED) campaign shirts. My guess was “hot mom.”

Nope.

The theme was “things I wouldn’t buy for myself.” It was true. I slobbered all over the handbag, but couldn’t bring myself to buy it. It was not expensive by any means. I looked through all of the (RED) shirts the other night at the mall, but thought it was frivolous to buy clothing for myself. I longed for the jeans, but said they were too expensive and put them back. And my last gift… the trusty husband bought me a hanging basket. It has all pink flowers, because “moms deserve pink” and “it goes with my pink/purple themed window boxes.”

So bark is nice, but what I appreciate most is that I got to spend the day with the two most wonderful men in the world. I also appreciate that my husband took the time to think of me.