Mothers Day Report

My goodness. Busiest Mother’s Day ever. Loved it. Cherished it. Heartwarming. Gooey. Moosh. But … BUSY!

The triplets are eating solids. Three.meals.a.day. AND they.still.breastfeed. Tick tock, tick tock. More time is required to accomplish all these everday tasks.

Which makes it a tad tricky getting out the door for church. The truth is, we have always found it tricky getting to church on time. Getting to church on time with triplets. A lot more tricky. Not impossible, but very rare occurence. Now with feeding solids there’s an extra challenge. I’m sure in time we will sort a rocking red hot routine. We are certainly not there yet. I’m still at the lining three up, showing rice cereal in as fast as possible. (Baby girl refuses to be hurried.) Spoonful toT1, Spoonful to T2, Spoonful to T3, repeat, repeat, repeat… Of course T3 (baby girl) interrupts the rhythm, therefore decreasing her share in the rice cereal goodness. Other interruptions to the rhythm include sneezing (Otherwise known as “Let’s see how far we can spatter food in as many directions as possible), twisting and turning in the seat to put mouth in the most difficult to reach place, and crying because “the spoon is taking too long to reach my mouth and I’m so hard done by because I’m a triplet and I have to share all the time” often results in the irony of delaying the food reaching the mouth. To hurry the process up today, The Accountant and I had one bowl and two spoons and we were both stuffing food into the three hungry mouths as quickly as we could. If the mouth was empty, we’d stuff a spoonful of rice cereal its way.

You can speed up breakfast, but there’s always going to be dirty nappies to slow you down. And then of course there’s still the two older boys that need to be dressed, fed, questions answered, figting to be dealt with.

Oh, and there was also the important task of gift giving that happened Mother’s Day morning before church. This would be one of the heartwarming moments I mentioned. J Boy, was ultra proud to give his card and keyring chain that he made at school – packaged in “a very lovely envelope, because look, there are lots of lovely things stuck all over it. You can keep it forever.” (J Boy’s words.)

My boy and I – PJ Perfect!

 Oh, and it turned out Mother’s Day was foot warming as well as heartwarming. I got the classic Mother’s Day gift – slippers! Lovely pink wool ug boots. I’ve so been enjoying walking on them before the wool is squashed in. It’s like walking on clouds!

Anyway, we got to church about half an hour late I think. A tad embarrasing. Because you know, there’s no way of making a discreet entry when you’ve triplets. Even if you are ‘slipping into the back row’. For now, we celebrate that we still make it to church. Getting there on time. It will come.

I was fondly remembering as I walked into the service, my announcement to the church last year telling the church I was pregnant. During the service all mothers who had babies in the last 2 1/2 years were asked to stand. I did, holding up three fingers. Later I realised I’d miscounted. I’ve had four babies in the last 2 1/2 years. Way to go Caitlin!

As always, I never take motherhood for granted on Mother’s Day. (See here for why Mother’s Day makes me reflect back on my struggle with infertility.) I read some great blogs this year reflecting this sentiment. If you want to reflect on how Mother’s Day can be difficult for some, hop on over to sugercoatit and messymiddle

I don’t think that the fact that just because the day can be heartbreaking for some, it should be any less celebrated. Yes, we need to be sensitive, but also motherhood should be celebrated in fullness. Motherhood is worth that.

I think that just because the day is difficult for some, does not diminish the joy that can be enjoyed by so many mothers. For me, I looked forward to this day for so long. I cried because I couldn’t celebrate it, and now I can, I make the most of it and cherish every moment.

I read another article this week by a childless UK woman this week saying mother’s shouldn’t whinge because they are so lucky, and others miss out on kids. As much as I acknowledge her pain and the heartbreak of being childless. I can’t agree that mother’s shouldn’t ‘whinge’. After all, if she has a right to whinge about other’s whinging, well, it’s automatically not fair, isn’t it? Everyone should be able to vent with that which they are finding difficult. Childless couples should be able to talk about their hurt as much as mothers shouldn’t bottle up their struggles. You can be grateful for the chance to be a mother while at the same time as being frustrated with the fact that there’s poo smeared over your child, food squashed to the wall, kids screaming and you have a throbbing headache. Sensitivity is the key. If you knew that someone was struggling with the lack of children in their life, well, don’t rub it in. Although, I must admit, when I was childless, I had a friend who wouldn’t talk about her kids very much at all to me. She was trying to be sensitive, but I found it hurtful. She couldn’t talk to me about what she did every day any more. She wouldn’t share her struggles and triumphs. She shut me out of the most important aspect of her life. Consequently, the friendship died a natural death. I just no longer felt comfortable sharing all about my life to her because the conversation was not reciprocated.

Anyway, I digress. Seems like I’m feeling opinionated tonight!

To sum up the rest of my Mother’s Day, my sisters and our families went out to lunch with Mum, Nana and my Mother-in-law. It was lovely, and of course it’s always super dooper when you don’t have to cook or clean up.

The rest of the day was fairly ordinary. The Accountant had a long sleep in the afternoon, leaving me with the kids – I suppose fitting that I should mother on mother’s day. I hadn’t prepared anything because I thought that hubby was making dinner with J Boy, who was wanting to do a candlelit dinner. Obviously my son is more romantic than my husband, and with the babies being fed their solids and breastfed, bathed and put to bed, we ended up having leftovers, and I was breastfeeding and ate after the rest of the family anyway. (A familiar scenario at the moment, the babies always seem to be ready to settle down during dinnertime.) No candles present.

So what are your perspectives on Mother’s Day. What did you do on this day in 2012? And another little question – just curious – I’ve added a lot of links in this post – did you click on any?