The Mother's Day that I remember!

Mother's Day - the day my husband tells me "You're not my mother!" when I ask him what we are doing. I don't think I should be the one making the plans for that day, I make them the other 364 days of the year.

How many Mother's Days are actually memorable? Think about it, what did you do last year, three years ago for Mother's Day? I couldn't tell you - my guess is my son was working and I know at least one of those years I did a brunch at the house for family - I remember that because I did the work.

I have two memorable Mother's Days that standout, mostly because I actually remember them, not because they were particularly bad or good, just memorable. The first was when my son was about four. We did a lot of hiking then and I had a book of day hikes in Maine to do with kids. I pulled the book out and choose a hike in Brownfield (I think that's where it was -somewhere over towards Fryeburg.) I packed up our lunch, snacks and water and we drove over to the mountain. I noticed when we arrived in the parking lot of the abandon ski area that there were no cars. That's funny I thought, nice day like this.

I never really liked hiking alone with my son because what if something happened to me, it's not like a 4 year old can carry me back down or go for help on his own. For some reason we (ok I) decided to go up anyway. So we are hiking on what was a chair lift trail and it's muddy. I mean suck your shoes off your feet muddy. We are on the trail for maybe 45 minutes and it starts to get really narrow and harder to follow. At least we have the chair lift poles to follow. My inner voice is starting to say "abort, abort" but we keep trudging through the mud up the hill. The trail finally gets to the point that it isn't a trail and just as I say to my son, "I think we should go back down," I see a snake and I scream. I hate snakes, bugs and spiders - they gross me out and make me shake in disgust.

So we turn around and go back to the car, drive to Naples and eat our lunch beside Long Lake. Later that night when I was looking through the book, I discover that there are addendum pages in the back and we were actually on the wrong side of the mountain. Lesson learned. I also discovered a tick on my back while getting into the shower that night. Nice - great Mother's Day hike.

The other Mother's Day I remember fondly was one a few years later. I decided that we would spend the day at the ball park. So we go to the Sea Dogs game and it starts to rain. It's cold and raw and I really am not much into baseball anyway - but I figure my son likes it. So we sat in the rain and ate soggy hotdogs until my son said "I'm really wet, can we leave?"

Of course we can leave - it's Mother's Day - I can do whatever I want!

Happy Mother's Day - go do something memorable!

My Little Crayfish

Rosa refuses crawl forward. Instead, she finds anything to hide underneath, such as a table, crib or bed, and crawls then backwards under the object and peaks out -- like a crayfish. Is that normal? Did she sport an exoskeleton in a past life? Who knows, it's just Rosa. I'm learning she has quite a mind of her own-- even at eight months old.

Family Date Night

My husband and I are attempting to start our own business, well needless to say business is really picking up, and because we're both still working our regular full time jobs we never...NEVER seem to see each other. So, after having many arguments about this, we've decided that we need to make one night a family night. Last Friday was our first Family Date Night. Well, like me I expected way to much and wanted to do something really special. I searched online to try and find something to do. I looked in the newspaper and so on. My original plan was to take Jordan to a UMaine Baseball game. That idea fell through when I realized their games start at 4:00 and I don't even get out of work until 7:00. So, then I thought we could meet at the city forest and walk through the recently opened Bog Walk. That idea fell through when my husband was unable to get in town in time. So, we resolved to pizza and a movie. Nothing special, but when the night was over and I found myself snuggled on the coach with my 2 favorite guys there was no other place that I'd rather be. It was perfect. Isn't it funny how we spend hours and hours trying to plan the perfect night and after we've exhausted ourselves we find that the simplest of things can mean the most?
So, do you have a Family Date Night in your house? If so, what do you do? We have another Friday family date night and I'm already trying to scramble for what to do.