No other occasion is marked by such bad gift-giving as Mother's Day.
Not even Father's Day compares, because Mom usually helps with gift selection, and she doesn't wait until the very last second. And with school out for the summer by June, she can't count on the kids' teachers to come to the rescue with an elbow-macaroni/Elmer's glue/gold spray-painted pencil holder.
My friend Amy says she hasn't received a Mother's Day present in years because she's "hard to buy for." (Plus, her birthday is around the same time.) You would think after living with us their entire lives, our kids would have some ideas, and for sure that their dad would.
As a mom and a daughter, I find myself on both sides of this quandary. (And like Amy's, my mom's birthday is within days of Mother's Day. Double whammy.)
So it didn't surprise me when press releases started trickling into my e-mail in-box more than two months ago with suggestions of what to buy for Mom. A bracelet that doubles as a hair tie! A handbag with a pocket for her iPad! Gardening gloves!
Really, it's fine. It doesn't matter what you get us. We're moms. We smile and say that the waffle maker is just what we always wanted, then hug the sweet little rug rat who wrapped it in the Sunday cartoons from that morning's paper (before we've had a chance to look at them).
If you're grown, you know Mom is just happy to hear from you on her special day. You don't have to get her a thing. (But please, if you didn't pony up for a present, actually call her and talk to her instead of just texting her.)
But if you are thinking about what to do this Mother's Day, either for your own mom or for the mother of your children -- and do not let me hear you say the words, "I don't get her a present, she's not my mother" -- I am here to help.
First, a few hints about what not to buy for Mother's Day:
1. A parenting book. (If you don't think I'm doing this right, Mother's Day really is not the ideal time to bring it up.)
2. A "World's Greatest Mother" T-shirt. (It is awkward to be wearing it while, red-faced and cursing, I must haul a screaming toddler out of the grocery store by the back of his overalls.)
3. Bubble bath. (Really? Are you even trying?)
The presents that moms really dream about might surprise you. Here are a few I covet:
1. Ideally a week, but even just a day will do, when I don't have to make a single decision.
Not what to make for dinner, which bills to pay first, where to plant the desert honeysuckle, whether the dog needs a haircut, the kid needs grounding or the refrigerator needs cleaning, nor which health plan, summer camp or movie to choose.
2. A meal I didn't make. Not breakfast in bed. A cup of coffee on her nightstand is lovely. Bacon grease and toast crumbs on the sheets? Not so much.
My cousin Tiffany took over the kitchen one night during a recent visit, shooing me onto the couch to watch the news curled up next to my kid, Sawyer, and the dog (both of whom were delighted to see me stay in one spot for so long).
Not only did I not have to decide what to make (see above), she and her partner, Tim, cooked and cleaned up afterward.
3. A nap. (No explanation needed.)
4. Time without the kids. Oh, stop it. I know I shouldn't say it, and especially not pertaining to the day set aside for honoring mothers. But some of my best Mother's Days when my son was little were when my friend Archias would take his son, Sam, and Sawyer to do something fun, leaving his wife, my friend Lisa, and me to our own devices.
We'd have lunch, see a (not G-rated) movie or go to a spa. One year, we did nothing at all, just sat by the pool and read.
At his age now, Sawyer wouldn't have to actually leave the premises. He could just occupy himself -- oh, I don't know, clean his room, pick up dog poo -- yet come when I holler, to hand me the remote, make me a sandwich and give me a hug and tell me how awesome I am.
Seriously, over the years, I have loved every elbow-macaroni/Elmer's glue/gold spray-painted pencil holder, little handprint pressed in clay, and crayoned card my son has made. And now that Sawyer is older, he has proven to have impeccable taste in silver jewelry and cozy pajama pants.
But my best Mother's Day present ever came on my very first Mother's Day, when Sawyer was just 6 weeks old, tiny, yet awe-inspiring, and still a mystery to me.
His father planted a tree in the backyard, a young ash, its trunk not even as thick as a soda can.
"I want something that he'll be able to climb by the time he's 5," I told Jim when we picked it out at the nursery, baby Sawyer asleep on my chest in a sling.
"It will be," he assured me, and it was. And it kept growing, just like the boy hanging from its branches. Now both are tall and sturdy.
The tree reaches well above the house, and its steady growth, fallen leaves and new ones unfurling, the watering, fertilizing and pruning, and the spread of its branches toward the sky remind me, always, what it means to be a mother, carefully tending a life.
That's the gift.
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