The Laundry Can Wait This Time....

Mother’s Day is now behind us and chances are you’ve jumped right back into your busy schedules. In fact, for many of us, Mother’s Day was still filled with chores, cooking and childcare duties but we approached it with an elevated sense of appreciation.

There’s one thing I’d like you to add to your to-do list so feel free to delete something else.

Take a moment and write down what you loved about Mother’s Day and address it to your children. Did they bring home hand-painted treasures from school to celebrate your special day? Did your kids make an effort to be a bit nicer to one another? What was the day like and what did you enjoy?

You’ll have to put some expectations behind for now. At first, I felt I had to hand-write a separate letter to each child, but it was now close to 11:00pm and I still had chores to do. I quickly typed a letter to all three kids on my laptop and got down the essence of the day. I told them how much each handmade gift meant and the fun I had watching them swim at Grandma and Granddad’s house. I reminded them of how they had showed off their cannonball dives to their Nana and Papa. I detailed the joy I felt watching them catch fireflies with their dad and granddad at sunset and what a great gift it was for me to learn how to play backgammon. Most of all, I enjoyed just being their mom and was filled with gratitude that I had the job.

Leave your perfectionist tendencies behind for this one. Yes, you can journal it beautifully later. Yes, it’s a great theme for a scrapbook page, but right now, just get it down before the beauty of the day fades into your schedule-stuffed calendar.

It will mean more to them than you can possibly imagine.