Mother's Day Mania

May begins next week. Can you believe it? You and I have been together, blogger and reader, for three months now. It seems like just yesterday we met.....

May is also Mother's Day. Now, being a mother myself, I'm in favor of a holiday that celebrates all the hard work that being a mother entails. (Hold your horses guys, I'm a fan of Father's Day for the same reason.) The problem I have is that I have no idea what I'm supposed to get for gifts for my own mothers. (Yes, that was plural. Mother, step mother, and mother-in-law.) Seriously. What can I give them that can even come close to telling them that I wouldn't have become the person I am today without them or that I'm grateful they raised their son to be respectful of women? How can I tell them that I appreciate being taught how to bake or sew on buttons or find humor in life?

So I want a meaningful gift, but I also want one that's useful as well. (How many "Greatest Mom" coffee mugs can one woman own?) But it has to be meaningful and useful, and hopefully, whimsical or part of an inside joke so that your gift says, "I put thought into this because you're my mother and you're worth it."

It was so much easier when you were in elementary school because you could slap your hands in paint, plop them on construction paper, and glue a sappy mom poem on it and you had the greatest gift in the universe. What mom can resist a hand made gift from their precious little grade schoolers?

And if you make the mistake of asking your mom what she wants, they all say the same thing: "Nothing." Yes, because what I really want to do is tell the world that I thought so little of my parentage that I wasn't even willing to put a modicum of thought into what I could do to let her know that she's appreciated. (Sadly, they probably don't want anything because nothing will ever measure up to the second grade hand print poem anyway.) But us children feel guilty and scour the stores to find something heartfelt and touching.

Once you have kids, these special grandchildren as your Mom calls them, can be a great tool for the presentation, if not the actual contents, of the gift. Now the mug says, "World's Greatest Grandma" and has all their names on it. Or a picture book with photos of all their precious faces. Who can say no to those sweet baby cheeks? But there's only so many frames and books and pictures you can throw at them until they're forced to gently tell you, "Oh, we have plenty of pictures dear."

Now what? Flowers are pretty but they eventually die. Gift cards seem impersonal. Candy seems like I had no other ideas and went for the easy sell. Think, think, think. Yep, and that right there is my problem. I can't think. I don't have time to think, unless it's thinking of 3 or 4 things simultaneously. What little brain I used to have to think up witty, personal and charming gifts is now the mental equivalent of the treadmill that was once utilized but now holds all your junk that doesn't have a permanent home. All the good ideas are buried under mental sticky notes reminding me to pick up milk, buy AP study guides, find out price of tickets for the middle school dance, ask the husband what time the t-ball game is again......how can I compete with my brainier and younger self?

So every year I bumble through the Mother's Day gift buying process and she smiles and tells me she loves it. I figure she's teaching me how to be graceful when, someday, I'm the one smiling and raving over my own children's tired, last minute gift offerings.