Dear Husband,
Welp! Here we are again on Mother's Day!
No, my love. Thank you. You made me a mom in the first place. If it weren't for you, where would I be? Worryingly thin and stranded all alone on a desert barstool with no one to talk to but other adults. I could cry just thinking about it.
Fortunately, I am a mom and today is my day. The stretch marks, vaginal trauma, lost sense of personal identity, and the other 364 days a year are all for you and our sweet, sweet children. But today is all mine. #Soworthit #Blessed.
Been looking forward to this all year!
Now, as we both know, Mother's Day means Mother's Day Brunch. On this sacred day, we take mom out to eat at a busy restaurant for a meal that falls between breakfast and lunch and naptime, with all of her hungry children. Genius. It is an honored and symbolic reminder of the daily patience, sacrifice, coffee, little piles of soaking wet napkins, shade from strangers, chicken nuggets, advice from assholes, puddles of ketchup, ignored vegetables, marital discord, ipads, attempts at adult conversation, choking hazards, diaper changes, lowered expectations, repeated requests for straws, stained shirts, meals made only of white carbs, eyerolls, public humiliation, and alcohol, that all go into the Mom experience.
I'm gonna need a refill on that mimosa STAT
So honey, of course I want to go to brunch today. What mother doesn't?! Brunch with kids? Just a million yeses. I'm finding six sneakers, three jackets, a fistful of crayons and pre-feeding the children as we speak. Mother's Day Brunch!! This *must * have been a mom's idea. Why don't we do this EVERY Sunday?? Come to think of it, what the f*ck do people without kids even do at brunch?! If you're not scraping $17 artisanal eggs and frisée out of your baby's hair while you nurse him in front of an audience, what are you even doing??
But boo, if for some reason you can't get that reservation today, I have some other awesome ideas. Here are some brunch alternatives:
We could push Mother's Day back by 11 days until I am on Satan's period and then take all the kids to the beach. We can make beach cocktails and catch the last 4 seasons of Calilou. We could wait until the girls are asleep and then hide all the Shopkins. We could all go to Costco. We can lurk on our childless friends' Instagram feeds for hours. We could clean out the back of the car. We could test out gluten-free recipes of all our favorite foods. We could cut out coffee. We could go on the wagon. We could give up our phones and devices and 'reconnect,' to each other. You could use that pencil to get this dust out of my eye. We can put all the kids in the car and go look for parking in the city. I can try on all my pre-pregnancy clothes and ask you how I look. We can see if that $4 in our savings account is growing. Lice.
These are just a few suggestions. I know you put a lot of thought into today and I don't want to ruin it by doing every single thing myself like every other day! Just one request: if everything goes according to plan and we end up at brunch, all that I ask is that I not be judged as I try find the bottom of the "bottomless" mimosa. And that next year I can have that sister wife I've been asking for.
Now go call your mother for an hour while I help the kids make my Mother's Day cards.
Love, the Baby Mama
Kate Levkoff is a cohost of the foul-mouthed, hilariously honest parenting podcast Nursing and Cursing. Find her at nursingandcursing and on Instagram,
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