Easter...
When I was a kid, my parents just threw some candy into a basket on Easter morning. I was lucky though, because some kids got nothing.
I have been buying and gathering stuff for Sophia's Easter basket for close to a month. I ordered some special candy from See's Candy in San Francisco and bought her usual favorites (Swedish fish, jelly belly's and marshmallow peeps) locally. She also got some stickers, bubbles, an Easter Bunny that poops jelly beans, and this really neat fountain that spins around and squirts water for the bath tub. We also bought her a tool set, yes a tool set. I have a small set that she loves to look at so we thought it would be a good thing to get her.
Now comes the real chore. How the heck do I get all of this crap into her Easter basket??? I realized right away that her tool set would not fit into the basket, so I decided that she would receive this separately from her basket. I literally sat for about a half an hour putting stuff in and taking stuff out. I almost got to the point that I was going to just give up, but then I tried once more. Thankfully, I was able to get everything in. It is so packed that I could barely get the cellophane around it. I still think it looks like crap, but Bob said that when he was a kid, even though his mom took the time to arrange things, he never really cared how it looked. So that made me feel better.
Someday, Sophia will probably go through the same thing for her kids and then wonder if her mom went through the same thing.
As I said before, my birthday was April 5th. My mom neither called or sent me a card for my birthday. So on her birthday, April 7th, I gave her the same treatment, although I had already bought her a present. So Friday afternoon, my mom calls and wants to come down to see me (she lives in PA). I really didn't want to, because being with my mom is like watching paint dry, but I met her for dinner at a local restaurant around 5:00. We go in and sit down. She says, since your birthday was last week, here is a card. It was a very generic card. It had nothing about it being for her daughter or anything on it. On the inside she wrote belated after where it said "Happy Birthday" and then also wrote "Happy Easter." She never signed it though (Love, Mom or Fuck You, etc.). I thought that very strange. Well she is strange. For a gift I got a $20 bill tucked inside the card. Now I am not complaing about the gift, because I know that my mom cannot afford much, but I am complaining about how the gift just seemed like it was picked up on the way to meeting me for dinner. Then some strange stuff happened and my mom left the restaurant in a huff. She is so damn crazy that she probably has no idea that what she did for my birthday was bizarre. Oh well, at least I won't have to see her for a few more months.
By the way, my mom is so unstable that I have decided that I am not going to tell her I am pregnant. She was not happy for me the first time and barely pays attention to Sophia, so it is probably no big deal to her anyway. When I was in labor with Sophia and in the hospital, my mom found out and came in. This would not have been so bad, if she did not weird me out. She stood at my bedside and just stared at me. I finally had to tell her that there was a seat across the room that she could sit in. She makes me so uncomfortable.
Now don't get me wrong, there is someplace deep down inside of me that loves my mom, but it is so buried that only a major excavation could dig it out. I know that she has worked hard her entire life and that she has made many sacrifices for me. I am pretty sure that her parents wanted her to get an abortion when she got pregnant with me at 17, so she has given me life at least twice. My mom was a single mom in the early 70's when it was much harder to be a single mom. It is hard when I think about all that I want for Sophia and then think about my mom. I wonder if she ever dreamed for me or was she simply just passing the time until I was old enough to be out of her hair, I hope it was the first, but somehow that is very hard for me to imagine. I wonder if Sophia will feel the same of me as I do about my own mother. I hope not, because most things that I do in life, I strive to do differently than my mother, starting with how her Easter candy is placed in her basket. I hope that she will someday look back and realize that I think of her in all things that I do.
I hope that you all have a wonderful Easter. Now get out there and eat some candy.
I have been buying and gathering stuff for Sophia's Easter basket for close to a month. I ordered some special candy from See's Candy in San Francisco and bought her usual favorites (Swedish fish, jelly belly's and marshmallow peeps) locally. She also got some stickers, bubbles, an Easter Bunny that poops jelly beans, and this really neat fountain that spins around and squirts water for the bath tub. We also bought her a tool set, yes a tool set. I have a small set that she loves to look at so we thought it would be a good thing to get her.
Now comes the real chore. How the heck do I get all of this crap into her Easter basket??? I realized right away that her tool set would not fit into the basket, so I decided that she would receive this separately from her basket. I literally sat for about a half an hour putting stuff in and taking stuff out. I almost got to the point that I was going to just give up, but then I tried once more. Thankfully, I was able to get everything in. It is so packed that I could barely get the cellophane around it. I still think it looks like crap, but Bob said that when he was a kid, even though his mom took the time to arrange things, he never really cared how it looked. So that made me feel better.
Someday, Sophia will probably go through the same thing for her kids and then wonder if her mom went through the same thing.
As I said before, my birthday was April 5th. My mom neither called or sent me a card for my birthday. So on her birthday, April 7th, I gave her the same treatment, although I had already bought her a present. So Friday afternoon, my mom calls and wants to come down to see me (she lives in PA). I really didn't want to, because being with my mom is like watching paint dry, but I met her for dinner at a local restaurant around 5:00. We go in and sit down. She says, since your birthday was last week, here is a card. It was a very generic card. It had nothing about it being for her daughter or anything on it. On the inside she wrote belated after where it said "Happy Birthday" and then also wrote "Happy Easter." She never signed it though (Love, Mom or Fuck You, etc.). I thought that very strange. Well she is strange. For a gift I got a $20 bill tucked inside the card. Now I am not complaing about the gift, because I know that my mom cannot afford much, but I am complaining about how the gift just seemed like it was picked up on the way to meeting me for dinner. Then some strange stuff happened and my mom left the restaurant in a huff. She is so damn crazy that she probably has no idea that what she did for my birthday was bizarre. Oh well, at least I won't have to see her for a few more months.
By the way, my mom is so unstable that I have decided that I am not going to tell her I am pregnant. She was not happy for me the first time and barely pays attention to Sophia, so it is probably no big deal to her anyway. When I was in labor with Sophia and in the hospital, my mom found out and came in. This would not have been so bad, if she did not weird me out. She stood at my bedside and just stared at me. I finally had to tell her that there was a seat across the room that she could sit in. She makes me so uncomfortable.
Now don't get me wrong, there is someplace deep down inside of me that loves my mom, but it is so buried that only a major excavation could dig it out. I know that she has worked hard her entire life and that she has made many sacrifices for me. I am pretty sure that her parents wanted her to get an abortion when she got pregnant with me at 17, so she has given me life at least twice. My mom was a single mom in the early 70's when it was much harder to be a single mom. It is hard when I think about all that I want for Sophia and then think about my mom. I wonder if she ever dreamed for me or was she simply just passing the time until I was old enough to be out of her hair, I hope it was the first, but somehow that is very hard for me to imagine. I wonder if Sophia will feel the same of me as I do about my own mother. I hope not, because most things that I do in life, I strive to do differently than my mother, starting with how her Easter candy is placed in her basket. I hope that she will someday look back and realize that I think of her in all things that I do.
I hope that you all have a wonderful Easter. Now get out there and eat some candy.
posted by Linda | 10:48 PM
3 Comments:
Linda . . .
What is up with our crazy mothers? It seems that yours is about three or four steps further down the crazy continuum, though, actually hearing voices and stuff. But their behavior is much the same --- in that it incites discomfort and confusing feelings. It just sucks that she can't be happy for you and how your life is unfolding . . . to the point where you feel uncomfortable sharing your news with her. It's a raw deal.
Happy Easter! Good job on getting all that stuff in the basket. One thing I will say for my psycho-moms: she always did holidays really nicely. That's why it was so much worse when she would flip out and go nuts; because earlier in the day, it was so Norman Rockwell. UGH.
rHolidays were always strange with my mother, too. She would be so depressed that she would act very bizarre. I want to make the holidays very fun and happy for my kids. I don't want them to have wierdness or sadness... especially during the holidays. It's wierd that my mom usually doesn't realize it when she deeply depressed. I know it when I feel that way and try to do something about it to fix it.
I think that we make our kids the center of everything. They are so precious, and I hope that they will always be consious of how much we love them! I'm so glad that Sophia had such a fun and magical Easter!
If people can't put thought into a card, then it would be less offensive to not get a card at all. That's my perogative.
Happy Easter, girl! I'm a little late. :)
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