Happy Mother's Day!!

[Tuly]

I'm not fully sure why this particular celebration of Mother's is usually a dreaded event for most Mother's.

[Tuly]

Happy Mother's Day, all you wonderful mothers and soon to be mothers. I want to particularly honor my mother. Most people will honor their mothers because their mother's gave them lives. My mother literally saved my life. When I was three-months old I was diagnosed with a serious case of eczema. In those days there really was no medicine to save me, so the doctor gave me three more months to live. Mami refused to believe that and since she is a chemist she put certain creams together that she would put on me many times a day. The doctor could not believe how my skin healed. She did the same thing for me when as a child with asthma. What an incredible mother Mami has been to Guido and me.

[Angela]

Happy Mother's Day to the mothers and mother figures in the world. I greatly appreciate the mothering women in my life. I'm forever grateful for they're endless patience and vast knowledge in pretty much everything.

[Edward]

Happy Mother's Day to Mommy, Lily, Baby Angela (cute avatar!), and soon-to-be-mother Ann!

[Angela]

yeah, he's a cutie. found him on google.

[Tuly]

What!!??tell me your kidding.

[Angela]

um... not kidding.

[Ian]

happy mother's day mom, angela, and all the other moms out there!

[Tuly]

Thanks Ian. Happy Mother's Day Lily, Angela, and Ann!!! and to all the women who faithfully fulfill the role of mothers.

[Bryn]

Here is a poem I rather like by Billy Collins.

The Lanyard

The other day I was ricocheting slowly
off the blue walls of this room,
moving as if underwater from typewriter to piano,
from bookshelf to an envelope lying on the floor,
when I found myself in the L section of the dictionary
where my eyes fell upon the word lanyard.

No cookie nibbled by a French novelist
could send one into the past more suddenly—
a past where I sat at a workbench at a camp
by a deep Adirondack lake
learning how to braid long thin plastic strips
into a lanyard, a gift for my mother.

I had never seen anyone use a lanyard
or wear one, if that’s what you did with them,
but that did not keep me from crossing
strand over strand again and again
until I had made a boxy
red and white lanyard for my mother.

She gave me life and milk from her breasts,
and I gave her a lanyard.
She nursed me in many a sick room,
lifted spoons of medicine to my lips,
laid cold face-cloths on my forehead,
and then led me out into the airy light

and taught me to walk and swim,
and I, in turn, presented her with a lanyard.
Here are thousands of meals, she said,
and here is clothing and a good education.
And here is your lanyard, I replied,
which I made with a little help from a counselor.

Here is a breathing body and a beating heart,
strong legs, bones and teeth,
and two clear eyes to read the world, she whispered,
and here, I said, is the lanyard I made at camp.
And here, I wish to say to her now,
is a smaller gift—not the worn truth

that you can never repay your mother,
but the rueful admission that when she took
the two-tone lanyard from my hand,
I was as sure as a boy could be
that this useless, worthless thing I wove
out of boredom would be enough to make us even.

Happy mother's day Mom, Ann, Lily, Angela, Grandma (both of them) and so on.

[Edward]

Wow, that poem got me all teary-eyed. I've never read it before. Usually when I think of lanyard I think of how many boys at scout camp would weave yards and yards of lanyard while they gossiped about camp counselors and what the scout leader did to Jimmy or stuff like that. Now that I think about it, it sounds more like a Relief Society meeting than a scout camp.

ANYWAY, Happy Mothers Day! Especially to Mom of course, but also to Grandma, Angela, Lily, Ann, and I guess I'll throw in Betsy, Margaret, and Emma just for hoots. Huzzah for mothers!

[Tuly]

I also love that poem and got teary eyed as well.

[Lily]

i had a timely experience today: i had to pick up steve (5 minutes ago, at the time) and both girls were having total meltdowns at the same time and abby made it known that she needed a diaper change right as we were heading out the door. i was on the verge of a meltdown myself, but then i realized that tomorrow is mother's day, and so instead, i laughed. and then i was washed over with gratitude as i thought, "Mom suffered through a meltdown of mine once (or many times...and probably with exponentially more simultaneous sibling meltdowns) and changed my recently-changed-but-now-dirty-diaper once (or many times)". along with all the other things you've done for me, mom, please accept a hefty dose of delayed gratitude.

and here's hoping these little girls of mine, in the thick of motherhood and meltdowns and diaper changes someday, will have the same types of thoughts and feelings of "thanks, mom" too.

love you, mom. and love to all the mothers in our family.

happy mother's day!

[Tuly]

Sorry for your timely day Lily...and thank you for thinking of me. All of my grandchildren have been blessed with great mothers and mothers-to-be. Happy Mother's Day dear daughters!!

[John]

Thank you for thanking her.
She is worthy of your deepest devotions.
We, the beneficiaries, are grateful.