Happy Mother's Day!

Here are the cards my boys got me.

"Strangely enough, I turned out pretty normal."

Inside: "I think you're to blame."

I told Austin it's too soon to know if he'll really turn out normal or not.

The other one, with a smirking bear drawing on the front:

"Mom, you've always given me good and sensible advice!"

Inside: "And believe me, one of these days I'm gonna use it!"

As Dwaine & I laughed, and laughed, Andrew said, "I didn't know it was a funny card!" (The kids picked their own cards out. And, they tell me, paid for them too. Miracle of miracles!)

Though it will probably not be obvious here, I do have a sense of humor! My kids make me laugh all the time. Good thing, because it helps make up for the times they make me cry. (starting with their birth ...)

As a family, we have laughed to the cartoons of Calvin & Hobbes, the Far Side, and Dilbert. Now I want to introduce my kids to Monty Python and Abbott and Costello.

This morning, I was generating a self-created bad mood. For moody or possibly bipolar people everywhere, here's how it happens. Some really minor event sets off a chain reaction that causes the brain to spiral down into increasingly negative thoughts, and soon I've fallen into a bad mood entirely of my own creation. This has taken me years and years for me to realize, by the way. Often these moods seem so real, and I really think someone has done something offensive to me.

What helps is to find out what the REAL reason might be for the mood. (Assuming it's not a chemical imbalance.) Today, it finally dawned on me -- I'm a little slow -- that it was because it's Mother's Day! My mother has been dead for 10 years this year, and every Mother's Day I ache for her. It actually feels longer since I had Mom in my life, it's so far away.

As soon as I became aware of that genuine pain, the fake stuff left me and I was free to enjoy my day if I wanted to. Thank God for Pastor Janet, who was able to joke about her children not even sending her a Mother's Day card yet! The children of one parishioner made Pastor Janet a lovely card, and after proudly displaying it, she said dryly, "This is the only card I've received today." She will say something, then go into her trademark, "ha, ha, ha!" so you know she's joking. She was talking about Mother's Day and using a musical card to demonstrate the theme song of mothers everywhere -- Here comes the cavalry (I think). She said, "and here I have to use this card that I got LAST YEAR... plus, I have to work today!" The congregation got a kick out of that.

Happy Mother's Day.