Happy Mother's Day!

I have a bit of fear about Mother's Day, mainly, that I will forget all about it.

Because we don't have a TV to watch, I am not inundated with commercials about buying stuff for Mother's Day, therefore, the fear is that I would forget to call my mother/send her a card.

Not this year. This year, I took care of it by the end of April. That's right, I put my siblings to shame, I think. (I am not entirely sure what they did for my mother- my mother doesn't really talk about it whole lot. Interestingly, she doesn't say whole lot about my siblings when I talk to her, either she is hiding stuff or she doesn't want to create controversies. I think she is hiding things for my sibs.)

Anyway, my mother is awesome. Her awesomeness made me who I am today. As awesome as she is though, we do our best in different states, probably because I still act like a baby. As much as I am an adult, and even more so that I am a psychiatrist, I still, really want her to approve of all my choices. (The irony is so thick, I can't even move.) Seriously. I want her to say, "Good job, honey." That day though, will probably come in November of Never, because, she never calls me Honey/Sweetie/Pie/Endearments. My mom calls me by my name, or 'little sister.' Even though I am not really the little sister, my little sister is the little sister.

4 and half years ago, she and I had a HUGE fight, at a train station, by the Vatican. We were both yelling wildly, in Chinese. Hubby and Aidan walked away for us to have our 'moment.' I can still recall what we were arguing about, and it essentially came down to this, "MOM! I want you to say that I am a good kid. That I am just AWESOME."

After that trip, I got a letter in the mail, stating the fact that I am awesome, the best daughter ever. (Probably not true, since my sister is a REALLY good daughter.) I can tell you, at this exact moment, where that letter is, in my house. (Which is no small feat, considering how many sheets of paper we have around here.)

In honor of my mom, I did something that she did plenty of when I was growing up: I worked in the garden. As a kid/adolescent/single-person-without-a-property, I told her that it was purely a waste of time to garden. "Mom, just let it be, who cares?!" How foolish was I? Gardening brings rest to a mother's soul, precisely because her children despise the hobby. I can count on gardening as quiet time, sure, A&Z might hang around, but they are also busy, either looking for bugs, or jumping rope, or roller blading. They. Leave. Me. Alone. To. My. Thoughts.

That is what I did this afternoon, while Hubby napped, and children played quietly. I pulled weeds, preened it all, fertilized some, and brought in flowers. Then I called my mom, and guess what she did just before I called? All the way in DC, she, too, was working in the garden with my dad. Although the advice she gave me about gardening was a wee bit untraditional: "Just let the ground get really hard, don't plant anything, because once you loosen the soil, weeds will grow. To deter weeds, don't grow anything."

Interesting.

Happy Mother's Day!

Also, some pictures to make this blog more alive.