Happy Me Day

Yesterday was Sunday. It was also Mother's Day, incase you hadn't heard. We spent it cleaning the house, selling one of the new baby rabbits and eating. Quite similar to every other day around here but I also got a couple cards from my kids. One as a beautiful drawing of me inside much skinnier and redhaired than normal, and the other has a food pyramid and a brain on the back. Hallmark, eat your heart out.

I am not a sentimental person. I have saved a few baby things from my kids, mostly for their benefit, really, in boxes under my bed. I save some of their better artworks in a box above the bookcase, the cards will join them. I take lots of photos though with the accumulation of my new digital camera do not print out many if any at all (so who knows what will happen if I lose my computer? whole years will be wiped from memory).

All this non-sentimentality makes celebrations hard for me. I don't like to be gifted "just because". I think cards and mailing of them a complete waste. I've tried to be "good" and sent birthday/anniversary/new baby whatever cards but I just can't find it in me to support something I just don't get. I'd rather a phone call than a sparkly card or better yet see the person *in* person. Though I tend to forget doing that as well. I notice all the plaques, teddy bears, fake floral arrangements, cut flowers and candles propped up in stands on the side of the road and cringe.

Perhaps, that is the practical side of me. The side that dislikes waste and clutter. To me all those trappings that people swerve off the road to consume scream landfills. The market flowers are dying beauties using up land resources that could be better used to grow food or stay on the vines to feed the ever disappearing bees. Gifts of meaning that last beyond the day, that feed my body and soul and not just a need to provide a gift because someone declared it a holiday mean the most to me. But I didn't get any gifts because they're not necessary.

During this day of matriarical celebration I decided (after much debate since we're up to our eyeballs in birthdays right now) to make a cake to share with my family because spending time with them as they helped me bake and consume it was better than anything store bought, any smushy pre-printed card, any plaque that waxed poetic about being a mother. Because being a mother is more about enjoying motherhood all the time than being set on a pedestal a single day. I think we should strive to be kind and cherish each other because we're family all the time not just at birthdays or other pre-disposed times of the year. (Though throwing in a cake now and then doesn't hurt.)

Am I the only non-sentimental mother out there?