Mums everywhere are celebrated annually on their day of appreciation, Mother’s Day. But what does Mother’s Day really mean?
One day is not enough to celebrate those women who raise another human being – the most important job in the world. Often there is no obligatory prize rewarded to the best. Instead recognition goes unnoticed except on this one day a year. Husbands present wives with tokens of appreciation – chocolates, jewellery or flowers always proving most popular. Eager children offer breakfast in bed or older children may opt for a lunch date combined with a Mother’s Day card.
Yet, the best gifts are not tied with the finest silk thread or packaged in the prettiest box, macaroni art, soap-on-a-rope and recycled vases haphazardly decorated with found art are those displayed on the fridge or cabinet shelf or the personalised Hallmark greeting cards showing photos of times gone by. Regardless, the celebration of motherhood is not about the gifts but the prize at the end of seeing children grow up. Motherhood is an unrecognized job that Mother’s Day sheds light on.
Yet why not celebrate them every day or at least once a week? The task of motherhood is not an easy one. With such a crucial role, mothers are forced to find new ways of answering continual questions about life with no answers at the back of the book to look for.
A sacred undertaking, becoming a mother changes life. Obstacles are thrown that often circumstance leaves them harder to overcome. Becoming a mother is a humbling experience as new emotions not seen before emerge – patience, caring and understanding are pushed to the foreground in efforts to give children the room to explore. Mothers everywhere often want to protect their children from the unpleasantness that surrounds us daily, but inevitably children grow up.
Life does not stand still. Constant change and growth are issues mothers must face and there are areas that a simple solution or quick fix is not guaranteed. Motherhood is about making mistakes since mothers too are only human.
Choosing to become a mother is not a simple question nor has a simple answer. With constant planning, time and expense becoming a mother is no easy feat. Many women wonder is this what fulfills completion of life, satisfying a women’s obligatory honor to expand on it. The truth – no one knows. Mothers are the individuals that guide us along and we take away their strength and determination to raise an individual that knows the difference between right and wrong.
Doing the washing, cooking, cleaning the house, kissing scrapes and bruises and attending school plays are all part of motherhood that before were unforeseen or often not thought of as tasks that mothers perform without thinking. These are the daily givings that encompass being a mother and children often don’t recognize. But mothers are celebrated with a deserving hug, a cheerier I-love-you that days like Mother’s Day are only observed as the bonus.
This is a sponsored guest post
I was reading Jenny’s blog last Monday when I saw that she had joined in with Mummy Daddy and Me Makes Three‘s linky. I will admit I’ve been a bit rubbish at blog reading just lately so this was the first time I’d come across this but I really like the idea! After all, the reason I started blogging was to have a record to look back on to see what we’d been up to and how C was growing up.
The idea is simple – write about what you’ve been up to this week! Let’s see how uninteresting my life is then!
Monday was a work day so I went to work (duh) while C spent the day at her grandparents, as she does every week.
Tuesday (repeat as above) except it was Valentines Day which meant… nothing really. I was bought some red roses but they were from my mum rather than my husband. He did get me some boxes of Lucky Charms though which are better than flowers in my opinion.
I was at work again on Wednesday but C was at preschool today. I wrote a post last week, preschool problems, about how C hated being left recently but thankfully she was much better this week. I do think a lot of it was down to one of the members of staff who isn’t in their room very often who was talking to her and distracting her as I was leaving. She made us a wonderful feather picture that is now stuck on the fridge.
Thursday was mostly spent at home. We called at a friends for a cuppa and a chat but then spent the rest of the day was spent having fun, drawing and doing jigsaws. I even managed to do some housework.
We didn’t have a very exciting day on Friday. I spent about 4 hours painting the ceiling in the spare room which wasn’t much fun at all. Of that 4 hours, only about 90 minutes was actually spent painting, the rest was due to having to keep stopping to see what C wanted, take her for a wee (and I may have had a tea break in between coats).
M finishes work at midday on a Friday so we went for a walk with the dogs that afternoon and called at my parents for a drink.
On Saturday morning M was working again so it was just me and C for a few hours. We had pancakes for breakfast then had a lazy morning, not getting dressed until noon. When M got back from work he went to a friend of ours who was selling a bouncy castle. It’s not a huge one but it’s perfect for C, who’s spent pretty much the rest of the weekend on it!
I had thought Sunday was going to be a lazy day but should have known M thought otherwise! After starting our day with pancakes again we then spent the majority of the day in the garden building an L-shaped raised bed around one corner of the patio (well, M was building, I mostly passed tools and held bits of wood).
I managed to escape for an hour or so to cook a yummy roast chicken dinner but we ended up outside til 5pm. The raised bed is finished though, we just need it filling.
So, that was my week. It ended up being quite busy really. How was yours?
If you have a Dora the Explorer fan in the family who enjoys cooking then the new Dora the Explorer Little Cooks Collection is for you!
We’ve been sent a copy of the first issue and have really been enjoying it. The magazine has a main ingredient in each issue, the first one being bananas, and is featured in different activities throughout the magazine.
At two and a half C can’t read the magazine herself yet but that just means I get to share it with her which is nice. She does like to ‘read’ the magazine herself too.
There are different activities throughout the magazine such as bits to colour in, picking the right ingredients and puzzles.
There is a star recipe in each issue, this one being banana muffins. The instructions are fantastic for cooking with toddlers; they begin by showing you what equipment you need with space to tick when you have it ready then there’s a list of ingredients – the banana muffin recipe having just 6 ingredients.
There are then step by step instructions, with pictures to go with each step which would be great for slightly older children to do the majority of the recipe by themselves.
The actual recipe took less than 10 minutes to mix up then it was time to put our muffins in the oven. Voila!
Obviously C wanted to eat them within seconds of them coming out of the oven but I managed to make her wait until they’d cooled a little before we tried them. Now I’m not a huge fan of bananas, unlike C who loves them, but even I thought they tasted delicious. The only trouble was, the recipe only made 4!
As well as the star recipe, there are also some quick and easy recipes based on the main ingredient. In this issue there are recipes for banana ice cream, banana smoothie, banana breakfast and a banana lolly.
Once you’ve finished cooking and completing the activities there’s a story to share based on, yes you guessed, the star ingredient!
We have thoroughly enjoyed this magazine and will be making the muffins again very soon! C loves the fact she has her own special cupcake cases to bake with now and she has enjoyed going through the magazine with me and completing the activities.
This issue came with 4 silicone cupcake cases and a Dora plate. Issue one costs 99p, issue two costs £2.99 then each issue will cost £4.99.
For more information visit the Little Cooks Collection website.
Monday again, the weeks seem to be flying past at the moment. Last week’s meal plan went fairly well. We had everything but the pasta dish, which we didn’t fancy in the end, and everything was good as there were a couple of new dishes for us.
This week is going to be a ‘use-food-out-of-the-freezer’ week as it is overflowing for some reason. I’ve had to take a whole duck out of the freezer to get other things in so Tuesday’s meal is going to be duck cooked in the slow cooker – a first for me. Half term doesn’t affect us yet as C only goes to nursery one day a week which is still on anyway, and we don’t ‘do’ valentines day so nothing special happening then!
The plan for this week is:
- Steak & onion pie with vegetables
- Slow cooker duck
- Healthy fish and chips
- Piri Piri chicken
- Prawn stir fry OR prawn curry
Let’s see if this week can be as successful as the last!
Check out Mrs M’s for more meal planning ideas.
