My Mothers Day Really Sucked and I LOVED it.

(This pic was taken eleven hours ago, during our sunchasing sojourn).

Had the WORST time. It rained, my calf muscle is sore, I am really sick again. I've been sick for a month now - tonsillitis is back, terrible headaches - I honestly wondered if I should get checked for swine flu. Max got a vomiting bug, he spewed all over his bed and his floor. After he heaved for the third time, we locked eyes and just looked at each other. What in Gods name are you supposed to do with steaming chicken casserole vomit? Piles of it? I led him into the bathroom, sat him down, and went to clean the mess. Except, I'm not really a "proper" mother when it comes to shit like that. I started wiping it, but that led to me heaving and gagging, which scared him. So I threw a towel on it and tried to scoop it all up. "Pretend it's the babys poo. Pretend it's poo." But I couldn't trick myself - there were chunks, man. That shit is WRONG.

I threw the towel in the bin afterwards. There's probably some rulebook on how to scrape and wash spewy towels but, whatever.

So then Dave gets sick, Tim gets sick, and then Rocco Baby gets it too. The family that gets sick together, goes on five hour car trips together. This is how we roll.

Tim and I had a HUGE blowup, which was all just me being a bitch. I apologised to him profusely. Rocco banged his teeth so hard they all bled - I didn't even bat an eye. I'm getting used to it now, just held the tissue while the blood pissed out, wiped it all off, and sent him on his merry way.

Dave sent Max to get the mothers day card out of the car, Max locked the keys in the car. Tim spent the next three hours jimmying open the sunroof with a knife, and sticking a wire coat hanger down in there, trying to press the "unlock" button. He was in his element - "Eden, it's like ... the ultimate skilltester."

Unfortunately, his device didn't work, we were in a secluded town, Dave had to smash a window to retrieve the keys. And grumbled for the next day that it was the "most expensive mothers day card ever made."

We went out for dinner to Lone Star, Dave and Tim had a TOOTHPICK fight in the carpark while I stood there, incredulously watching my boys all STAB each other. With toothpicks.

Because that is how we roll.

I had a pretty shit time. It was magnificent. I am so so so blessed to be able to have a shit time. Last year, I was looking forward to mothers day so much. I was seventeen years pregnant, and woke up to my husband limping around the kitchen table, setting it for pancakes. He was in agony, but was waiting til he made pancakes and then was going to the ER at our local hospital. I sent him there straight away, they sent him back straight away with a diagnosis of a bowel infection. Phew! Bowel infection! Lucky we got to the bottom of THAT. But we both knew something was wrong. It was an uneasy mothers day. We hired out Quentins Tarentino's "Deathproof" (HA!) and I sat in a bean bag at his feet, (Dave's, not Quentin's) ... looking over at him with an awful feeling of dread. A friend popped in but we sent her away, not knowing why ... we needed to be by ourselves. The baby moved in my belly but other undercurrents started swirling, and I never got my pancakes.

I didn't get pancakes this year either. But I have him, standing tall and strong and proud. Jamming toothpicks into his sons arm in a Penrith carpark of Lone Star because this is how we roll.

I wish I knew, last mothers day. If only I knew that in a years time, we would be sitting next to each other on a beach bench, looking at the ocean. I could have handled the past year so, so much better. With more grace. And hope.

But I didn't know, because nobody knows, and I handled it sometimes ok, mostly messily, and always with a big fat slice of dark fear in my heart.

This is how life rolls.

____

The boys at Lone Star ... having a competition to see who could float Max's Mr Men figurines on the helium mothers day balloons -

Me with two of my four guys. I look tiiiiired .... the Lone Star waitresses kept walking past, picking up all the stray rib bones, toys and spoons that a VERY cranky Rocco kept throwing onto the floor. After my twelfth apologetic thankyou, I was like, you know what? I'm not saying thank you any more -

Then I made Dave drive to Krispy Kreme and we got a big fat box'o'lard. YUM. I've eaten so many that it feels like I probably can actually roll.