My family have never really been big on celebrating Mother’s Day. I suspect part of the reason is we’re all fairly open about showing we love each other, so the idea of a prescribed day for showing that love seemed slightly odd.

My feelings about this changed when I became a mother. Or rather, when Miss M was old enough to bring home the sweet handcrafted gifts commemorating Mother’s Day. The first is from daycare, a gorgeous painting (abstract of course - she was only two) with handprints, buttons on the frame, and copious amounts of glitter. A couple of buttons have been lost over the years, but I still love looking at her tiny handprints, and comparing their size to the giant capable hands she now has.

There are cards she’s made in Greek, with Cyrillic script I can’t decipher, cut out teapots that once had a teabag stapled to them, and terrible poems made up by various teachers over the years, but I love, and have kept, all of them.

Last year Miss M’s school had a Mother’s Day stall, where children could buy presents for one or two dollars. Even if children didn’t have any money, there was something they could have, which I thought was very egalitarian, and extremely sweet. Miss M bought me the most gorgeous cards which featured birds and butterflies, and came with envelopes. She told me how she’d looked for ages, what else there’d been, and how she’d come to her decision. The thought she’d put into her purchase was quite amazing.

On Thursday, as I wrote in a previous post, she was very unwell. The Mother’s Day stall happened that day, and she’d forgotten to take any money. So she borrowed some from Deb, the gorgeous woman who runs the office to buy me a present. Apparently it’s a white (my favorite bed linen colour) sheet, because she thought we needed some new ones. I’ve been planning to buy white sheets for some time, but have been waiting for Kmart to have pure cotton ones at 25% off. Miss M’s probably won’t be pure cotton, but I think it’ll be my favorite.

The presents don’t end there though, as I’m also getting a Mother’s day makeover: “not because you’re ugly Mummy, just for fun”. When I told one of my clients who’s appointment is on Sunday afternoon, he begged me not to remove the results of the makeover, because he’s quite keen on the idea of his personal trainer looking like a drag queen.

Today I’m loving: Ria, but that’s an every day thing!

Miss M's day care masterpiece