Breakfast and Baseball filled Mothers Day

Hope everyone had a nice Mother's Day.  It is a bittersweet day for me. More sweet this year because I was busy from dawn til dusk.  We started the day hosting a breakfast for 14 at our house. My mom, two sisters, a brother, their spouses and available kids came over. It was Plan B. We were going to head up to the wine country for a picnic, but I backed out when I learned that Eddie was coming home for Mother's Day and my gift from him was tickets to the Giants games.

 I told my siblings I would host the breakfast, but they had to be gone by noon so we could go to the game and they were not allowed to put me in the position of throwing my mother out on the streets on Mothers Day.  That's just bad karma all the way around. They took care of me.

We really had fun on our adventure to the game. We took the train and ran into a few delays, so we didn't sit down until the bottom of the first. No problem. Plenty of baseball left.

When Steve and I go to the game, we watch intently, we clap, we cheer, we groan all at the right times. But we really blend in. We are average fans who don't stand out.

It's different with my boys. They are superfans who never blend in. Tim kept the entire section entertained (or annoyed, but mostly entertained) with his constant banter. He took aim at the opposing pitchers warming up in the bullpen and it was really quite hilarious. It's definitely rated PG; he does not swear or say anything mean, but he razzes them unmercifully at the top of his lungs.  Eddie joined in and we spent a couple of hours laughing pretty hard. When the relief pitchers gave the game away to the Giants, we had to give the boys credit for rattling them. Fans were giving them high fives them on the way out, so I guess/hope it was funny to others as well.

                  

We stopped for a beer after the game to let the crowds on the train die down. As we sat on the deck at the Hi Dive, we could hear the music inside. I swear every single song was on the Maggie Mix from 2012, Katy Perry, Bruno Mars, Call me Maybe and more.  I finally commented on it, and each of the boys had already noticed.  Another of Maggie's songs would start and we would just look at each other with a wan smile. It was good, though. It was like a message that Maggie was right there with us. Oh man she would have really laughed at Tim and Eddie's antics.


Keeping so busy was great. I was a bit melancholy here and there during the day, but generally busy and laughing. By the time we got home I was too tired to care about anything and ate some Pizza and went to bed.

And if you are wondering, Tim's shirt declares I'm proud to be an Air Force Mom. That's his mother's day shirt. The people behind were deferentially asking me if I was an Air Force mom and I had to say no.  The deference disappeared rather quickly. 

Mothers Day

It's Mother's Day. Everybody knows it's Mother's Day because television and internet ads, store displays, facebook posts, and even blog entries bombard you with this information for days and weeks. This year I find all those reminders a bit painful.

I have a wonderful mother who is going strong as she approaches her 87th birthday - and I know how very lucky that makes me. I am a mother. I have two sons who have grown into fine young men who will call me or come by to check in on Mother's Day, just as they do many other days. That too makes me lucky.

Yet I feel lost on this mother's day because I lost the person who most defined me as a mother. Being Maggie's mother was an experience all it's own and I am lost without having it as part of my daily life.

Before you say anything, let me assure you, I know that I will always be her mother. I know that I was a good mother to her. I know we had an incredible bond that surpassed even that of mother-daughter.  I know I was lucky to have her and that luck lasted far longer than anyone might have predicted.  But I miss her and I miss the person I was when she was here with me. Maggie made me a better person and she made me a better mother.

I still do things to honor and remember her and probably will forever. Yesterday I stopped by Special Olympics at Kezar stadium to cheer on Maggie's peers. It made me both happy and sad. As I wandered through the crowd I heard a young girl say, "Hey, Your MAGGIE'S mom!" I smiled as I recognized her friend from middle school days who was there to compete. I hadn't seen her in probably five years, but she still knew I was "Maggie's mom." That made me happy.

A few minutes later I became a little uncomfortable when she asked, "Where's Maggie?" I froze for a minute before answering, "She's not here." (Pause) "I don't think her class arrived yet."  Both statements were technically true, but taken together were very misleading. There was just no way I was going to tell that child what had happened. She was there to compete in Special Olympics, she was having fun. Nothing would be gained from telling her.

I left shortly after that exchange. As I walked home through a sparkling Golden Gate Park I wondered if I had done the right thing. And, if I did, was I protecting her or me? It doesn't matter, I suppose. We could both use a little protecting. That's what mother's do, right? They protect. I smiled again as I thought of her greeting and of my nearly twenty years as "Maggie's Mom."

 I was MAGGIE'S mom!
 I was Maggie's MOM!
I was MAGGIE'S MOM!

It was the hardest and best job I ever had. And it was a wild wild ride, that's for sure.

Happy Mother's Day.  Enjoy the ride.

Mothers and Mondays

Monday again. How does that keep happening?

I hope everyone had a lovely Mother's Day. I did. Steve got up to take over for the nurse letting me "sleep in."  Of course I am so programmed to get up early, I didn't sleep, but I did stay upstairs playing words with friends and luxuriating in the fact that I wasn't on duty.

While I lounged, Steve and Maggie went out into the garden and picked some flowers and made a breakfast tray. I messed them up by appearing so early, so my breakfast was biscotti and 4 fresh cherries. But the presentation was lovely.

Maggie made me a refrigerator magnet with her picture on it, which you can see on the tray in the picture. She also grew a plant from seeds in school and decorated a flower pot to put the plant in, but Steve didn't see that on the windowsill so it didn't make the tray. Both were great.

We had my mom, my brother Pat and his wife Julie came over for dinner. My sister Kate and her family came by for, and brought, hors d'oeuvres.  Steve cooked like a fiend all day and we feasted on paella. Company and dinner were both wonderful.

I did get the best card for my mom.

She seemed relieved. 

Happy Mothers Day

Happy Mothers Day from Maggie and me. I am a mother and I have a wonderful mother and I'm thankful for both.

I hope everyone who is, was, has or had a mother is having a wonderful day. Greetings also to those who play the role of mother to children who need it and to single dads who are both mom and dad.

 And a special greeting to all your mom of special needs kids out there. It's a different job for us, that's for sure, but it is definitely worth it.

Here are Maggie and me and my own mom at a past special olympics.

Mothers Day approaches

My sister in law Julie sent this to me and my sisters and other moms in her world. I think it is the best tribute to mothers I have ever read and I want to share it with all the rest of you "mothers" out there. (and I mean that in the nicest possible way).

I hope you all get lanyards.

The Lanyard - Billy Collins

The other day I was ricocheting slowly
off the blue walls of this room,
moving as if underwater from typewriter to piano,
from bookshelf to an envelope lying on the floor,
when I found myself in the L section of the dictionary
where my eyes fell upon the word lanyard. 
No cookie nibbled by a French novelist
could send one into the past more suddenly—
a past where I sat at a workbench at a camp
by a deep Adirondack lake
learning how to braid long thin plastic strips
into a lanyard, a gift for my mother.
I had never seen anyone use a lanyard
or wear one, if that’s what you did with them,
but that did not keep me from crossing
strand over strand again and again
until I had made a boxy
red and white lanyard for my mother.
She gave me life and milk from her breasts,
and I gave her a lanyard.
She nursed me in many a sick room,
lifted spoons of medicine to my lips,
laid cold face-cloths on my forehead,
and then led me out into the airy light
and taught me to walk and swim,
and I, in turn, presented her with a lanyard.
Here are thousands of meals, she said,
and here is clothing and a good education.
And here is your lanyard, I replied,
which I made with a little help from a counselor.
Here is a breathing body and a beating heart,
strong legs, bones and teeth,
and two clear eyes to read the world, she whispered,
and here, I said, is the lanyard I made at camp.
And here, I wish to say to her now,
is a smaller gift—not the worn truth
that you can never repay your mother,
but the rueful admission that when she took
the two-tone lanyard from my hand,
I was as sure as a boy could be
that this useless, worthless thing I wove
out of boredom would be enough to make us even.
June 24, 2005

Mothers Day weekend

Monday arrived putting an end to a busy weekend.

I hope all you mothers or those acting in the role of mother enjoyed your special day yesterday. I did. I saw two of my children, talked to the third and spent time with my own mother, one of two brothers and three of four sisters.

Wow, that's a lot of math.

Maggie and her classmates made Mothers Day Cards at school. Maggie made the message on her dynavox and then they print it out on the computer. Her first message was not expressing quite the sentiment the staff thought was appropriate. They told Maggie they thought her evil twin Melissa must have written it. So I received two cards, one from Maggie and one from her evil twin/alter ego Melissa.

The card were almost identical,. Just a few words different.

The Maggie card said:
"Sweet Mom, you are fun and friendly, Love, Maggie"

The Melissa card said:

sweet Mom, you are stinky. Love Melissa

Makes a mom proud.

Cinco de Madre

Happy day after Mother's Day. I hope all the mothers out there were treated like queens. We had a "Cinco de Madre" party here. My mom and two sisters and their families came over along with my father in law and a nephew from the other side Rather than the usual family fare, I had a taco/tostada bar for Mothers Day lunch. It was fun. Five of my nephews were here (ages 15-23) and they consumed vast amounts of food.  Maggie enjoyed all the company.

The boys watched the Giants game while they ate and when that game was over switched to the Oakland A's game. All of us are Giants fans and tolerate but don't really follow the A's. The only exception to this is my nephew Jack, who is 15. He has always been an A's fan and proudly stands out among all the cousins

My favorite image of yesterday had nothing to do with my mother or with being a mother. Rather it is an image of  Jack and came at the end of the A's game. The A's pitcher, Dallas Braden, had a perfect game going. By the end of the game all of us were in the room watching to see if he could pull it off. There weren't enough seats for everyone and several of us were standing. Jack had the leather recliner, the best seat in the room. After the first out in the 9th he was on the edge of his seat. After the second out he was standing up in front of his chair staring at the television. As the pitcher prepared to face the last batter, Jack looked like a proud father. When the perfect game was complete, Jack was grinning ear to ear. The man stands by his team and thoroughly enjoyed his moment in a room full of Giants fans.

The weekend was a nice break after the medical tests on Friday. We have discovered a downside of allowing doctors to put cameras into you body to see what's going on. Sometimes they find problems. We wanted answers to Maggie's repeated symptoms. Be careful what you wish for. We have the answers and we don't like them. Maggie will need surgery to repair a fistula (opening) that has developed between her lungs and esophagus. Not sure yet what exactly is entailed, but it will not be fun for her, or for any of us, that's for sure. This is not a new problem, because we have been fighting these symptoms for months, but now that we know it's there it has to be fixed. More news as it happens. 

Kids of all ages

Mother’s Day is at my house this year. I am having the family, my mom and siblings over for lunch. Generally, this would be a huge undertaking because my family is so enormous. I have written before that my mother has 20 grandchildren (see 14 of the 20 in the pic)produced by her seven children and their spouses. If half the crowd shows up you have to plan food for 20 people, many of them men between 15-25 years old with huge appetites. Generally, we have parties at my mom’s house because it is the only one big enough to comfortably fit everyone, and they are always potluck because it is too much for one person to undertake.


Not this time.

I believe Maggie will be the only grandchild present on Sunday. None of the cousins is coming. In addition, one brother and a couple of spouses are not going to make it. We will be 12, and I do not have to include Maggie in the food count. Cooking for 11 middle-aged folks is very easy. It’s like cooking I do when my boys are home.


The “kids” are working, away at school or living elsewhere. No more babies, no more grammar school kids (Maggie’s the last and she graduates next month). They have grown up. All of my siblings live in California, six of us within 60 miles of San Francisco and one in LA. The offspring are mostly in California, but there are representatives in Nevada, Washington, Arizona, Montana, Colorado, Vermont and Maryland. The oldest cousin has three children of her own; the next generation has started. We have come full circle.

Obviously I know where my boys and each of my nieces and nephews are and generally what they’re up to, but it wasn’t until we were planning this that I realized we’ve reached a new plateau in the family. It must be interesting for my mother to see this. This is the second generation to leave the nest.


It is one of the benefits and drawbacks of being a mother. You create the nest, feather it, bustle around it and then send your birdies off into the world. For some this “empty nest” is a problem. Not for me. I am enjoying it while I can. I know that just as the nest becomes quiet and comfortable, they come back. And they bring people with them. Just ask my mother.

Happy Mother’s Day to all the mothers out there.