My 2nd Mother's Day

This time last year, we were about to leave for Ethiopia. Xander was running a conference in Barbados, and I was still in Montreal, so we both flew to New York to meet up at my cousin Anna's place before the flight over to Addis Ababa. My sweet, sweet cousin threw us a baby shower the day we left. It was Mother's Day, I think. Or the next day was. I can't remember exactly. But what I do remember is that no one wished me a Happy Mother's Day. I was kind of down about it, actually. When I got around to opening Anna & Ben's shower gift to us, I pulled out the card. It was a Mother's Day card. I cried. It turns out my heart is only partly made of stone.

This year, I have two screaming toddlers. They kicked off Mother's Day by taking off their underpants and peeing all over their bedroom floor when I wasn't looking. It was awful. And also? It was kind of great. We worked hard to bring these two little people to the point that they could take off their own pants and willfully pee all over their very own bedroom. When I was done crying because I was so mad--again, not entirely emotionless--I was proud of them. Little fuckers.