Friday, May 10, 2013

happy mommies day.

My Facebook feed is already starting to fill up with tributes for Mother’s Day – friends have changed their profile pictures and updated their statuses to deliver words of praise for the women who brought them into the world and raised them right.

I’m headed home this weekend to celebrate my own brave mama.

Besides just being thankful to be her daughter, there is even more to celebrate this year – namely, her improving health and new, twisted sense of humor.

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When I was a child, Mother’s Day was all about honoring MY mother – and since I’m not yet a mother myself, it mostly still is. But since my friends have begun embarking on the adventure of motherhood, I’ve noticed a shift from just celebrating my own mother to instead celebrating all women who hold that title.

I am a surrogate aunt to all of these beauties (and more) – enjoying, from a safe distance, watching my crazy friends learn how to parent and succeeding with flying colors.

What an entertaining show it has been.

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In many ways, their mothering looks like it did when we used to "play house" – my friends live in nice homes; their offspring are healthy, happy, well-behaved children with cool names and good hair.

But unfortunately, along with the highly entertaining and often humorous narrative of my friends’ adventures in raising a family, has also come unexpected struggles of infertility, miscarriages and challenges to adopt.

Heartbreaking realities that never surfaced when we played house.

I haven’t ever felt the strong desire of wanting to be a mother - if there is such a thing as a biological clock, I think someone turned mine off. But sometimes it feels like a cruel joke the universe is playing – when loving people, who have so much to offer a baby, can’t have one.

"If I knew it was going to be this hard for me to get pregnant," one of my girlfriends once said to me, "I could've saved myself a lot of freak outs over pregnancy scares!  I could’ve been having casual sex all over town!"

My friend was kidding, of course, but struggling to have a baby isn’t funny at all. It’s devastating.

So while spending this Sunday with my own awesome (albeit, a little crazy) mom, thanking God she's on a fast road to recovery, I will also be spending special prayers and good vibes to the women who ache to be mothers and who every day, patiently wait for it to be their turn.

I’ll also think about the Newtown moms, the Boston moms, and all of the moms who might feel sad on Sunday – thinking about children they lost to senseless acts of violence.

And I’ll celebrate the mothers who excel at the most difficult job there is - performing miracles for their children daily.

Happy Mother's Day from me!

And Triangle Sally (aka Kristen Wiig), who like me, is not a mother, but is amazing and wonderful and awesome.


She's hosting Saturday Night Live this weekend - in case you were wondering what I was doing on Saturday.

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