I know, I know – this blog is a little early, but if you have a house similar to our house, reminders need to start popping up like daisies NOW. It takes weeks before the pop-up reminders are even noticed, so here’s hoping this blog strikes even one wakeful dad on the noggin.
If you’re from Spain, Belarus or the UK, you’ve had your turn. Stand back and make way for the rest of us. Mothers from Australia, Belgium, Bolivia, Canada, Denmark, Dominican Republic, Finland, Georgia, Germany, Italy, Japan, Latvia, Lithuania, Malawi, Netherlands, New Zealand, Paraguay, Puerto Rico, Switzerland, Syria, Taiwan, Turkey and the United States – unite!
Pounce on the silk frocks, stake your baubles at the jeweller, peg your antique armoire at Panjiayuan. Leave surreptitious notes or luxury ads torn from magazines in easy-to-spot places (through the loops of beer can lids for Dad, in the ice cream section of the freezer for the kids). Flaunt your bare, diamond-less earlobes. Scatter business cards from the best hotels in Beijing, offering the most luscious high teas and overnight packages, and leave the ice bucket conspicuously empty on the kitchen counter. Dream big, girl – BIG!
The biggest day of your year is nigh. It’s – da da da daaaa – Mother’s Day!
So, when Sunday May 10 dawns far too early for respectable eyelids to open, and the house-husband and scurrying mice kids batter their way around the house in an attempt to be inconspicuous and possibly even noiseless… when you smell the burnt toast curling in under the door crack… when you blindly reach for pillows to prop yourself as a child-propelled tray heads lopsidedly towards you, complete with a wayward bloom, slopped tea and battered berries topping a dismembered fruit salad… when you sip the sloppy tea and the love infused in the brew reaches your toes… when you weep over the card made with smudged crayon and decorated with tic-tacs… when you giggle and coo at the home-made presents of sagging clay pots and long-forgotten Pokemon cards wrapped in tissues… when your daughter reads you a poem that wraps around your heart … when all of these things happen, you will realise that nothing is better than this. This is as good as it gets. And you wouldn’t want it better.
But wait – there’s more. He enters the room, tall and handsome (albeit in silhouette), holding a small, navy-blue box aloft… his smile is soft and telling… he opens the box, the flash is blinding…
Then I wake up. And there is sloppy tea on my lap. And I’m really, really happy.
Did I mention Mother’s Day is Sunday May 10 and that my earlobes are naked?
