Happy Mother’s Day (belated) to all the moms out there!  I had a lovely day celebrating with my three favorite people – and you can tell, because I didn’t take very many photos; I just had fun.  It was a particularly special Mother’s Day because it was my first one celebrating with this guy:

Look how he coordinates with his sheets!  Total accident.  Anyway, motherhood continues to be my favorite role of all time, and being a mom of two is a whole new ball game.  Twice the fun, twice the snuggles, twice the laughter, twice the grins (and also twice the tears and twice the diapers, but that comes with the territory).  We’re only two months into this two-kids thing, but I think we’re starting to figure it out a little bit, and it was nice to take a day and reflect on how lucky I am to have gotten the little ones I have.

We started the day at our usual ungodly hour.  Hubby fed Peanut her breakfast while I fed Nugget his, and then Peanut and I played a rousing game of “soccer” – a.k.a. tossing and kicking a mini playground ball around the house.  (I bought a Crocodile Creek ball with pictures of the planets, sun, moon and rocket ships for Nugget, who is starting to be engaged by colors and patterns and not just high-contrast.  Peanut has, of course, claimed it as her ball – but Nugget is happy to share with her.)  We had a fun “soccer” game, and Peanut shrieked and cackled with glee.  The game ended when she decided that Nugget should play, too.

I fed Nugget one more time and then we headed off on a short hike at Hunter’s Creek County Park.  The hike was fun but abbreviated, since the path leading down into the ravine was much too slippery and mucky for us to navigate with the kids in carriers.  So we explored the trails at the top of the ravine and then called it a day.

Hilariously, we saw our doubles on the trail – another family with one kid in a backpack on Dad (I’m not sure what brand the backpack was, but it wasn’t the same as ours) and a baby in an Ergo on Mom.  We waved to each other and the other mom called over to us “I like your carriers!”  That’s our life in a nutshell – bonding with strangers on the hiking trail over baby carriers.  We all got a good laugh.

After the hike, we rushed the kids home for lunch and naps.  Lunch went fine but naps were a struggle.  Peanut stayed up for an hour or so and trashed her room before finally crashing, while Nugget put us through our paces downstairs.  He naps well in the morning but isn’t big on afternoon snoozing.  Hubby and I settled him briefly and were able to watch about fifteen minutes of Ken Burns’ The National Parks, but the rest of the afternoon was spent with one of us bouncing and shushing Nugget while the other dashed up and down the stairs yelling at Peanut to lay down and stop throwing books.  It was pretty representative of this stage of motherhood!  I couldn’t do anything but laugh.  After Peanut finally woke up from her abbreviated nap, we treated ourselves to Chinese takeout for dinner and “the kids” gave me a beautiful blue bead necklace in honor of my first Mother’s Day as mom to a boy… then it was time for the normal bedtime dance.  Peanut went down easily enough, but Nugget wanted to party.  More bouncing and shushing ensued until:

We watched another ten minutes or so of The National Parks (it’s 12.5 hours long; you can see why it’s taking us months to finish it) and then attempted to lay Nugget in his crib.  He was having none of that nonsense, so I ended up alternately feeding and rocking him until he finally fell asleep at about 10:30 – and then crashed on the pillow for a few hours until it was time to get up for 2:00 a.m. snuggles.

It was a low-key day, but I felt very loved and appreciated by my boys and my girl.  And now, motherhood continues – it’s Nugget’s breakfast time.

Happy Mother’s Day to all of my friends who were celebrating.  I hope you had a lovely day!