It started earlier than planned this morning.

At 6:37am to be precise.

With our youngest – 21-months-old – screaming.

That woke up the 4-year-old.

Sundays are usually my morning to sleep in.

But my husband has been working a lot of overtime and is generally tired so, instead, after he got our youngest a drink, I took them both back to bed in my eldest’s room for a bit more napping and snuggling.

We played some music softly and projected lights on the wall.  My 4-year-old asked if it was Mother’s Day yet?  Yes, I replied.  Can I give you your present now?  Later, I reply.  When Daddy’s up.

And it was good for about an hour until a Disney Princess book fell on the head of my youngest.

This one.

Like I needed another piece of proof that Disney Princesses – and this book in particular – are really EVIL. Why this book in particular? It is, truly, my bedtime read albatross – it never ends. And when a story finally does? There’s 18 more you can read! Please mommy!

But thwack; fall; and here endeth a cosy start to the day.

However,  my husband was kind enough to take them so I could go back to bed for another hour.  So that was pretty awesome.

Then?

I woke up to gifts!

A flower-pot from daycare.

A bottle of Armagnac from my husband.

And the princess card from both girls (because, in case it wasn’t obvious, it’s nothin’ but a princess party over here).

The card inside reads:

…there was a family who had the best mom and wife in the kingdom.   (That would be us)

My eldest had already given me her kindergarten Mother’s Day gift Friday because she simply couldn’t wait.

Now?  My husband has taken both to a birthday party (hosted by a better mother than me) so I get some time alone before heading off to do a bit of school work in the early afternoon before we start prepping to host my parents and my sister-in-law, brother, and their new baby for dinner.

In true family tradition?

I have a bottle of cognac for my mother too.

We’ll get some nice flowers for the newest still breastfeeding mother in our midst.

But all that to say?  So far so good for the first Mother’s Day that I really think my eldest fully understands.

To add a bit of fun from our Disney and cartoon-bathed home, I wanted to share a quick collage for all the mothers out there today.  Have a wonderful day!

As for my two little princesses?  Today’s daily post provides a wonderful excuse to link once again to my favourite photo of them:

This photo was taken last fall at Hog’s Back, which is a large park area in the middle of Ottawa with a waterfall in the centre of it. There are also short paths through the woods you can wander or bike through.

I remember spending afternoons there running about as a child and I’ve taken my daughters there a couple of times in the summer and fall when we are looking for something free and fun to do. The last time I was there, a stranger took a photo of my girls and offered to send it to me. I wondered vaguely if it was a scam of some sort, and felt a bit uncomfortable about the experience, but the following Monday, I got an email from Victor Deveau with this beautiful photo of my two girls, which he had titled Princesses and Diamonds.

It was a nice reminder that sometimes strangers are just kind.

And then, in the wonderful way of the Internet, he found my previous post here with the photo and commented thanking me for both posting and crediting his photo.  He wrote a bit about how the photo reminded him of summer afternoons lost in the innocence of childhood and that you could replace this with two boys playing in a sandbox; date it back 16-18 years and it was his recollection of his sons.

With so much noise and “busy” in life, I love the reminders that photos like this; comments like that; 6:30 wake-ups that should be a bother but aren’t; and gifts of painted flowers bring that life is about rejoicing in those moments; not getting bogged down in all the rest.

Happy Mother’s Day.