Here's hoping for macaroni necklaces

Thanks to many, many marketing campaigns, that are ever-present, my brain has finally gotten the hint that Mothers Day is fast approaching. This means planning on my part. I have to get cards and send some flowers to my Grandmame. Back home in GA, all Moms wore corsages to church, Mama's get cards and whatever else their youngsters deem gift worthy. I was big into making my own gifts. I am not sure if this came from, the lack of cash in my younger years and/or the fact that the closest store that I could access, without being driven, was Seven-Eleven. You would think that I would have made a macaroni necklace or a construction paper flower but oh no, I always had bigger ideas. One mothers day I handed my Mother a mud doll. That is right, I went and dug up a bunch of dirt, fashioned it into what seemed more like a mud snowman, put a part of a jean pants on it for a dress and triumphantly handed it to my Mother. There is a great charade played by all Mothers and Fathers when their children hand them something like a mud doll. I can remember my obsessively clean Mother telling me thank you and placing this doll of dirt on her kitchen table as a center piece. Or perhaps it is less of a charade then I think. I would love a dirt doll from Ella. It feels like a gift that she smiles at me, she is calmed by me and when she crawls over to me to be lifted up. A gift of attachment. Last year when I was giant and pregnant, I did feel a little deserving of the well wishes of a Happy Mothers day. I mean there I was, no bladder control, barely able to take a walk and a vagina that was desperately trying to hitchhike out of town, my only consolation prize was that I could wear elastic pants all the time. The "Happy Mothers Day" I got just helped to remind me of the bigger picture, the child to come. Now that it is almost an entire year later and my body has been returned to me, things are feeling much different. I have had 10 months of an Ella Sue in my life and a husband that is now a Father. These are my blessings. These are my almost-a-year of Happy Mother's days. This year me and my vagina have made up. I feel like I should be giving nothing but thanks to those that made it possible, Ella Sue and Drew. Well, them and cause I am from the south, lets add God and Fate too. However, I will say, not to be greedy but I am hoping that there will be construction flowers and dirt dolls in my future.
P.S. my friend Katie took this photo, if you are ever meet Katie, throw a camera in her hand and prance around saying cheese, you might get lucky and she will take stunning photos of you and whatever else happens to show up in the frame. I am serious, she made my guenie pigs look like a good idea.

When No means Yes

Because, Ella Sue has been doing secret complex math equations in her room that are going to put quantum physics in a tailspin, she has had to put her babbling on hold. This means that Drew and I are trying to catch her up. Mamamam and Bababababa and Dadadadada fill the house. I now refer to myself in the third person all the time "Mamama is going to pick you up now....". It is odd enough talking in the third person, even weirder that the name I am calling myself is Mama. I completely understand Bob Doyles constant third person referencing, clever marketing campaign. I am hoping that if I reference myself as much as Bob Doyle did himself, then Ella will one day soon put together Mama with me. Well, to be honest she probably already does. She also gets that her name is Ella Sue. She has multiple names, Ella Bee, Baby Bear, Ella Bear, Ella sweet, she seems to understand all of them are referencing her. She has picked that up in only 8 short months. It took me a good two years and 200 cans of soft cat food to teach Fitz his name. Of course now he is deaf, so I am trying to teach him how to read it....it is taking me much longer. I am also working on teaching Ella other words, mainly No. Mostly No. No do not grab Fitz and jog him up and down. This is mainly so the SPCA people don't come to my house to remove Fitz because I have let my child snatch him bald headed. Poor thing, if I hear too much glee coming from Ella, I have to go and unwrap Fitz from her choker hold. She must have been a wrestler in another life. As with any word there are certain ways you speak it. For instance, for No to be effective it can not sound the same as snookums and suga bear. Very difficult for me when talking to Ella. My "No" to her has the same intonation as "sweetie". Needless to say Fitz would be rolling his eyes if he could, but since Ella is holding his ears back so tight, his eyes are slits, I just feel his silent prayer beaming from his brain "tell her no". So there I am trying to teach myself to say No and Ella to hear No. Because if I can ever learn to say No in a way that Ella will hear, then maybe just maybe, Fitz can say Yes to a couple more years on this earth and if not, at least get to say yes to keeping his hair.Course, I do hear the bald cats are in.