The Mother’s Day of Your Choice

If you could have the perfect day for Mothers Day, what would your perfect day look like?

For me the answer to this question changes depending on life stage, circumstances, age of my children, and more.

But even more than that, it can depend on whether or not I think I’m worthy of having a day of my dreams.

Understanding this for me personally, I hope you can hear this:

You matter. You are enough. You are important.

You are worth celebrating.

You are worth celebrating on Mother’s Day.

With that in mind, what would your perfect day celebrating you as a mother look like?

Mother’s Day can be weird for many of us. It can feel contrived, a fake holiday to guilt people into spending more money. Maybe it brings up complicated feelings about our own mothers or complicated feelings about our mothering. Sometimes we feel MORE invisible on Mother’s Day when those around us seem not to notice us or the day. It may raise questions about what we do that’s worth a whole day set aside to celebrate or maybe it highlights how inadequate we feel. It may even lead to questioning what makes one a mother. For some Mother’s Day reveals how desperately we want a break from being a mom. For some it reveals how desperately we want to be a mom. For some it reveals how much they have a mothering spirit while others may feel it reveals they don’t. And many of us may wonder why we need a special day set aside to appreciate mothers- shouldn’t that be every day?

Some lucky ones experience Mother’s Day as a special time to honor their own mother and celebrate their own motherhood.

It’s a day fraught with clichés and complexity.

With Mother’s Day just around the corner, it’s time for us to realize once again that we’ve just about heard it all:

  • Yes, we all have a mother.
  • Mothers are amazing.
  • Mothers are underappreciated.
  • Flowers and homemade cards are the best way to celebrate mothers.
  • Wine and time away from our children are the gift all honest mothers crave.

How do we celebrate moms without clichés?

By embracing where we are in our journey without guilt or shame. Sure, be aware of where you need to grow and change but shame doesn’t help that journey so let’s all agree to just skip that.

This Mother’s Day, if you haven’t already, prepare by sharing with those close to you what you’d like to do, how you enjoy celebrating, and what you’d really love to receive. If that’s a nap, tell them! If that’s a mimosa by the pool, tell them! If that’s spending the day child-free doing whatever you’d like to do, tell them that too. If you’d prefer to spend the day at the park with your family and receive a card and a special necklace, share that with them.

I hope you get to experience the Mother’s Day that will mean the most to you with respect to your personal journey. Whatever that looks like.

Most of all though, I hope you grow in your understanding that you matter, you are enough, you are important, and you are worth celebrating.

To help with that, we’re focusing on celebrating you and the mother-spirit this week with a campaign #TLBmom and a giveaway to go with it featuring brands that value mothers every day, celebrating you like every day is Mother’s day.

The support that The Leaky Boob is able to offer every day is made possible thanks to brands such as these. Not only do they believe in you and me they exist to make the world a better and more beautiful place. I hope you’ll love them as much as I do. Take a moment to follow them all on social media, see what they’re about, and check out what products might make your life better and more beautiful.

The giveaway:

Alter Eco – Fair Trade chocolates, Baby K’Tan – Active Wrap, Cake Maternity – Cotton Candy Seamless Nursing Bra, Indigo Willow breast milk jewelry – Clair de Lune ring, Natracare – cloth shoulder bag full of earth-friendly feminine/baby products, Latched Mama – Drawstring T-Shirt Dress in Black Vintage Rose, Glamourmom – nursing long top

 

One winner gets all of the product above, and 10 others will win some Natracare products in a small cloth bag. That’s 11 lucky Leakies!

Please use the following widget to enter the giveaway. Good luck, and Happy Mother’s Day!

a Rafflecopter giveaway

Six Meaningful Ways to Honor Motherhood and Our Children

by Jessica Martin-Weber
this post is made possible by the generous support of Baby Bee Hummingbirds.

@jixxs92 heart hands feet

Parenting is at once a lot of overwhelming work and a precious beautiful joy. The saying, “the years are short, but the days are long”, while cliché, is so true. Each day can be long and quite frankly, full of actual poop. They aren’t always fun. And though they drag, they go by quickly. Amidst the poop, sleep deprivation, stress, and whining, there are cuddles, giggles, dance parties, and heart melting smiles. It’s the best, with moments that can be the worst. Worth every second of the poopy stuff. Though it’s impossible to enjoy every moment of our parenting journeys, there are so many special moments to cherish. I propose that we make memories, commemorate them, celebrate the stages, and create a narrative that keeps it all alive in our hearts. Inspired by the many ideas shared on this post, here are some of my favorite ways to celebrate our mothering journey and the stages of our children. There’s much to honor in our journeys, pregnancy, birth, feeding, play, sleep, and milestones or just the whole journey itself. What you focus on depends on what is the most important and moving for you, there’s no right or wrong way.

Journal
Whether you start it when you find out you’re pregnant or sometime after your baby has made their entrance, a journal to share with them later can be an inexpensive and meaningful way to honor not only their journey through childhood, but your journey as their parent. It doesn’t have to be filled with long profound thoughtful entries, brief, honest looks at that moment can hold a lot of meaning. If a journal is overwhelming, a baby’s first year calendar may feel a little more manageable while still helping you record those special moments. Some days are red letter days, some are green, some are purple, and some are black. Whatever color you use, using a calendar for a baby’s first year or two can be a precious way to look back at all their firsts and big moments in their start to life.

Photographs/video

You may start with documenting your bump growth or it may not occur to you until you see their adorable little face, but pictures are an easy way to celebrate the big moments and the most mundane. In this digital age we can snap as many photos as we like, it’s no big deal to scrap 30 shots if they don’t turn out and that could easily be what it takes to have that one perfect capture that immortalizes the look on your 18 months old face when daddy walks through the door each day. Same with video, smart phones make it easy to forever grab the moment when they first take tentative steps feeling grass under their bare feet and trashing the times when they refuse to put their feet down at all unless of course, that moment is a laugh worth holding on to as well. Saving these files digitally and converting a few into photo books or sharing with friends and family on social media lets you look through them over and over. While it can be fun to create clever staged photos, some of those more candid ones may very well end up being your favorites. Just make sure you don’t end up never being in the photos with them, you’re worth remembering in your different stages too so don’t be too much of a momarazzi and practice the art of a good #selfie and handing the camera off.

Repurpose

That sweet dress can be handed down to future children, future grandchildren, or passed along to friends and with all the clothes a baby will go through, you can’t keep them all. But a few can be repurposed, specially your favorites. A quilt made out of the softest pajamas, several pieces deconstructed into a whole new outfit, a scrap of that little onesie they came home in added to a shadow box, that cute t-shirt from your sister becomes play clothes for a favorite plush animal, or even just displaying that frilly dress as part of a room’s decor. If you’re not personally ready to cut up your baby’s clothing to create something new, there are many incredibly talented work at home moms that take custom orders that can create something special for you.

Mini time capsule

Take the hospital wrist band, a piece of the hospital cap, a snip of the swaddle blanket, the first pair of socks, or any other small memento and put it in a clear class ornament available at craft stores. Write baby’s name and the date for a mini time capsule ornament for a holiday decoration. Or gather similar items and display in a shadow box. An actual time capsule, hidden in the ground or even just under your bed or in the attic, can be added to annually, the contents reviewed together with your child on their birthday.

The talented Katie M. Bergen has a stunning collection of art that honors parenting and families.

The talented Katie M. Berggren has a stunning collection of art that honors parenting and families.

TLB admin, Star, has this tattoo to honor both her daughters and her mothering journey.

TLB admin, Star, has this tattoo to honor both her daughters and her mothering journey.

Art

If you’re artistic, creating your own piece of art that captures the essence of your parenting journey or your child’s spirt can be especially meaningful. It can be a continual work in progress, adding to it over time or it may be a complete work. If storytelling is your talent, a self published story book can capture your own unique narrative. If you’re not comfortable creating your own art, purchased art can be just as meaningful and some artists are happy to create commissioned pieces inspired by your family, you can find some on Etsy, and here are three of my favorites: Katie M. BerggrenKate Hansen, and Claudia Tremblay. Taking commissioned work even further, some may want to honor their parenting journey with ink on their own body. Whether they be symbolic or representative, tattoos can fit both your personality and your journey. I wrote about the meaning of my tattoo here.

Jewelry

A special piece of jewelry, intended specifically to celebrate parenting and/or your child, be it personalized or more general, is such a meaningful expression. Again, you can have one custom made and it can honor your parenting or child(ren) in a more general way (such as birthstone charms) or some specific aspect such as breastfeeding. A breastmilk pendent, created with your own milk, a curl bead the incorporates a lock of your child’s hair, or some other specific area of focus are all possible and unique you can find some at Baby Bee Hummingbirds. A designated necklace, bracelet, or ring, something you wear every day or just for special occasions makes for special conversations in the future. My children love when I wear my mothering necklace, it means a lot to them that being their mother is so beautiful and important to me that I have a special piece of jewelry just about that.

 

 

What would you add to our list of ways to celebrate and honor our children and our own parenting journey?