Unofficial Mother's Day

Saturday marked an early Mother's Day with my mom and my mother-in-law, since Tim was taking me out of town for my first Mother's Day.  I made a scrapbook of all my pregnancy pictures, ultrasounds, and pictures of Ben and Conner for our mothers, which I dedicated myself to for weeks (and more weeks).  We took my mother-in-law out to breakfast, and she almost started crying when she saw the pictures of the boys' footprints being pressed into their Bibles.  She may have just then been realizing why we had asked her and my father-in-law to bring Bibles to the hospital the weekend they were born.

Some of these pictures are very personal to me, so I had to kinda mosaic-tile the thing to post it on here

My mother-in-law, sister-in-law, and her husband got together and made me a collage of the boys' pictures, which was shaped into a heart. My mother-in-law gave it to me out  by her car, since it was too large to carry in (24x24).  I almost started crying right there in the parking lot.  My husband had told me he saw it awhile back, and that he started bawling when he saw it.  As soon as the custom frame comes in for it, I'm putting it up in the living room.  If we ever have any more babies, they are screwed because Ben and Conner have pretty much taken up every possible space there is in our house to put up pictures and I absolutely refused to take any of them down.  I think there's a little space on our fridge for potential baby #3, whose nickname I have already dubbed "triplet" because hey, isn't that what he or she is to the boys?  I've got eight snowbabies who all fertilized with the boys... so are my twins technically dectuplets?

I made a stop to my sister in law's house, too, to give her her "Mother's Day" gift.  We were going to ask her to be the boys' godmother, so I got her a necklace with a cross and a heart on it.  The heart is engraved with the boys' names and birth date.  It was delicately placed in a jewelry box that has her name on it.  She told me she had a gift for me, from the boys who told her to give it to me.  Inside a box shaped like a book were Hershey's hugs and kisses (get it?).  Plus, a charm with a blue Hershey's kiss and another blue charm with two baby footprints on it.  My SIL said that she, her mom, her sister, and I all have the same charm with the two footprints on it for Conner and Ben.

A kiss from my boys

The footprint bead, surrounded by my other Conner and Ben beads - two beads with blue stones and angel wings, one solid blue bead that looks like Conner's hat, and one striped bead that looks like Ben's hat.

We stopped at my mom's house before we took her to dinner.  I was desperate not to talk about cancer, since it was Mother's Day and it became very clear to me that it might be one of the last with my mom.  I didn't want this day to be scattered with tears, but it turns out I couldn't have stopped that if I tried.  I gave my mom her scrapbook of the boys, and she cried all over it.  She kept stroking the boys' pictures, just like I do, as if trying to remember what it was like to touch their little faces.  She literally hugged and rocked that book like it was really them.  We weren't even at dinner yet, and already the night was a mess...but I think a good mess.  My mom doesn't talk about the boys much, because I think it hurts her.  But it hurts me when she doesn't talk about them.  It was touching to see her so moved by their pictures.

My dad asked for more pictures of them to put on our family tree frames, right before he told he that he was getting a tattoo of their names on his arms.  Ha, we'll see if you really get those, old man.  Mom rights a tight ship and I'm pretty sure she will freak out. She is terrified of us getting hepatitis from tattoos, which is why she hates every one of mine.  That's what happens when  your mom is a nurse.  She will yell at you for getting tattoos and forbid you to go to concerts, since she is pretty sure you will end up dead in a ditch from a drunk driver hitting you after watching Jessica Simpson or 98* sing their hearts out.

My mom had gotten me two dresses (one that I wore to dinner on "official" Mother's Day), some perfume, and some Bath & Body works soap for Mother's Day. It has to be weird that I was super excited for that soap.  I am too cheap to go out and buy nice soap for the bathrooms, so usually if there is ever nice soap in there, it is because my mom insists that I have nice everything.  At this very moment, I am smelling my hands (much like Mary Katherine Gallagher, superstar) and how they smell like Island Breeze.  

Dinner went well, and we found a way to all talk and laugh together.  My brother usually lightens the conversations because he has such a great sense of humor.  Our entrees came out late, but we got free dessert out of it.  My mom yelled at my dad for the time I fell off the bed as an infant 29 years ago.  She's still pretty peeved by it.  She worked late and came home around midnight.  My dad had apparently fallen asleep with me in the bed next to him.  My mom was in the kitchen and heard a big *thud*, ran into the bedroom, and saw her baby on the floor.  My dad jokes and says it was my fault for rolling.  My mom still wants to strangle him over it.

We're waiting for my mom's test results, which I'm actually pretty sure came in today.  Today is Conner and Ben's due date, and I asked my brother not to tell me the results until tomorrow.  I'm pretty much sitting here freaking out as I type this.

Tomorrow I will post about "official" Mother's Day and their due date.  It just seemed like it would make for an overly long post if I included everything in it all at once, and if you are anything like me then your attention span is approximately 20 minutes long (no more than a high school senior, or a toddler watching Dora the Explorer).