Most Excellent Mother's Day

So I’ve been meaning to blog about Mother’s Day weekend for a while now, but am finally getting around to it. I had a most excellent Mother’s Day (am I channeling Ted from “Bill and Ted’s Excellent Adventure?).

Some of you may know that back in November we had to have the transmission in the Boyd Family Van rebuilt. Since then Greg hasn’t been super comfortable with the kids and I driving around in it. We’ve been talking about getting rid of it for something more reliable for a while. First we were looking at the Honda and Toyota mini-vans. But with gas prices continuing to go up and our commute, I decided that I wanted to get a Hybrid. So we looked at the Toyota Camera Hybrid. It literally has no trunk. You could maybe fit five bags of groceries in it. So that was a deal breaker. Then we looked at Hybrid SUVs. The Toyota Highlander was nice but a bit pricy. Then we decided on a Ford Escape Hybrid. Needless to say after all the research we’ve done, if you need any advise on Hybrids just let us know.

Soooooo on the Saturday before Mother’s Day, we finally got our stuff together and went to a dealership that we had talked to via email (Costco auto buying service). I really wanted a Kiwi Green Escape with not too many frills. But then the guy showed us a black one with some nice features. As soon as Greg saw it, he loved the color. It “looks sharp” according to my husband. The only problem was that it had gotten water spots on it that morning from the sprinklers and the guy wouldn’t let us take it until after it had been cleaned. So we ended up buying a new car and getting rid of the Boyd Family Van. But we had to wait until Monday to go pick up the new car.

Onto Sunday: My mom and I went to see a movie at 11:00 – just the two of us. We saw “What Happens in Vegas”. Which was pretty funny and didn’t require any brain power – which is what we were looking for. I actually let my mom pick the movie. My parents got me a Wii Fit (but of course they weren’t out yet, so it was more like the promise of a Wii Fit – more on this later). It’s nice to be an only child (i.e. spoiled). When I got home Brianna was down for her nap, Greg was cleaning up the kitchen, and Liam was somewhere that I can’t remember now. Greg had gotten me some beautiful flowers that he arranged himself (very well I might add and they lasted over a week). He and the kids had also gotten me Mario Kart for my Wii (do you see a theme here?). It was great. He also made dinner (steak, baked potatoes, veggies). While Brianna was taking her nap I started to play Mario Kart. Like I could wait once I saw it. Liam came out at that point and wanted to play with me.

Now this is the best part of the weekend and one that is incredibly hard to put into words. Liam sat with me and we both held the “steering wheel”. He steered, while I held down the accelerator button. If you know me, then you know I like to win – a lot. Liam likes to see the cars crash – a lot. As you can guess this led to some hmmm, how should I say this – disagreements, consternation, butting heads. Liam would try to steer us off the mushrooms (he especially liked bouncing off the mushrooms) and I’d be trying to keep us on track, then he’d put his hand up trying to block my eyes so I couldn’t see where he was steering us, then I would yell NO NO NO. So loudly at one point that Greg came out to put Liam into time out for not listening to his mother. Then Greg saw me laughing so hard and realized we were just playing. I had tears running down my face from laughing with Liam and Liam thought it was too much fun playing with mommy and getting to steer the car where he wanted. It was just one of those moments of pure joy and fun and just delight. He really is so much fun and we had such a good time playing together. I’m going to turn him into a gamer yet. I can’t wait for the day when he can kick my butt and wants the newest game console. I know, I know, I’m turning my son into a total geek, but I don’t care. Geeks are easy to love.

So the wonderful Mother’s Day ended with a wonderful meal cooked by the most wonderful husband and he took care of getting the kids to bed too.

You may be wondering about the Wii Fit I mentioned earlier. Well, it came out this Wednesday. Which just happened to be the day my dad was having oral surgery. So my mom had some time to kill waiting to pick him up and take him home. She ran by Target and got one of the three Wii Fits that was left. So I’ve only played it once (last night). I was on it for 31 minutes (well that’s at least what’s in my Fit Bank) and worked up a sweat, which I wasn’t expecting. It was sooooooooooo much fun. My friends know how I feel about running (you shouldn’t do it unless you’re being chased by someone with a knife – if it’s a gun you can’t out run the bullet, so why bother trying). But the running part of the game was so much fun (and where I worked up the biggest sweat), that I’ll be doing that every night after the kids go to bed and I kick Greg out of the family room. I’m just as bad at the step aerobics on the Wii as I am in a regular step class, but at least I didn’t injury myself and no one had to see how bad I am. The hula hooping was fun, most of the balance games are fun too. I did some of the yoga moves, well actually I tried everything at least once. Some of the yoga moves I did really well and some I did horribly. Warrior – easy. The stand on one leg with your arms over your head (I forget the name) – extremely difficult (especially on the left leg). I kicked butt on the ski jump. Well, I could go on and on, but you get the idea. I really liked it and I think it will get me off my butt more. Which should help with the weight loss. Hopefully the thyroid medicine will help with that also. Oh, not sure I’ve mentioned this or not, but I have Hashimoto Thyroiditis. It’s pretty common and I just have to take one small little pill for the rest of my life. So far I’ve lost 14 pounds, but I have such a long way to go. I’m just glad that I’m starting to get some of my energy back, so I can chase my kids around. Brianna is getting really fast.

I hope everyone had a wonderful Mother’s Day and expressed their appreciation to their own mothers. Now I have to start planning a totally excellent Father’s Day.