The warm muzzies!
Whether you call her mum, mom, mummy or mother, or some kind of cutsie name like ‘mushja’, it’s time for a case of the warm ‘muzzies’ this Sunday. By that I mean, it’ll be Mother’s Day in most parts of the world and time to spoil your mum. Take her a cup of tea in bed, make her pancakes dripping with maple syrup, give her a bunch of fragrant flowers, paint her toenails, make her a funny or sentimental card, wrap up against the nippy air and take her for a walk on the beach, or cook her a scrumptious dinner… Do any, or all, of these things ‘cause she’s worth it!
HaHa. My kids will be reading this. Talk about guilt-tripping them!
Actually, Ilaria will tell you that I once BRIBED her to paint my toenails. For a while there she had a penchant for painting toenails bright red with little lumpy white dots, like the poisonous mushroom Babar the Elephant ate in the childhood books. Unique toenails they were. And they always garnered a comment.
But those days are done and dusted for me as the kids are grown up. All I ask for Mother’s Day these years is their company, a bottle or three of bubbly, some laughs and a yummy dinner that we all contribute towards.
Mother’s Day does have another side for me, though, as I am sure it does for many of you. For me, it’s a time to think about my mother, a day to reflect on my childhood years, to reminisce, a day to miss her. She died when I was 28, but when I think about it, it seems like yesterday. Her voice is so clear in my head, her smile so warm. Clichéd it may be, but she was my best friend, the one who was always there for me, who glowed with pride at my achievements, no matter how small and insignificant they seemed, the first one I wanted to ring and talk to when something good happened in my life. The most generous person you could ever meet. And a Saint. She didn’t smoke, nor drink, or swear. How she produced me is a mystery to us all! (Well, of course I don’t smoke, rarely swear and only have an occasional tipple!).
Ilaria here. I get a surprise email from mum – she has just forwarded me her blurb for her Mother’s Day entry for Shared Kitchen and it literally makes me stop in my tracks … in the best possible way.
‘Like mother like daughter’ is a bit of an understatement. I never met my grandmother but I feel the relationship she and mum shared is very similar to the one mum and I have, a generation apart. Reading what she’d written resonated deep within me, making everything else going on around dissolve. It all comes down to the fact that like my grandmother, my mum has a ridiculous sense of humour, the most inspiring ambition and determination, a huge compassionate heart, and is, above all, my best friend, too. I’ve never called her “Mushja” but I have, embarrassingly, called her Mumzicles, and many other sickeningly silly names. Haha! But that’s what makes it special, that’s what makes her my mum, and without her I’d be a lost little puppy! That’s priceless, and what’s even more priceless is the fact that I’m 23 and admitting that to the world. But hey, I don’t care, and neither should you! Make sure you let it be known to your mum ‘cos she’s the only mum you’re going to have. That’s something definitely worth celebrating, over 1, or 3, or maybe 3-and-a-half bottles of bubbles this Sunday.
Cheers
Ila x
