Mother’s Day.

I’ve never been a big fan.

Yesterday was the best Mother’s Day I’ve had.

I woke up earlier than I would have liked to, made breakfast for my family, and got children ready for church.

We got to church later than usual and there was a missionary speaking which meant that all of the benches up front were taken.  We had to sit in the back on the chairs which is so much harder and louder with kids.

For half of the meeting I had to handle all of the kids alone.

When we got home from church I let my husband take a nap for a few hours while I cleaned up the kitchen, made a cake and prepared for his family to come over for dinner.

Then we had several people over for dinner which I got to clean up after putting kids to bed late.

Sounds great right?

The thing is, it was.

I have been pondering lately the idea of making your own happiness, that your life is what you make it.  You can be happy no matter what your circumstances.  I’ve thought about it a lot but have struggled to implement the idea into my daily life.  It’s kind of bothered me too because my life isn’t that hard right now.  I have read stories of people who are going through really hard things and they are able to choose to be happy in spite of it all.  My life is what I’ve always wanted it to be but still I struggle to feel happy most of the time.

As I was stirring scrambled eggs first thing in the morning I thought about the fact that I was making my own breakfast on Mother’s Day.  No breakfast in bed for me even though my 6 year old had told me a few days earlier that I had to stay in bed late so that they could make me breakfast.  I continued to butter toast and stir the orange juice and I decided that it was okay to make my own breakfast and it was going to be a good day.

I chose to be happy.

And I was.

I knew that my husband was downstairs, preparing both a lesson for the 8 year old Primary class and a talk for sacrament meeting.   I was happy to be able to make breakfast so that he had the time he needed.

My husband also sat with us for the first half of Sacrament Meeting.  Instead of sitting on the stand the whole time and letting me have the kids the whole meeting by myself he stayed with us as long as he could.  I got to hear him give an excellent talk on his life and motherhood.  I got a new respect for his mother and the way she raised her family and the things she has endured.

When we got home from church I got to let him sleep.  He has been working so hard to put a sprinkler system and lawn in for us and in the process aggravated a shoulder injury.  The pain is worse than it’s been in years and I could tell that he wasn’t doing well.  I was glad that he had some time to rest.

I was able to have much more patience with my children.  I kept my cool when one of them yelled at me and was able to send him to his room without any emotion from me.  I was empathetic when the children were hurt either physically or emotionally.

I got to spend time with my in-laws and watch my children play with their cousins.  I got to see my sister-in-law enjoying her first Mother’s Day with her 3 month old little girl after struggling through them for years because of the emotions involved with the placement of her son for adoption when she was 16.

As we were going to bed my husband told me he was sorry that I had to do so much work on Mother’s Day.  I told him that I wasn’t because what better way to spend Mother’s Day than happily mothering.