Mother's Day Re-do

For Mother's Day weekend, I took my mother and Grace to Ocean City, NJ. We had a lovely weekend - the weather was perfect, the food was good: there was shopping, playing in the sand, riding rides, and more. But at the end of the 2 days, as everyone asked “How was your Mother’s day?” I could only reply “eh, ok”.

Upon some reflection I realized I was let down that Mother’s Day was about everyone else but me. There was no celebration of me being a mom, not even a break except with my Mom volunteered to bathe Grace at the end of the day - it was just another day of normal responsibilities that come with being a single mom coupled with added pressure of ensuring my mother was having a lovely weekend while making sure my daughter was staying out of trouble in a visitor-packed resort town!  

I’m not great at asking for what I want. So I took a risk and decided to give it a shot - I sent this email to my mother, father and ex-husband!

Hi Mom, Dad and Ex-Husband,

I'm not great at asking for what I need but after giving it some thought, I'd like to ask for a Mother's Day break for me.  Mostly on mother's day, traditional families goes out of their way to make thing easier for the mom and give her a break. I watched all of the dads go out of their way to celebrate the moms and give them a break.  Our family isn't really set up that way. So I'm asking for a small re-do so I get a break.

Mostly on mother's days I spend the weekend making sure Grace is having a good time along with whichever grandparent is with us - while continually running after Grace.  This year since Gram was with us, it was important to me that Gram have a lovely, relaxing weekend since she is my mom.  However, I felt kind of depressed and frazzled at the end of Mothers day.

So I'm asking you three to work together to create some "Diana time". I don't care what it is and it doesn't need to be a whole day - a few hours that are a break for me would be nice - surprise me :)    I'm happy to use the gift certificate that Ex-Husband got me for a spa during Diana time (he was heading in the right direction with that!)

Thanks,

Diana

PS to my blog reader - you are not imagining things, my ex-husband did get me a spa certificate for Mother’s day. While he grates on my nerves and I still haven’t forgiven him, I do realize I’m lucky to have an ex-husband who actually cares about my well-being in addition to that of our daughters, as he knows those two things are inexplicably related.