When It’s Not All Cards and Sloppy Kisses. The night before Mother’s Day, I posted on Facebook that I was “gearing up for my day of sleeping in, receiving adulation and general sloth.” I did sleep in, by my definition, but still woke up long before my children stirred. As in recent years past, I patiently waited in bed, reading my book and enjoying the coffee my husband, David, brought me. When it came time to go to church, I got up and got dressed. “Aren’t you going to wake the kids up to go with you?” David asked. He knew I had given them three suggestions of Mother’s Day gifts, and Suggestion #1 was that they go to church with me. “No,” I said, “it’s not a ‘gift’ if I have to make them go.” On the way to church, tears slid down my cheeks as I recalled when they couldn’t wait to wake me up at the crack of dawn, eagerly presenting me with handmade cards and macaroni art and cold toast with too much jam. One year, my daughter even made a menu for me on which she had listed everything in the kitchen which she knew […]