Musings after my first Mother's Day

For the first 30 something years of my life Mother's Day was never a positive one. Buying flowers to my mum and grandma when I was young was a must. Now that we live quite far away from each other I order some flowers and send a card. Until last year it had nothing but negative connotations for me. Every year in church all mothers had to stand up to receive flowers - I could always dodge this. In the second round all soon-to-be-mothers had to stand up to receive flowers and this awkward game continued until every poor person with reproductive organs on the inside had to stand and of course, receive flowers. I have worked in several countries in Africa and the first question was always 'do you have children?' No, I used to say. 'Then we should pray for you even more' they responded and continued to feel sorry for me.

But 11 months ago our two boys moved in with us and now I need to take a closer look at my Twitter handle (@FeelingMumYet) and ask myself: Am I feeling like a Mum yet?

• Took Snoops (7) to the GP recently and the good doctor asked me if I was his mum. Bless him, Snoops said 'yes, of course'. Then GP asked if I have PR (parental right) to sign a certain paper to which I had to say 'no'. From the day they moved in and we officially 'claimed them' I have all the parental responsibilities of being their mum, but only a fraction of parental rights. It feels odd that I need to check with their SW for most significant things, but the other 23h 58min every day they belong to me.
  
• I wrote about my recent one sided row with Birth Mum on which one of us is the boys' mum - she with her DNA or me with actually raising them. I received quite a few supportive comments from friends and random people who stumbled upon my blog; somebody said 'many woman can give birth, but only a few will become true mothers'. I quite liked that sentiment!
  
• I re-read some of my earlier posts and again I realised that I am still the only female in the house; I  live with 3 males who fart, burp, eat a lot more than me and always leave the toilet seat up!
  
• And then we look at the actual day itself. I know in many adoptive homes (and sadly also in many birth families as well) this day continues to remain a big challenge. Last year our boys just moved in before Father's Day and the whole day was a disaster that culminated in my husband getting kicked, bitten and attacked by a 6 year old. For poor hubby this was his first ever Father's Day, but I doubt he wants to remember it...

I guess enough time has passed since then, because the boys do call me MUM and in their heads there is no doubt this is their Finally Forever For Real Home. 6 said it the other day to somebody 'my favourite colour is red, just like my mum's!' So this gave me a reason to hope this time it will be ok and we are not facing an open can of worms...

Hubby took them shopping a day before and the kids could not contain their excitement! On the big day my 3 men made breakfast and kept on hinting that I will receive a present. 6 got me a truly beautiful necklace with Mother engraved on it. 7 got me a lovely china swan that doubles as a ring holder. But the most amazing thing was the fact that they have spent 1,5 months of their pocket money each! I was very touched! 

Both boys got me lovely cards too with a writing YOU ARE THE BEST MUM. To any other child this would be just a lovely cliché, but for my boys this carries a significant message: they had a few mothers and mothering figures during their short lives and among those women I AM THEIR BESTEST! :) 

So, yeah, thanks for asking, I AM FEELING MUM now!