Happy Mother’s Day to all you mothers.

Today is a day to reflect on all the joys of motherhood and to let your children tell you how special you are.

As a nod to Hallmark, the creator of this holiday, I added a little ‘THANK YOU’ money to their coffers by buying a card for my mom.  After all, without them (Hallmark, not moms) this day wouldn’t be possible.  It almost makes me want to send them a ‘THANK YOU’ card.

Of course in about a month I’m going to want to send them a ‘GO TO #@$!’ card since it’ll be Father’s Day and I’ll have no idea what to get my husband.  I mean, I don’t know what THE KIDS will get my husband.   After which comes our anniversary.  Then my mom’s, sister’s and daughter’s birthdays.  Good thing July gives us an extra payday.

There are so many times when I really must give a gift, it leaves few days during the year when I can give a gift for no reason.  Not enough time passes between the days when gifts should be given for giving a ‘no reason’ gift to feel like anything but extravagance.  It seems more like a gift you bought for the previous occasion that you forgot about and found in the back of the closet.

Uh, but yeah, happy mother’s day.  That was my point all along.

In my family we have a rule – no holding a grudge for more than 10 years.  You’d think that it would be easy to just get over it (whatever ‘it’ was) in less than 10 years but in my family, we can hold a grudge like nobody’s business.  When you realize someone is holding something against you from before you can even remember stuff, it’s time to make a rule like this for your family.

Every one deserves the opportunity to nurse a grudge for a while.  Especially if that grudge is for something really bad (like bringing tofu into the house, cutting you with their toe or making you wear braces) but eventually it’s just healthier for the grudge holder to let it go.  I mean we’re all getting on in years and this stuff could be bad for our blood pressure.

So this year, I’m going to let go the ‘decided to not honor birthdays and mine was the first’ grudge and the ‘didn’t show up for my wedding’ grudge.  I think I’m even doing it a little early on that one but I was more upset by the extenuating circumstances than the act itself.  I’m getting rid of the ‘bad mouthed me in the blog before I knew what a blog was’ grudge and the ‘wouldn’t share her blanket with me’ grudge (that one is WELL overdue but it’s been awhile since I cleaned ‘grudge house’ so to speak).

I’m please to say that, though I still hold my ‘day before my daughter’s birth’ grudge, I’ve made great strides towards letting that one go.  That’s an ugly, ugly one that eats at me in the worst way and I really WANT to be rid of it as soon as possible.

The thing about grudges is that you aren’t doing it right unless the person you’re holding it against doesn’t know about it.  I like to do mine right, so the grudges mentioned here are mostly unknown to the object of the grudge.  Except they might recognize themselves here since I haven’t been particularly vague with my grudge names.  But since I no longer hold the grudge, how can the possibly be offended?

I better make a new rule now: “No holding a grudge for someone holding a grudge.”

There, that should cover me.

Let me just add, “If you break the preceding rule and hold a grudge for someone holding a grudge, your grudge may only have a half life of the duration allowed for the grudge upon which you base your grudge.”

There.  Ironclad.