Becoming a parent has finally made me realise that Mother's Day isn't just a cynical ploy by Greetings Card manufacturers and florists to get us to spend money (though the same is surely still true of Valentine's Day), nor is it merely an excuse for Simply Red to release another Love Songs album (though it's a happy coincidence that keeps Mick Hucknall in curlers).For the first time in my life I can genuinely see how amazing mums are and that they really do deserve a special day separate from their birthday on which we focus on how great they really are.
It's not that I was a bad son and didn't appreciate my mum, but I now realise (with some sadness since this is the second Mother's Day without her) that my brothers and I never really knew and therefore never really showed her quite how amazing we thought she was. Like I say, we were lovely to her.. but we couldn't have known quite how lovely she deserved us to be. We couldn't have known all of the words we should have spoken of gratitude and love. It's only since becoming a Dad that I can see all of the things my parents did for me even before I was born; all of the emotions she would have felt and everything she went through and sacrificed for me...
But here I am, a Dad, and here's the first Mother's Day for my wife, the mother to our son. He's done well: scrambled eggs, daffodils (all supermarket flowers are pink and my wife hates pink), a personalised card, a present.. but 'Mummy' insists the best gift of all was the 2 and a half hour lie in she had whilst father and son covered each other in puree'd pear and sang songs down stairs. (If I'd have known this, he'd needn't have taken our a hefty loan from the Bank Of Dad for those Spa Treatments).
But I know that actually the best gift of all was when she was finally awoken by him practising his yodelling in the room next door; it was the smile he'd have given her; the squeal of excitement; the glint in his eyes; the hug with his tiny arms and the sigh of contentedness. So I know that my Mum will have felt special too, because actually being a parent at all is easily the best gift you can be given anyway.
Although that doesn't mean you're getting off lightly when Father's Day comes round in June.
