Lunch with Oprah – I Wish!

I used to love handmade cards from my kids and the lopsided pancakes that came with breakfast in bed but once your kids are older and you’ve hit the big 5-0 (or more!), there are other things you pine for (and can be selfish about).  Here’s my wish list:

1. Being in charge of the remote and DVR.
2. Someone else to upload, download and reboot all of my electronic gadgets.
3. A weekend in Paris. Yes, I know we still have college tuition bills, not to mention the mortgage on the house and the peeling paint in the living room but what’s life without adventure?
4. A week – or at the very least, a day — without housework, errands, laundry or deciding what’s for dinner.
5. A tummy tuck, butt reducer and eye and jowl lift. That, or a year’s supply of Spanx.
6. A fortune teller to tell me all will be ok with my kids. (Also how Don Draper will fare when Mad Men ends.)
7. Something from Lululemon. Even if I return what you get me, I’ll be able to get something else I love.
8. Lunch with Oprah.
9. A day with my mother and my two daughters; she died when they were babies and would love to see them as the young women they are now.
10. Eating fries and a chocolate milkshake. But having the body of my 12-year-old self so I can gorge on whatever I want.

Ok. Now that I’ve given you MY dream ideas, here are some more tangible thoughts.

1. Fun crafty items can be found at Uncommon Goods. I like this “growth” necklace, seaglass bracelet and typewriter bracelet but scroll around for what best suits the mom in your life.
2. YouTube! What mom wouldn’t love a keepsake that lives in cyberspace forever? This funny one by Barat and Barrata also known as Tucker and Brad, sums up the brotherly love relationship: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=bhcA4Ry65FU
3. Anna Quindlen’s new memoir, Lots of Candles, Plenty of Cake, reflects on five decades of love, loss, faith and friendships;  at amazon as well as area bookstores.
4. There are numerous charities that support women and children that to me, are more valuable than most anything else. After all: Don’t we have enough? My faves:  Heifer International (http://www.heifer.org) where you can feed a village by donating a goat (among other gifts), and anything having to do with breast cancer (my mom died from). Planned Parenthood Hudson Peconic (PPHP) makes it easy to provide women with life-saving cancer screenings, birth control, pap tests, clinical breast exams, prenatal care, and more and even sends a card to the special woman in your life to let her know of your thoughtfulness. Go here. Or donate a “Mercy Kit” through Mercy Corps and help women worldwide start small businesses, get breastfeeding support, become community leaders, and provide their children with fresh food and clean water.
5. A simple “I love you and appreciate all you do for me” works wonders. That and a hug is all we really need.

Do you know the history of Mother’s Day?

You can go to Wikipedia or, for a longer explanation, go to Mother’s Day Central where you’ll learn how Julia Ward Howe’s installed a Mother’s Day Proclamation in 1870 after becoming so distraught by the death and carnage of the Civil War, that she rallied mother’s to come together and protest what she saw as the futility of their sons killing the sons of other mothers. Sounds like a good plan….

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