Ruminating on Mother's Day

It turns out that I had a very nice Mother's Day. But early on, the day seemed fraught.  As this art journal page says, I felt somewhat mired in "the web of motherhood." It seems that there are so many expectations about being a mother and the perfect Mother's Day. By the time I was up and drinking coffee, many of my friends had already posted on facebook about the wonderful gifts they had received and the plans they had for the day. I knew my day would be different.
 My children are just not the flowers and gifts kind of kids. Do I miss that? Yes, if I'm being honest, I do a little. But I didn't want to go into the day being disappointed from the get-go.  I wanted to be positive and celebrate whatever moments of joy the day brought my way.
And it was a good day.  The kids cleaned my car - washed the outside and detailed the inside (this is what I ask them for each year). And they spent time hanging out with me - enjoying each other's company without running to a  game or having to nag/be nagged about their homework.  It was sooo nice. (Each year I also ask each of the kids to let me take a nice portrait of them. We didn't get to it today, but they each assured me we could do it another day.)  And I got to play at my art desk. And not do laundry (okay, just one load). And eat and drink whatever I wanted. Nachos and Mike's Hard Lemonade for lunch; take out Italian and white wine for dinner served me just as well as getting dressed up and going out to brunch!  Yes, it was a good Mother's Day.  Because it was my Mother's Day.
The United States magazine, Time, recently published a cover story about "attachment parenting" with this controversial cover photo:

The title of the article is "Are you Mom enough?"  The best commentary I have read on the cover is by Lisa Belkin of the Huffington Post and can be found at this link.  It says simply that women should not take the bait of arguing for or against "attachment parenting" but rather we should recognize that "Breastfeeding is not a macho test of motherhood, with the winner being the one who nurses the longest. In fact there ARE no macho tests of motherhood. Motherhood is -- should be -- a village, where we explore each other's choices, learn from them, respect them, and then go off and make our own." 
Today, I feel the same way about Mother's Day.  What about you? Do you find yourself getting caught up in trying to create someone else's version of Mother's Day? Or do you simply celebrate your own?