Solo Mother

Did you have a good Mother’s Day?

by christina on May 14th, 2007

Welcome to our humble home! I’d stayed up until midnight Saturday night, cleaning the house and polishing the silver and setting the table. It was my first Mother’s Day as a single mom. I wanted it to be special.

I thought I’d tell you the story of how I come to have such lovely things, considering how I arrived in Washington back in September with next to nothing. Want to take the tour?

Let’s begin with the table and that big bookshelf thing in the right hand corner. The table is my father’s old conference table from his office, and the bookshelves are from his office, as well. The chairs are from my parents, the chairs I grew up eating dinner in. The candle sticks were my parents’ wedding present to me and the ex: my folks bought them when they were newlyweds. The pitcher was also a wedding present from a woman in my mother’s office. The rug was a $5 yard sale find, and if you don’t crawl around under the table, you can’t see the holes. The flower pot is actually a tea pot I made several years ago, when I was an aspiring ceramicist.

The placemats and napkins are a deep bargain find in Dubai, I spent a good twenty minutes diving into this huge box of castoffs to find a set of eight. The china is from the ex, I guess it’s kind of on permanent loan until a kid wants it.

Yes, I set my son’s place with the good stuff. I never child proofed my home except to negate the dangers. He’s grown up around grown up stuff, and it has served us well. He knows that there are some things that just aren’t for children, and that the world doesn’t revolve around him as much as he wishes it would. He’s very careful around other people’s stuff, and as a result, is welcomed in every house he visits.

He’s a good kid. I hope we can continue to walk that balance between what he wants and what he needs and what society will dictate.

(the ex called in the midst of our Mother’s Day brunch… I didn’t remind him of the date, and he didn’t wish me anything, good or ill… I figure all’s well that ends well, and that’s all I’m looking for)

Tags: Mother’s Day, single mother, single mom, single mommy, manners, good china

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