Wonderful, Exhausting Motherhood
by Sylvia Myrvold

It’s not easy being a mother. To begin with, you have to give up coffee when you’re pregnant! And most over the counter medicines, even aspirin, are to be avoided. You get odd cravings. It took me days to find out I wanted peeled grapes. You gain weight and your hormones go crazy. Then you get to go through labor and delivery, before you finally get to hold that baby. Ah, but once you do have her in your arms, well all is forgiven…until sleep deprivation kicks in.
Most people think that lasts just a few months until the baby sleeps through the night. But that is just not so. For the next 18 years or so you find sleep eluding you. There is school to get ready for, breakfasts to be made, little league games that start so early and Christmas mornings. Those are the fun ones. There are also nightmares, fevers, stomach flus and spiders to be gotten rid of even though the lights are all off. Oddly enough, it doesn’t seem to matter, who needed all that sleep anyway.
Then there are all those little chores you do, like making 36 cupcakes at midnight because you just found out you are supposed to bring them to school tomorrow. Or the soft, fuzzy bunny costume that needs to be ready for the Halloween parade. And cooking dinner when one child is a vegetarian, one doesn’t like anything touching and the other likes only meat and potatoes, or they happen to have a peanut allergy.
There is no time to pamper yourself, hardly even enough time for a shower let alone a bubble bath. Still, tired as you may be, you tuck them in each night and count your blessings because, miraculously, there they are, your angels. Then, in what seems like a second, they are not there all the time. So now you get to stay up late waiting for them to get home. You might go to bed, but who are you kidding, you don’t really sleep until you hear the door open and someone raiding the refrigerator.
Eventually they move out on their own, and you miss them. You don’t miss the sleep deprivation. All of a sudden you have time again. It feels odd, good, but odd. It’s a long, exhausting process, raising children, being a mom. And at the same time, probably the most wonderful job in the world. I would gladly do it all over again, well, maybe not the labor and delivery part.

Take Some Time to Smell the Roses
A couple of easy outings

Spring blossoms abound as the Aromas Country Garden Tour gets underway. This year’s event will be the Saturday before Mother’s Day, May 10th, 10:00 am to 4:00 pm. Come to the Aromas Grange, corner of Rose Ave. and Bardue Ave., where tickets are just $10.00 per person and Master Gardeners will be available to answer your gardening questions. Each ticket holder will be entered into a drawing for the original watercolor painting by Kim Roseth which is featured on the cover of this year’s booklet. You will receive the booklet with maps to eight gardens plus preview photos. The 4H Club will be selling jams, jellies and potted plants at the Aromas Grange. Box lunches will be available.
You can also head over to Watsonville on May 10th and 11th for the annual Roses of Yesterday Mothers’ Day Open House. They specialize in over 230 old rare-unusual and selected modern roses. The open house will be from 9am to 4pm both days. These heirloom roses are spectacular and have the wonderful smell you don’t get in roses anymore. Make the trip over to 803 Browns Valley Rd. for a lovely Mothers’ Day outing.
If you haven’t been to Gilroy Gardens just outside Gilroy on Highway 152, now is the time. There are roses everywhere and they are now in full bloom. The park is a perfect place for an older mother with plenty of shady benches scattered throughout the park.