David and I got in a fight on Mother’s Day. I feel comfortable in confessing this since both the female CEO of his company and his only female employee both know about the argument (Hi Katie and thanks for taking my side). This marital dispute can easily be summarized with one word: expectations.

You see I woke up at 7:00 AM Sunday morning (as I have done every morning since February 28th 2004 – the day Lucy was born). I turned on cartoons, made some chocolate milk for the kids, and logged on to Facebook. This is when things went downhill. You see, while I was continuing with my wifely duties (and David slept) my friends were having breakfast in bed, their homes were being cleaned, cheesecakes were being presented and Lord knows what other glories of appreciation were being showered on them. I tried to ignore the green-eyed monster of jealousy raging up inside of me, because after all David does do MANY wonderful things. He did ask me Friday night on his way home from work if there was something special I wanted for Mother’s Day and I told him a blog redesign. That is not something you can wrap in a box and present on Mother’s Day. And yet, that great sin of envy, that horrible jealous monster could not be ignored. It was developing a low growl.

I brushed the jealousy aside and began to make breakfast when David woke up. He shuffled out into the kitchen and said “good morning”. I cried. Really, things got ugly pretty quickly after that. Lots of words were said, and fingers were waved, accusations flung, angry whispers in the corners, glares across the room, but it all boiled down to expectations.

David felt he had fulfilled his duties. He had bought a card and chocolate and offered to redesign my blog. Mission complete. I, on the other hand, felt that more attention needed to be paid to ME and my enjoyment of MY day. I should have been allowed to sleep in. Breakfast should have been made by someone else besides me. Kids dressed by somebody else besides me. David felt that he never got the chance to do any of these things (if he had even planned on doing them) because I was crying before he woke up and thus I had preemptively ruined the day.

The truth is that it doesn’t matter. David loves me. He appreciates me and when he’s working 70+ hours a week I see it in his eyes. I see it every night when he comes home to a warm dinner or when he realizes I’ve washed all his clothes, or when I sit and listen, one more time, to the problems at work. David has never been great at planning big holiday surprises. It is not his thing. However, he takes care of me, cherishes me and shows me his love in a hundred other unique ways. Most of the time that expression of love does not fall on Mother’s Day. I suppose in the bigger picture I’d rather have a husband who shows me his love and appreciation in small ways, every day than one who only shows me once a year.