Mother's Day – Tiffany Shearn

The sun is finally out in Washington, and it emerged with a vengeance. There are some in my life who dread the heat, especially at night when trying to sleep. I, on the other hand, have been ready for these temperatures for at least a month. There might be some thunderstorms tomorrow, but other than that, the upcoming week is looking wonderful. I will enjoy it while it lasts.

Today, we spend a fair portion of the afternoon indoors at an early Mother’s Day lunch. We like to go out on Saturday rather than Sunday to avoid the restaurant rush. No one likes waiting, and the packed establishments become very loud with everyone crammed in together. It is much easier to schedule a leisurely meal a day early to enjoy our time together instead of adding frustration.

This year, my sister is adding some Mother’s Day joy to another family. She has long desired to give of herself (literally) in some way. She donates blood, is on the marrow registry, and even tried to donate a kidney once. That last one did not work out, but late last year, she connected with a couple looking for a surrogate, and things progressed from there.

It is sweet to see their excitement through interactions with her. Their mingled hope and fear at the start developed into a general excitement. Within the coming month, she is due, and the parents are fully prepared to drop everything and drive the three hours up from Portland if she goes into labor early. I’m betting on two weeks from tomorrow.

Pregnancy has risks, and I will always worry about what she is taking on with such an undertaking, but she is happy and content with her decision and has the support through the surrogacy process that she needs. I could never do it, but I’m glad she has had the opportunity to give this gift to someone.

On that note, happy Mother’s Day to all!

This is the first time in 17 months that these 3 (four with my niece) generations of women have been able to gather for anything beyond grocery drop offs. We have been diligent about keeping our bubble small, and my grandmother could not go out for visits until after vaccination.

I am grateful that everyone in this picture is still around today for us to be able to celebrate Mother’s Day together. I promised everyone burgers and dogs, rain or shine, and the weather cooperated with me enough that I was not grilling in the rain. The sun was out enough that we even spent some time in the backyard.

We had some helpers interested in pond vacuuming give us a hand.

We kept it small. Just family chatting about nothing and everything as we do. Unfortunately, the ducks that had been enjoying our little pond for a few days departed Thursday. My niece and nephew were not able to sneak a peak at them as a result. I’m including a picture at the end of this post to prove that they did, in fact, exist. We are still doing spring cleaning on the pond, but even that part is interesting enough to children for them to provide a bit of help.

We were also able to watch the Seattle Sounders get a win while everyone was over. All around, a good day for this family. As this weekend was packed with cleaning the house for the first visitors in over a year and hanging out with family, I will keep this post short and sweet and end here.

Happy Mother’s Day to all of my friends and family I could not see today and to all of you reading this. I hope you each had the chance to celebrate in a meaningful way.

Tag Archives: Mother's Day

Early Mother’s Day

Happy Mother’s Day!