Do you ever wonder where post ideas come from?  Are they dreams or life or fiction, or some psychedelic mixture of all three?

Well.  All last week there was a singular theme running through questions coming from friends, family, and strangers alike: Do you have any plans for Mother’s Day?  Anything happening on Sunday?  Are the kids doing anything special for you?  (You get the idea.)

The brutal truth is that last week I was shooting for survival.  Period.  I was having a hard time with the upcoming holiday, trying not to drop the ball on teacher appreciation week, and had a few other irons in the fire keeping me scatterbrained.

So when I told people I had no idea, I wasn’t being flippant.  I was for real just trying to get through Saturday and into Sunday.  I figured the rest would take care of itself.  Enter Sunday and the long anticipated  [reverent voices now] Mother’s Day.

Cue blog post.

If you give a mom (access to) a pillow she’ll decide to take a nap, throwing caution to the wind and refusing to set an alarm.

Take that, responsibility.  ‘Cuz Mother’s Day.

She’ll settle into her bed, snuggle up with her husband, dog curled by her feet, and sigh contentedly as she closes her eyes.

She’ll listen to the children’s voices in the family room getting louder and louder, pulling her out of nap’s grasp several times before she huffs and puts in earplugs.

The voices pound on, through the earplugs, and she’ll strain to hear if they’re happy voices or “I wish you’d drop dead” ones.  She’ll decide it doesn’t matter because nap and Mother’s Day.

She’ll throw back the covers, stumble out to the family room, and tell the kids she’s shutting the door but could they please stop yelling about their game.  Handled.

She’ll settle back under the covers, mildly annoyed her husband managed to sleep through all this, and sink into her pillow.  She’ll drop off to sleep twice only to be awakened by loud voices, through the door, through the earplugs, until she snaps.

She’ll throw back the covers, yank open the door, and barely cross the family room threshold before telling the kids to put away their iPads.  Handled.

She’ll return to bed again, children (wisely) remaining quiet, only to find her husband has not only slept through the disruption but is now snoring (not so) softly.  Surely this won’t matter, though, and a nap sounds so very good.

She’ll push her earplugs further in and burrow into bed, being pulled back from the brink of sleep several times by the sounds of someone (NOT HER) resting peacefully.  She’ll sigh loudly, throw back the covers, and move to the couch.

She’ll pass two children on the way who (not as wisely) try talking with her.  After two questions she’ll wave them outside so she can sleep in peace.  She’ll snuggle up on the couch under a throw (almost as good as that pillow) and close her eyes, sighing contentedly.  A dog curls at her feet.

Until someone rings the doorbell.  She’s wisely hidden herself on the couch and holds her head while the dogs attack the door with gusto.  She’ll wait it out, seeing as she’s not expecting anyone and the children aren’t home to play.

She’ll have just begun to relax into the quiet when a riotous pounding on the front door sends the dogs into intruder alert mode again.  A blinding light will rip through her head as she realizes there is no sanctity in the Mother’s Day nap.  And this knocking will not stop until she answers the door.

She’ll tumble off the couch, eyes crazy, hair wild, and yank the door open to find two small neighborhood children bearing cookies.  In her frustrated, ill tempered, sleep deprived state she’ll mumble incoherently at them before closing the door so that Gracie can’t streak into the street.

She’ll put the dogs in the backyard, greatly distressing Phoebe who is an Indoor Dog who Loves To Be With Her Pack and Does Not Want To Go Outside.  She’ll return to the couch where she hits critical mass, realizing there is no way on God’s green earth she will decompress enough to actually nap.

Which is ironic since the children are finally out of the house and the dogs are in the backyard and her husband decides to mow so she can lie down in bed and sleep.  Except if she lies down in that room she will surely think about the afternoon’s chain of events until her head explodes.

So she’ll grab that pillow, put it behind her back, and open her laptop to write.