Mother's Day -- with teenagers

This year for Mother's Day I tried something new, something different, something aimed at my teenagers. On Wednesday or so I was looking through the ads that came in the newspaper in the morning. There were a number that had really nicely done Mother's Day reminders. I'm not sure what came over me, but I got out a pair of scissors.

I spent the next 15 to 20 minutes looking through all the ads -- even the ones in the recycle basket -- and cutting out cute Mother's Day reminders. When I got home from work, I taped them throughout the house. On the computer screen. On the main light switch. On the DVD player -- anywhere I thought my kids would see them.

Lou was the first to notice. "What are these," she asked. They're just little reminders I put up to annoy, and well, remind you that Mother's Day is Sunday. "Oh," she said without any enthusiasm.

Bug took a different approach. When he saw one he said, "You can thank me for putting up the Mother's Day reminders." He was so sincere that Hubby asked me a bit later if Bug really had put them up.

When Lou had a bunch of friends over on Saturday evening, they noticed too. They were curious about why I'd put them up. I told them, "If stores can advertise, moms can too!"

So now that Mother's Day is here, what were the results of my advertising? Not much. I already knew that my hubby was getting me a couple of great gifts (a notebook computer that I'm writing this post on, and a black wrought-iron bench for the front porch), and I didn't expect too much from the kids. They fulfilled my expectations. Bug did give me an oral gift -- a verbal coupon, so to speak. These are his words: "Now don't ask all the time and tell me in advance, but I'll make dinner and do the laundry one time each during the summer." Neither daughter had a gift to give, although Beans did play her viola in a large ward orchestra as the prelude to sacrament meeting today. Walking into the chapel and hearing the strings, knowing that my 12-year-old was among them put me on cloud 9! It was awesome.

Was my Mother's Day advertising a failure? Nah. I got a secret buzz watching my kids notice the reminders. It was like silent nagging. And I'm the Queen of Nag. (See previous post.) I often call myself The Nagivator -- even at school.

The way I look at it, it's occasionally a good thing for a mom to remind her kids about all the things she does for them. Especially teenagers. The results, well, that's not in my control. Enjoying the small joys of nagging -- what a treat!