I know Mothers’ Day is traditionally a day most mothers would blog to death about how wonderful it was to be a mother. I know because I was one of them gushing about my son’s home-made card. When I logged on to Facebook, my entire wall was filled with friends’ pictures in all manner of poses, with their kids and their Mothers’ Day presents. I even knew what they had for Mothers’ Day lunch or dinner because they posted pictures of their scrumptious meals. My single friends were not left out of the celebrations too. They fancied themselves as “mothers” to their pets and posted pictures of themselves and their pets, some of them had their dogs wearing clothes with the words “I love Mom” printed on it.
My own Facebook timeline was also shamelessly plastered with posts about Joel’s home-made Mother’s Day card and everything else “mother-related” that is worth cooing about.
What I was not prepared for was Mum’s Mothers’ Day gift to me though. While the words in Joel’s card brought a tear to my eye, the intent and efforts behind Mum’s gift made me break down in uncontrollable sobs.
Mum’s Hello Kitty Prezzie
What was the gift? It was a collection of 10 Hello Kitty collectible figurines. Ever since I came out of the closet as a Hello Kitty fan, I had my colleagues, my husband, my son, my friends and now my Mum, plying me with many Hello Kitty gifts ranging from a Hello Kitty hairdryer, a Hello Kitty weighing scale, Hello Kitty bed covers, Hello Kitty dolls, Hello Kitty kitchen utensils including a frying pan, a pancake pan ( *hint* I don’t have a Hello Kitty toaster) as well as Hello Kitty crockery and kitchen utensils. My bathroom is filled with Hello Kitty bathroom accessories. Even David is currently using Hello Kitty bath towels, shampoo and shower gel. The family had to eat dinner off Hello Kitty plates, bowls and utensils.
I have to stress though that the set of 10 Hello Kitty collectibles were so precious to me, not because they were Hello Kitty collectibles, but because of the effort it took for Mum to collect all of them.
Hello Kitty Tokidoki Promotion
Our local grocery store 7-11 launched a Hello Kitty Tokidoki promotion for about 2 months. I was a little hazy about the mechanics of the promotion but from whatever little I knew, this was what Mum had to do to get a collectible figurine in a specific design. She had to spend $4 to get 1 stamp. Every 6 stamps ($24 worth of products bought) and an additional cost of $3.90 would entitle her to 1 figurine. She collected all 10 figurines over a 2-month period which meant that she could have spent $280 or more on groceries like bread, eggs, and milk.
Mum Would Do Anything For Me
One thing was certain. She must have visited 7-11 on a daily basis for 2 months, collected a shoe-box full of stamps and consumed a truck load of bread, eggs and milk just so her loopy daughter could get a full set of 10 collectible Hello Kitty figurines.
Mum spoiled me way too much. This was truly a gesture of Mother’s love. I would have done the same for Joel, but I would have been suspicious if Joel had asked me to consume $280 worth of bread, milk and eggs to obtain his collection of Hello Kitty collectible figurines. Perhaps next time when they have a Transformers promotion, I might do the same then.
Yes Mum truly spoiled me silly. She spoiled me by cooking my favorite dishes when I visited her. Even when I haven’t had the time to visit her, she would whip up these dishes, and showed up at my doorstep carrying bags of Tupperware filled with a huge amount of food, which was enough to sustain a town in the event of a natural disaster of seismic proportion.
She spoiled me by boiling soup and preparing her “witches’ brew” of Chinese traditional herbal medicines when I was ill, believing that Western medicines were detrimental to my liver and my brain. I still have not been able to convince her that it was too late; my liver was malfunctioning due to the copious amount of beers I enjoyed when I was younger, and my brain was, well, loopy as the years had gone by - incurable.
I Love My Mum
I love my Mum. I am so grateful that I have her in my life even though we get on each other’s nerves often. David said that it was because we were both “2 peas in the pod”, I could not figure out how that was so when I did not spot a tight curly perm.
I appreciate her presence more than anything. A colleague told me that when she saw my Hello Kitty figurines sitting in a row by my desk, it made her teary because she missed her Mum who was no longer with her. I would not know what to do with my life without Mum.
That is why I feel so blessed. Mum’s gift to me was worth more than anything money could ever buy.
About the writer:
The writer of this blog post is a 43 year old mother of one, who spreads her time between her day job as a marketeer at a financial institution, her hobby as a certified professional tarot reader and numerologist, and her family which includes a 19 year old son. She's married to a Scot who has been affectionately called "The Crazy AngMo" and prays that he does not find out that the term when translated, has labeled him as a "Ginger Head".
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