I just celebrated my second official Mother’s Day, something I still can’t quite wrap my mind around. As O and Ro continually crawl and climb all over me, pushing my glasses off my face and sticking their fingers in my nose, I wonder, “How did I become responsible for two tiny humans?”

Obviously, I know the answer, thanks, very much, but that doesn’t mean I’m not still shocked to find myself in my thirties having procreated. Wasn’t I just that awkward kid with claw bangs and an unfortunate snare of braces who just won the school science fair? Oh, there was no end to the nerdiness. I digress–

Anyhoo, I can scarcely believe I’m a mother, but am humbled and eternally grateful to have my litter, as I lovingly refer to O and Ro. When the hubs asked how I wanted to be celebrated on this new holiday (for me, anyway), I really, really had to think about it. Mother’s Day is no longer a day to try my best to ignore, tolerate and endure as someone longing for children. Now, I get to be bossy, and sit in bed all day like the Queen that I am while my minions serve me. Yes, I kid. I totally got out of bed before dinner.

When I came across a little essay in the May issue of Real Simple magazine, I knew I had found a way to feel celebrated and start a new tradition. Novelist Jacquelyn Mitchard (The Deep End of the Ocean), a mother of nine children, ages 5 to 27 (gulp!) details her own favorite gift, “The Mom Book”:

Everyone in my family calls it “the Mom Book,” though technically there are now three of them—each a thick 8½-by-11-inch book of handmade paper, 100 or so pages bound with a plain cover. In every volume, my kids have drawn pictures, written poems, pasted photos, and penned letters. Sometimes their lives and hearts are so full they consume two or three pages. Each entry is dated and signed, even if just with the mark of a thumb in tempera paint.

Whether it be Christmas, her birthday, or Mother’s Day, Mitchard says, “I always get the same  gift. It isn’t wrapped. It costs nothing and yet is more precious than every trinket in every boutique in the galaxy.” Not only can this gem of a gift track the development of each of her kids from year to year, but it also marks the ebb and flow of their relationships with her–a teenage daughter who can barely muster a handwritten “Happy Birthday,” only to write a loving letter by the next year.

Needless to say, upon hearing me talk about “The Mom Book,” the hubs made it happen. On Mother’s Day, he surprised me with my very own book and the first two entries from O and Ro. Good stuff to be sure. This is one tradition I’m so looking forward to throughout the years.

But you can keep the dinners and flowers coming, too, Babe.

Thanks, O.

Thanks, Ro.

So how do you feel celebrated? Food? Massage? A hike? Trinkets? Time to yourself? Chocolate? What says, “I love you Mom,” to you?

Photo credit (top right): Charles Masters