You’re in the same position you wind up in every year. It’s mere days before Mother’s Day, and you don’t have your act together. No card, no gift, no flowers to pick up. You’re about to show up on Sunday with nothing but excuses. But it doesn’t have to be that way — Hallmark has your back! Come find out how!
Hallmark Knows Moms: How to do Better at Mother’s Day!
I see you out there—you’re just like me: horrible at Mother’s Day. This woman went to all the trouble to bring you into this world, and on the one day each year to honour her, here you are shopping for a gift the week before Mother’s Day! (*Okay, two days—she had a birthday, too. **Okay, three days—you probably do Christmas or Hanukkah or something, so hey. You get the point, right?)
And don’t forget: Mom probably knows you better than you know yourself, so this isn’t some gift you can figure out at the last minute! She’ll thank you, but that’s one guilt trip just waiting to happen somewhere down the line!
Which is why you—and all non-planner types like me—need help. We need someone skilled in all things Mother’s Day to guide our ways and help us get the gifts our Moms will love.
Let’s be real—we all know Mother’s Day as a commercial holiday’s a far cry from its original purpose when originally dreamt up by Anna Jarvis in 1908. (Don’t believe me? Ask Terry O’Reilly.) But that doesn’t mean the sentiment behind it isn’t valid. The things my mother’s done and sacrificed for her three sons are utterly priceless. When she needs something, I never worry about the price tag—I just make it happen. A quality I hope extends to my sons as they grow older, but in the meantime, I think I’ll need to step in for them.
But May’s no easy month for Casa de Palmer—at least it’s not for me. I don’t know whose big idea it was to have Mother’s Day, Sarah’s birthday and our anniversary all in the same month (what up, fate?), but it means rising to the challenge of finding a gift awesome enough to be worthy of all three.
Now—as a Best Buy Ambassador, I know they’ve got plenty in store to help you give the perfect Mother’s Day present. For example, if you mother’s the resident gourmand, perhaps grab a Vitamix Ascent 1.89L 1500-Watt Stand Blender or a KitchenAid Custom Stand Mixer. Or if she likes her coffee—and I mean really good coffee—check out the Breville Café Roma Pump Espresso Machine or the Nespresso VertuoLine Coffee System with Aeroccino Plus. Watches, jewellery, and fitness trackers—Best Buy offers more than most imagine, and I had to find just the right gift for Sarahpalooza 2017!
But then it hit me—a perfect gift for Sarah that she’d still use years down the road: a Microsoft Surface Pro 4!
While I’m obviously no expert (Y chromosomes pretty much exclude me from experiencing the… “miracle” (?) of childbirth first-hand), I’ve learned a lot about motherhood through everything I’ve seen Sarah go through in our nearly 3-year journey as parents so far.
As soon as that first baby hits the scene, they teach you how to grow, learn and love more than you ever thought possible. There’re plenty of moments when you don’t know where you’ll find the strength to make it through the day, but they’re balanced out by profound moments of happiness that’re hard to describe when you don’t have a little “you” to look after.
Pampers is celebrating more than 50 years of parents relying on their products to care for their babies’ happy, healthy development with a new #ThanksBaby video, capturing the moment when a baby’s born and perhaps the most unpredictable journey humanly possible starts its course. For me, though, even though I’m still figuring it out like I’m doing it for the first time each and every day, I can barely remember life before my boys, and with it this good, I’m okay with that.
So if you want to celebrate the Moms in your life—and maybe even win some sweet Pampers prizes in the process—why not join me with a cast of other North American influencer parents for Pampers’ #ThanksBaby Twitter Party on Wednesday, May 4th @ 9 PM EST? An RSVP is required before joining, so make sure you let us know well in advance if you plan to get in on the action! I look forward to seeing you there! ????
#ThanksBaby—Our Lives Wouldn’t be the Same Without You.
When a baby is born, a Mom is born, and that in itself is cause for celebration. The very act draws you into a world full of changes—you start with a little bundle devoid of words, but showering you with unconditional love as they make sense of the world around them, and though the journey ahead’s shaped by equal parts joy, challenges, and the emotions that come with the territory, I think many Moms—and parents in general agree that they wouldn’t trade it for the world.
See y’all Wednesday—if you’ve never done a Twitter party with me, I promise: you’re in for something else entirely.
Until the next, I remain,
–case p.
Disclaimer: Pampers compensated me for this post and Twitter Party as the premier Dad (read: only Dad) of their Pampers Baby Panel, where we share stories of how Pampers products have made child rearing even a little bit easier.
On top hitting up the #ThanksBaby Twitter Party on Wednesday, May 4th, you can feel free to visit the Pampers websiteto learn more about Pampers products, join the Pampers Rewards program, and find ideas and information to help your baby get the most out of love, sleep and play!
They’re also active on social media through Facebook, Twitter and YouTube. See you Wednesday!
Tell your wife, tell your kids, tell your husbands:
For this month’s post, SodaStream asked: “What empowers you?”
What keeps me going more than anything else is knowing I’m making a positive difference in the world. Whether through covering things people wouldn’t consider otherwise; raising a son that’ll know the key to a successful life is the balance between being respected, respecting others and respecting oneself; or even little things like holding doors, giving up seats, or donating my loose change to someone needing it more than me… I long for a world better than the one we have today.
But much of that positive change has to start from within, and that’s what I hope to show my family this May.
Mother’s Day the Palmer Way
You see it around Christmastime: when people look at the lengthy lists of gifts to buy, wondering how they’ll afford it all. Dinners to plan and parties to attend—you have countless competing priorities crashing together, and only one you to pull it all together!
In some ways, that’s how I feel about May.
For 30 years, I’ve spent Mother’s Day in Mississauga celebrating my mother and everything she’s done for me. But now, with a family of my own it feels… different. I still got my Mom a card (and my grandmother too, as she was up visiting from Jamaica) and braved our rotten Toronto traffic to stop by and say “Hi”, but after years trying to top the gifts from those before, I don’t think anyone can beat what we gave her last year….
Sarahpalooza
This May, we’re celebrating Sarah’s 1st Mother’s Day, our 3rd wedding anniversary, and her birthday (I’d tell you the number, but sometimes you need to value your life more than you do accuracy!) With so many milestones afoot in the span of mere weeks, I want to give her the world without the disposable income or time that we used to have. Parenthood is by no means a light undertaking, and I want to use this month to remind Sarah that not only is she a great Mom, but also a great wife and great woman as well. We’re both trying to figure parenting out daily, but she bears the brunt of both great experiences and bad as she spends her days with the little guy, so I wanted to do something to really show how much I appreciate it. With cards from myself and the little guy, a few little gifts and some time to relax on our patio while I kept him entertained, I think we were off to a good start.
So with a foot in your old life and another in the new, what do you do? Celebrate the woman who gifted you with life or the one who blessed you with a child of your own? Obviously, the answer is both, but it’s not an easy balance to keep. Though you’ve got a kid, you’ll never stop being someone else’s — a reality you’ll need to constantly revisit through your entire parental journey. Though reconciling this is my battle to face, Sarah has a journey as well—and not only her own, but that with all the other mothers she’s befriended in such a short time!
What REALLY Empowers Me?
This past weekend marked six months since we became parents. Over that time, Sarah’s not only excelled as a mother, she’s also been honing her innate community manager skills as the admin of a self-created Facebook group 150+ members strong for Moms with kids born in November 2013! Those bonds have translated over to our lives as well in our East York baby boomtown, with plenty of new Mom friends in our neighbourhood to share walks, parenting programs, coffee visits and dinners.
Through this group, we discovered that some of the other Moms use SodaStreams, too, using their machines to customize the drinks they have daily, which is important, because as new parents, we need to model better choices for our children, whether it’s what we put in our bodies, how we treat the environment or how we spend our money. I’ve gotten many questions about the SodaStream since the first blog post came out, so it’s good to know that I’ve got some real-life examples to point out if anyone ever needs to discuss how it can affect their life.
So thank you, Sarah — my other half, my BFF and mother of my child. I’ll try to make this month—and this life—as special as I can for you. It’s a long road ahead, but I think we’ve got what it takes to make it work. You and our son are what empower me, and I hope I never forget that.
–case p.
Disclosure: I am part of the PTPA Brand Ambassador Program with SodaStream Canada and I received compensation as part of my affiliation with this group. The opinions on this blog are my own. You can connect with SodaStream Canada on Facebook, Twitter, Instagram and their website!
Tell your wife, tell your kids, tell your husbands:
