Belated Mother's Day Post

Where does a step-mom fit in on Mother's Day? That's the question I'm struggling with right now.

Yesterday was Mother's Day (I saved this post as a draft & forgot about it...woops!) & I had a wonderful day.  I had breakfast with my husband, stepdaughter, my mom, & my in-laws.  When we picked my stepdaughter up, she said "Happy Mother's Day" & I was elated!  Breakfast was good, everyone got along, there weren't any problems.  After breakfast, we dropped her back off at her mom's, my in-laws went home, my mom went to services, & my husband & I ran some errands.  When we got home, we each did a few things around the house before putting a yummy dinner on the grill & relaxing for the evening.  It was a beautiful day out, the weather was great ... it was wonderful.  & yet for all of this wonderfulness, my stomach still feels a little queasy & the day just doesn't sit right with me when I think of how it went because I don't know where I fit on a holiday such as Mother's Day.

Now I know that a big reason for the way I'm feeling is because of the expectations I had for how I thought the day would go.  The real kicker though is that I didn't know that I had those expectations until they weren't met.  Fun right?  Although I've been around for a number of years, this was my first Mother's Day as a step-mom.  In prior years, I never expected anything for this holiday because I knew that Mother's Day was spent with moms, AS IT SHOULD BE!!  & by no mean am I trying to or wanting to change that!!  I just didn't realize that I thought this year would be a little different since I had the title "mom" in my name now ... even if it is preceded by "step".  Alright, let me break it down a little more specifically ...
     -- happy: my stepdaughter wanted to come with us for breakfast (she never has in past years)
     -- elated: she said "Happy Mother's Day" as soon as she got in the truck!!
     -- disappointed: throughout breakfast it got brought up that she needed to get her mom a card (& yet I didn't get one)
     -- out of place: during breakfast, my mother-in-law was talking to my stepdaughter, stating that it wasn't enough to "just" get her mom a card, she should get her flowers too (& no mention was made at all about getting me anything)
     -- invisible: when saying goodbye to my mother-in-law, I said "Happy Mother's Day", purposely to see if she would say it back -- her response was "Thank you.  & thank you for breakfast".

** Since I wrote this post so many months ago & then forgot about posting it, it's going to end abruptly from where my thoughts left off back then...enjoy!**