There aren’t too many days during the year than Mother’s Day. I know, that may sound cliche, but if there’s one thing almost every single person on this planet has in common, is that they were brought into this world by a mother.

Our Plans

To me, the gift in the day and how you spend it, not something in a box or a greeting card from the Hallmark down the street. And that’s what we had in mind for the loving mother in our family.

And about those plans, well…

You know what they say about the best laid plans. They can probably say the same for even the simple ones, too.

Really, that’s what we had in mind, simple.

• The weather was absolutely gorgeous,
• we packed a small cooler,
• we picked up some sandwiches,
• Cindy put on a very lovely, summer dress,
• Papa packed up the camera gear,
• and we all headed out to Riverwalk Park in Naperville for a nice picnic and portrait session.

Simple, right?

The Picnic That Wasn’t

We knew it was a great day for a picnic, and that was validated when we arrived at Riverwalk Park and found dozens of families on picnic blankets and enjoying Mother’s Day and the weather.

But there was no picnic for us. At least not outdoors as planned.

It wasn’t very long after jumping on the tollway and cruising on our did the brake lights ahead made it apparent that our arrival time was subject to change. But it’s all about how you respond to these unplanned changes that matter.

For starters, Christian was a true trooper. All we had to do was open the windows (since we were pretty much parked the entire time) and he was watching the cars in the northbound lanes whiz by and the planes overhead descend towards O’Hare.

Next up, Cindy took it all in stride as well. Not that she’s ever rattled by things like this, but given it was her day and everything deserved to be perfect, she was not going to let this ruin her day.

So that picnic that wasn’t? Well, we enjoyed our sandwiches right around mile marker 35 in our car. :)

At The Park

Although we arrived about an hour later than planned, we still had plenty of time to enjoy Cindy’s day. And after Christian had his lunch near the snack shop at the center of the park, we made our way to the same spot along the riverwalk trail that we took portraits of Christian at six months old.

And while we’ve quickly learned that getting our son to pose in front of the camera at his age is a lot harder than it was a year ago, we still captured the images that we had set out to.

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If those photos don’t capture the moment and the spirit of our Mother’s Day celebration, I don’t think anything would.

Fortunately for us, the journey back home was far less disturbed, and both Mama and Christian were able to get a little rest while Papa drove. In fact, we made such good time on the way back, we were able to stop at Starbucks (where else?) and spend a little time enjoying our drinks instead of just grabbing them to go.

And with that, we put the wrap on a very memorable Mother’s Day, despite not everything going as planned. There was no fancy gift box, no flowers or card with words written by some stranger, nothing like that. Just a day spent together as a family and a handful of keepsake images added to the collection of what has been the best year and a half of both of our lives.

Perhaps this is the start of another annual tradition, who knows. But even though the official day has come and gone for 2012, Christian and Papa continue on with the remaining days knowing that this beautifully wonderful woman is the most important part of our lives. And always will be.

We love you, Mama.
– Kris and Christian