Whether you celebrate this holiest of holidays or are just basking in the return of spring, warmth, blue skies and green leaves, I hope you have a very happy day.

footie pajamas!

I snapped these pictures this morning while it was still dark out, and the boys were stumbling around the house trying to get themselves dressed. That explains both the bad lighting and the fact that my kids went off to school with un-matched socks. Yes, sometimes I am That Mother. But at least That Mother can say she got some adorable shots of a jammies-clad sitter-upper baby!

Read more about how I’m surviving (barely) the back-to-school shuffle with five kids at largerfamilies.com.

For the next couple days, Jon, Clara and I will be hanging out in Grand Rapids, MI, experiencing ArtPrize–a contest where 1262 artists in 159 venues citywide compete for the world’s largest art prize–$250,000. It’s a very cool concept and one that puts the decision about what makes ‘art’ firmly in the hands of the public rather than some inaccessible institution, judge or jury. As you can imagine, that’s made it rather controversial as well. I’ll share more about the contest after I’ve had a chance to see more of the art (though so far, I’ve liked what I’ve seen).

This is the third weekend trip Clara’s made with Jon and I this summer, and I have to say she is one easy-traveling baby. But that may not last long–earlier today she got herself up on her hands and knees and rocked back and forth. Crawling’s not far off, so her days of being happy in the stroller are likely numbered. Yikes!

Speaking of getting out with kids, at the More to the Core blog I’ve published an interview with my friend, travel writer and mom of three Toni Klym McLellan of BringTheFamily.net.

And over at Babble.com I pose the question: is motherhood really the hardest job in the world?

This may be the only photo in existence of myself and all my kids where everybody is looking in the general direction of the camera. And only one kid is goofing off!

And because who can resist those dimples, here’s one of Clara, held by her aunt Beth at a backyard barbecue last month.

I was just reading this touching post at Velveteen Mind about hoping for a baby girl, and it reminded me of an essay I wrote years ago while pregnant with baby #4, which was published in the (now-defunct) ePregnancy magazine. Reading it again I am reminded of how intense that desire for a girl was, and how glad I am that, though I would have been totally happy as a mom of five boys, the dream of having a daughter is one I didn’t have to give up after all. (It doesn’t hurt that Clara is one of the sweetest, smiley-est, most dimply-chunky-legged babies I’ve ever had the pleasure of knowing.)

Here’s the essay, written almost exactly four years ago.

I am sixteen and one-half weeks pregnant with my fourth child, most likely my last. My pregnancy is going smoothly; I feel healthy and I have a baby with a strong heartbeat.

But I can’t relax. You see, I have three boys.

They are smart, funny, energetic, and affectionate little guys, aged one and a half, 5, and 7. They bring joy and depth to my life, and I couldn’t imagine life without either of them. But I was supposed to have girls.

From the time I was a young girl, playing with my Cabbage Patch dolls, I preferred girls to boys. I gestated, birthed, breastfed, and diapered hundreds of imaginary Ashleys, Jennys, and Sarahs.

When I became pregnant with my first child, the idea that it could be a boy never even crossed my mind. I imagined only a curly-headed little replica of myself, spinning around in pink tutus and tiaras.

What I got was an ultrasound picture with a large white circle drawn around some very suspiciously male genitalia, and a single word, all in capitals: BOY. Well, it wasn’t what I expected, but I soon adjusted to the idea of a curly-headed little replica of myself spinning around in a Spiderman costume. Boy names? Easier, but not as fun as girl names. Boy clothes? Not nearly as good a selection as there is for girls. And five months later, my firstborn, whom we named Jacob, was born.

Not so very long after Jake came along, I found out that I was pregnant again. This time, I really tried to have no expectation about gender. I told myself that a boy would be fine, but a girl would bring balance. If I have a girl this time, I reasoned, then my family would be complete and I would be able to retire from parenting at the age of 40. Not that I was expecting, or hoping for, a girl or anything, mind you.

The baby was already there, a boy or girl, just waiting to join our family. Nope. I was just going to accept this baby’s gender, no matter what. And on and on I went.

And at the 20-week mark, I found myself once again staring at a wiggling penis on an ultrasound screen—and once again trying to brush off the pang of disappointment that followed. And when my third ultrasound also showed a boy, I felt the pang again.

When I found out that I was pregnant with my fourth child, I decided not to find out its sex. “Aren’t you dying to know?” people asked. “No,” I told them all smugly, “I want it to be a surprise.” It took me a while to remember that I never did much like surprises.

This baby means the difference between a family of boys—a rough-and-tumble jumble of muddy sneakers, fishing poles, and frogs—or two boys and their little sister, which conjures up images of canopy beds and tap shoes. This baby carries the potential for making me the mother of the bride, or the four-time, happy-and-proud-but-slightly-less-prominent mother of the groom.

Sometimes it occurs to me that most of this baby is already firmly in place: hair color, eye color, complexion, and yes, sex; all these are determined by now. An ultrasound gender diagnosis won’t change the fact that this baby is already a boy or a girl. And the truth is, both possibilities bring a smile to my face. And yet—as long as the possibility of that mother-daughter bond exists, I won’t really be able to let go of the fantasy.

Mothers aren’t supposed to admit that they would like their child to be one sex over the other. As long as the baby is healthy, we are told, it’s selfish to want anything more specific. Of course, I’d like to think I’m not one of the selfish ones. But hoping for one gender or the other is not the same as wishing for a different baby. I wouldn’t trade this baby in for a different one, no matter what the gender. I love the baby I’ve got, but this pregnancy could represent my final chance for a girl. And, selfish or not, if I never have a girl, I’ll miss her presence.

My ultrasound appointment is set for three weeks from today. I know that when I face the ultrasound technician my stomach will be fluttering like crazy with nerves. And if the words I hear are “girl”—then I can let my little-girl fantasies run wild.

And if she says “boy”, I know what I’ll do. I’ll feel a momentary letdown, a pang, and in one long exhale, I’ll let go of the tutus and the fairy princess costumes and the canopy beds and the prom dresses. And as I inhale, I’ll imagine four little boys in a row, getting haircuts, running through my backyard, and tackling me with hugs. I’ll smile and go home dreaming of the family that we will become.

Here are some other places you can find me online these days:

on my WeTV blog, I posted about Mommy Jobs, co-sleeping drama, and bizarre baby products.

Follow me on Twitter. Come on. Even my dad is doing it.

I posted on the Chicago Moms Blog about my creepy Craigslist encounter with a sex offender and Free-Range Kids.

I’m a family travel expert on Away.com

in honor of Mother’s Day–and because reading all the mom-centric stuff around the blogosphere has got me thinking about her–I’ll be posting about my mother all week.

This piece was inspired by Mara’s post about what her mother taught her about travel.

What did my mother teach me about travel?

On first consideration it would be easy to say “not much”. My parents divorced when I was young, and my mother didn’t have much money or time to take us on exotic adventures. Anywhere we went had to be navigable, round-trip, within a weekend, because my mom ran an in-home daycare and couldn’t take weekdays off. We didn’t go on vacations to either coast. We didn’t have a cabin on the lake. The only reason we even made it into Canada was that we lived about five miles from the border, and the shopping was better there on the occasion we needed something beyond JCPenney or KMart. I was fourteen years old before I made it out of the Midwest, and every trip that took me further than a Great Lake state was with my dad.

But even though she didn’t physically take me on many trips, my mom taught me a lot about the way I experience travel today.

First of all, whether it was through the music we watched, the books we read or the movies we watched, Mom seemed to make a point of opening up the world to us. I knew that there were many places outside my realm that were fascinating, exciting and worth visiting….even if I couldn’t do it right away.

Second, she made a point of exploring what was available to us in our small city in Michigan’s remote Upper Peninsula. Whether we were blueberry picking in the woods, skipping stones on Lake Superior or watching freighters roll by on the St. Mary’s River, she took pleasure in the small details…the kind that are available to anyone in any town, no matter how small or unglamorous or remote.

One of my favorite things to do as a traveler (and travel writer) is discover the undiscovered. That diner with the fantastic pancakes in a sleepy small town. Or a quiet beach off the beaten path. The simplest things often bring the most pleasure, and often they’re right under our noses. That’s what my mom taught me about travel: you don’t have to go thousands of miles away to find something worth discovering. History and art and culture, natural wonders…it’s all there for the finding, no matter where you are.

Come to think of it, I guess my mom taught me quite a bit about travel. How about yours?