For years, I wondered if my mother’s work was in vain. My boys were animals. Every time I sat down on the toilet seat, my tush got wet. Our sons thought the toilet was just an object you urinate on. Like a tree. I constantly wiped up the bathroom, sometimes wiping up my tears too. It was just so frustrating, pee all over the place, even on the windowsill.

Our loo reminded me of the zoo in Munich, Germany where the big cats lived. The smell was overwhelming no matter how much I cleaned or how many candles I burned. Our two daughters had their own bathroom upstairs that smelled like the Juicy perfume they wore, but with a handful of young sons downstairs, I just couldn’t win the bathroom war.

No one ever told me raising boys was like training gorillas. I didn’t grow up this way. My brother never peed on anything that I can remember. I don’t recall him burping or farting, except that one time he farted on my stomach while I was asleep. It corresponded with a nightmare I was having. I woke up screaming. My brother was so pleased.

Mother’s Day has always been just another day of endless chores for me. The boys try to help, but I usually end up cleaning their mess. One year they made me dog poop soup for Mother’s Day. I stepped out the back door to find seven-year-old John and five-year-old Joey, working diligently at my flower pots. The pots were old wine barrels sawed in half. Two barrels sat right beside the kitchen door.

The dogs had taken over the barrels, sleeping there, so I no longer bothered to keep flowers in them, which was sad because in my daydreams these barrels were full of lavender in bloom, the beautiful, calming smell filling my kitchen like a villa in Tuscany. Instead, I had dirt and dogs in California.

“What are you boys up to?” I asked, watching them move mud from one barrel to the other. They’d gotten out the hose and had the water running.

“We’re making you soup,” they said in union, grins on their dirty, little faces.

“Soup, huh? What kind of soup?”

“Don’t know yet,” said John.

“For dinner!” Joey beamed.

I was in the middle of preparing a meal myself, and though I could see a mess brewing, I decided at least John and Joey were playing by the door where I could keep an eye on them. I was too tired to chase boys around our farm.

For nearly an hour, the boys labored there at the pots. Sometimes I would see them race across the yard, coming back with weeds and grass and who knew what else, but for the most part, they worked beside the door.

When I was nearly done cooking, I decided to get the boys cleaned up before sitting them down at the table with the rest of our crew. We had six children back then, four boys, and their two teenage sisters. The following year, we added number seven, another wild boy. They all came out of my scrawny little body. As babies, they seemed like miracles, but as they grew older, I felt like I’d created my own little militia of guerrilla fighters that I could hardly handle.

When I looked out the kitchen window, here came John with the dog pan. He poured the contents of the large pan into the pot. It was now brimming with mud, water, weeds, and so many of my flowers that I wanted to scream.

How many times had I told the boys, “No picking flowers from my planters.” This year they’d been so good about it. I thought I finally had my little gorillas… I mean sons… trained to leave my flower beds alone. I’d given up on the lavender beside the back door but I was still fighting to have flowers blooming around our house.

Standing beside the pots, I smelled something stinky. I looked around for little towheaded Garry, the two-year-old, thinking perhaps he had a poopie diaper.

“It’s done, Mom,” said John proudly, stretching out his hand to present the finished pot.

“We made you dog poop soup!” cried Joey. Both were standing about ten feet tall with their accomplishment. “For Mother’s Day,” added John, his filthy face sweaty from his endeavors, his blue eyes sparkling with little boy joy. “I used the shovel to put all the poop in the pan so I didn’t touch it with my hands!”

That explained the smell, even though the pot was bursting with my roses, sweet peas, Juniper’s beard and other flowers that had been stripped from my planters.

The expectant looks on the boys’ dirt-covered faces made me swallow the unkind words on my tongue. Instead, I sweetly said, “I’m getting Daddy. He has to see this.” Smell this right under our dining room window… I was thinking not so sweetly.

“Come look what your sons did,” I told Scott when I found him sitting with little Garry watching Dora. “What did they break now?” he asked, shoving aside his school work.

“My flowers,” I said, singing that song in my head, You’re Gonna Miss This. The wistful country tune had become my mantra. Often I reminded myself that someday our boys would be grown and gone and my flowers would be beautiful in the flower beds instead of clenched in grubby, little fists and presented to me in a wad of petals.

I followed Scott to the back door and watched his face as the smell hit him.
“What did you boys do?” He asked calmly. My husband is always calm, at least on the outside. Years ago, this made him a really good Army helicopter pilot. Today it makes him a good high school teacher. And a really good father.

“We made dog poop soup for Mom!” Joey’s grin was a mile wide.

“I see you used a bunch of Mom’s flowers.” Scott looked at me. He knew picking my flowers was a perfect way to unleash my wrath.

I smiled at him. “It’s my Mother’s Day present.”

“Well, Happy Mother’s Day, babe.” He turned back to the boys. “So whose idea was it to add the dog poop?”

“Joey’s,” John announced.

Joey could not have looked more proud of his ingenuity.

“Of course it was Joey’s idea,” said Scott.

“We wanted it to smell for Mom,” John explained.

“And it is going to smell wonderful while we eat supper right beside this window.” I patted the boys’ sweaty heads before returning to the kitchen to put dinner on the table.

“You boys go wash up,” said Scott as he stepped inside the door and promptly closed the window. He came over to help me put the food on the table. “Should they be in trouble?” He grabbed a handful of my behind. Here was my silverback, the king of my gorillas.

“How can I be mad at them? They made me dog poop soup for Mother’s Day.” I turned in my husband’s arms and kissed him like he was Tarzan and I was Jane.

That was nearly ten years ago. This past weekend, I went to a women’s retreat. While I was gone, I imagined my home turning into a terrible jungle. Without me there, the gorillas would go crazy.

But I was wrong. I came home to all my boys waiting for me in the driveway. They were so proud of themselves I had to take a picture of them lined up as I pulled in. “We really missed you, Mom,” they said, leading me into the house, carrying my bags through the front door and giving me big boy hugs.

The house looked perfect. Even the kitchen cabinets had been neatly rearranged. A last load of laundry was spinning in the drier. “I don’t know how you do all this,” sixteen-year-old John said after hugging me. “I’ve never seen so much laundry in my life! And this house…” he waved his hand around. “Wow, it’s a lot to clean.”

“Wow,” I agreed. “Happy Mother’s Day to me.”

“Your gorillas are trained,” Scott said with a pat to my butt as he passed by.

Tears filled my eyes. “You will always be my silverback,” I told him. “I love our gorillas.”

If you’ve created your own little jungle of gorillas I’m praying for you. For years, I felt overwhelmed by my large family. Some days I still do. Just remember kids grow up faster than you know. Savor the small moments, because in the end, most of motherhood is small moments.

Mother Teresa said, “Be faithful in small things because it is in them that your strength lies.”