Maycember beckons

In this newsletter: cohort novels, Mother's day things, croissants, flowers

Dear readers,

Hello, happy Maycember (the term coined to describe the deluge of end-of-year activities, graduations, crazy sock days, etc). Also, happy (US) Mother’s Day Weekend. Has Mother’s Day gotten more elaborate in the age of social media? I don’t have any recollection of doing anything for my mom on Mother’s Day as a kid. When I was growing up my dad liked to joke that he “was getting tired of all the Father’s Day ads,” but that’s the extent to which I think there was any celebrating of these holidays. Now it’s brunches and tulips and kid art work. One year Russ brought home an actual shrinky-dink keychain that he had made at school.

Until this came home I hadn’t realized that a shrinky dink is a literal thing and not just an adjective!

All this to say, if Mother’s Day is a sad (or ambivalent) holiday for you, I hope you find nice ways to spend it. I have fine-tuned some approaches to Mother’s Day over the years (this was important as there were a couple of years where I spent Mother’s Day feeling annoyed and being quite rude to loved ones!) Here they are (do you have any?):

My Weekend Mom Approaches to Mother’s Day

British Mother’s Day

In March of 2015 I visited London for the first time with my friend Chris. We arrived on the weekend of British Mother’s Day, which was thrilling since I was about six months pregnant. I got so many sweet comments of “you must be knackered!” Since then, I always like to start my Mother’s Day introspection, celebrations, and treats in March during British Mother’s Day. I don’t tell my family or anything, but I do acknowledge it privately, in the lush confines of my imagination, and get a chocolate croissant or something similar. Frivolous!

A Cath Kidston activation on Mother’s Day 2015

Total Creative Control

In the days before American Mother’s Day rolls around, I try to make a lose plan for Mother’s Day. Last year I had a clinical shift in the morning, but in other years I would go to an exercise class and a brunch with another mom. One year I went to see the Challengers movie with friends and it was perfect! It’s important to make some kind of plan so no one has to read your mind.

Exciting Media to Consume

May is always a great month for books, so having a book I’m looking forward to starting on Mother’s Day is critical. Same for a show/movie. This year I might watch the new season of Running Point or Amandaland (if I can solve the mystery of where it is streaming). This trailer made me laugh and laugh.

Florals for Mother’s Day? Groundbreaking

I love a floral or plant theme for Mother’s Day. Lime tree? Yes. Tulips? Yes. Limes and tulips embroidered on a linen button down shirt? Yes.

The Mother’s Day Village

One year a friend invited our babysitter and kids to go to paint your own pottery with her and her children and my kids painted bowls and platters for Mother’s Day. It was so moving! It was also a lesson in remembering that we are all part of the motherhood community, so in some years I’ve had random kids who a materialize in our living room make cards for their moms. Maybe this weekend I will bust out the beads!

Another school Mother’s Day project

The Expansive Mother’s Day

In 2020 I made a comic for the Tory Burch blog about mother figures. I love this inclusive approach to mother’s day and all the people who do a huge amount of mothering outside of the mother-child dyad.

Ritual reading of Poetry

Is Mother’s Day complete without reading The Lanyard by Billy Collins? Or paging through one of Kate Baer’s books? Or going down an online poetry rabbit hole?

Tell me, do you have any Mother’s Day traditions? Anything you’ve done to keep yourself from turning into a Mother’s Day monster (I have been there)?

Time for a book report! I read two bangers that I wanted to share. First, the first book of my 2026 Year of Reading Books in Translation, My Husband by Maud Ventura. What a ride this was! This was a great pre-Mother’s Day read—the protagonist is a teacher, translator, reluctant mom of two, and wife. She lives in the suburbs of Paris, and the novel takes place over about a week. I love to join an unreliable narrator on an unhinged journey, and this was deliciously fun. I’m starting the author’s next novel this week.

from My Husband by Maud Ventura

The second book I enjoyed over the past month was So Old, So Young by Grant Ginder. Now, a couple of weeks ago my mom came over for dinner and chucked my copy of the book Heart the Lover onto the dining table saying, “You know I hate cohort novels.” If you, like my mom, dislike cohort novels (like The Interestings for example!), you will not care for So Old, So Young. But I love a cohort novel, and this is a really lovely one. A group of college friends reconvene over 20 or so years at five different gatherings, including a wedding and a disastrous suburban Halloween party. Do you like cohort novels?

Okay, now let’s have some Mother’s Day laffs.

Hope you have a fun weekend. Thank you for supporting my work! If you need a gift, Wirecutter recommends Mom Milestones as a gift for new moms. And Publisher’s Weekly has See One, Do One, Teach One on their list of “10 Books for Mother’s Day” (!).

For the rest of May this is me-