I’m just walking around in circles.

I do not recommend that you purchase The Bridge for your wife for Mother’s Day. I also do not recommend you watch it if you spend any time in San Francisco because you will never again be able to disassociate “San Francisco” from the phrase “OH MY GOD SERIOUSLY DON’T JUMP OFF THE BRIDGE DID HE JUST REALLY JUMP OFF THE BRIDGE?” Or something like that. Did you know that the bridge is the number one choice of destinations for suicides in the world? If I were a travel agent, I’d be pretty depressed about any and all one-way bookings to SF. San Francisco, the Top Choice for Suicidal Travellers! Come and stay for a while and then jump off the second largest suspension bridge in the world! (I could probably get a job at the SF Tourist Board!)

But back to you and your gift buying dilemma. Here’s the thing, I don’t actually know the mother of your children who may or may not be your “wife” but I’ll use the word “wife” here to mean “mother of your children” because it’s much shorter. YOU know what she’d like. You do. Or you should. What would she like? Probably not The Bridge.

So without further ado, here are my thoughts. Please keep in mind that I slept for about three hours last night and already this morning have mopped up pee that spread from the kitchen through the dining room to the living room to the couch. Yes, that far. It’s true. No matter what you buy for your wife, you should also buy her a bottle of Urine-Off. (No, it wasn’t my pee.) (Although I did sneeze last night hard enough to throw my back out, I cleverly managed not to wet myself, which I’m feeling pretty good about in the big picture.) And note also that I’m only pretending to be some sort of Mother’s Day expert to see how many people actually take my advice or read my advice or care about my advice. Because I’m needy that way. Somehow it’s all about me.

1. How’s your budget? You should totally surprise your wife with a trip here! It’s a surprisingly uninspiring website but believe me when I say that it’s amazing because I have BEEN THERE. I have! And it was amazing! And we got an amazing deal which looks like it’s no longer available because holy crap, look how expensive! So when I suggest this, I’m assuming you’re rich. Because if you weren’t rich you wouldn’t be idly spelunking around the internet taking gift suggestions from exhausted strangers, you’d be working, wouldn’t you? Have a nice Caribbean vacation! Totally get a suite with a private plunge pool, that’s my advice. When I die, I now fully expect Heaven to come with private plunge pools. If it doesn’t, I’m going to the front desk and acting all affronted and demanding a room upgrade or else maybe next time I die, I’ll go to a DIFFERENT HEAVEN where the SERVICE IS BETTER and probably I’ll tell ALL MY FRIENDS and even TOTAL STRANGERS on my BLOG. (And I’ll shout those words, too, so that I’m basically random capping my conversation for extra EMPHASIS.) (That will probably WORK.) (God LIKES random caps.)

2. Flowers. Obviously.

I’m KIDDING. Don’t do that. Christ on a bike! If you’re going to buy her flowers, please buy her beautiful flowers. If you’re confused, I can help you by explaining that if there is a carnation in there, they are not beautiful flowers.

If your wife is a gardener, buy her something beautiful for the garden instead of a bunch of daisies and carnations jammed into a vase shaped like a gnome’s head. Or maybe those long planter boxes she needs for the sweet peas even though you don’t really know what she means by that whole planter/trellis/sweet pea idea to block the view of the neighbour’s barbecue. Just brainstorming here.

3. Art. Art is totally personal, so if you don’t really know what your wife likes, don’t get her art. But hey, I like art! And I’m every woman! It’s all in me! Etc.

From Kat Hannah, via etsy:

Or this by the lovely and talented and gorgeous and did I mention talented? Lori Nelson.

Or book a time and get a professional picture taken of your wife with your kids. It’s likely she is always behind the camera and does not have any lovely shots of herself looking lovingly at her children, something she might need to remind herself that she’s not always shouting “STOP HITTING HIM/HER/ME RIGHT THIS MINUTE OR YOU’RE GOING TO THE NAUGHTY CHAIR FOR FIVE MINUTES/AN HOUR/THE REST OF YOUR LIFE!” Even though your wife may have a hard time with having her picture taken because one of her eyes is bigger than the other (see: “Right Eyelid Retraction”) which always makes her look, in pictures, like she’s either drunk or has just suffered a small stroke and given her daily life, neither would be that surprising.

4. Instead of buying her something, do something thoughtful and time-consuming that she’ll never do herself such as recaulking the bathroom floor or putting some music onto the iPod she’s had for two years but still only has that one Gordon Lightfoot song on it about the sinking of the Edward Fitzgerald or Fitzpatrick or Fitzwilliam or whatever it’s about. A small thoughtful gesture goes a long way, my friends. Or even a big one, such as emptying the P-trap in the bathroom sink so that water drains. Actually that might not go over so well if presented as a “gift” so scratch that, I’m just thinking out loud because, you know, I have no idea either, I’m just trying to help at the same time as listing all the things that we never get around to doing at our house as though maybe a Mother’s Day fairy will descend and perform said tasks, such as finally painting the trim in The Bun’s room so that we can remove the masking tape that has actually probably by now become a permanent part of the wood floor.

5. Get the kids to make her a card. Getting handmade somethings from the knee-high demons who you chase around the house all day tidying up after and shouting at goes a long way to calming the beast that lives in Mummy’s head and sometimes scratches at her eyeballs from the inside. Into that card, put a gift certificate for something thoughtful, like a new Mercedes or a book or the garden shop or some kind of miracle babysitting service that you could call when you want to write a blog post without your kids dangling off the back of your neck and sticking their feet into your mouth while shouting MONKEY MONKEY MONKEY and trying to clean the ceiling with the Swiffer wet mop. Such a service probably doesn’t exist in real life but wouldn’t it be nice if it did?

There now. Hope that helped. As always, I’m here for YOU. To serve you, except not literally, because I’m busy and besides, what’s in it for me?

Or you could just buy her a card and write something so thoughtful that she’ll cry for a week because she’s so moved by your poetry. Or, I don’t know, make her a Halloween costume. It’s early, yes, but that’s the kind of thoughtfulness that says, “HOLY CRAP, I LOVE YOU SO DAMN MUCH I THINK I MAY HAVE JUST HAD A STROKE, DOES MY EYE LOOK HALF-CLOSED TO YOU?”

Happy Mother’s Day, peeps.