Our time is coming, mamas. Mother’s Day is around the corner.

This is my third official Mother’s Day as a mom (not counting the one where I was newly pregnant and feeling all fluttery-excited over the idea that I was about to become a mom, with no real clue as to what it would be like), so I can tell you a few things about it.

When I was little, Easter used to mean baskets full of artificially dyed eggs, iridescent plastic shreds of grass, jelly beans and the kind of cheap, waxy chocolate that thrills a kid’s heart before they know what the really good stuff tastes like. I loved them, but it’s been decades since I had an Easter basket like this, and to be honest I hadn’t even really notice that this family tradition had slipped away.

Until, that is, I became a mom.