Obviously, I’m asking because I have no ideas. Doesn’t bode well as this is her first mother’s day as a mother. We’ve been married nearly 11 years, and I’m totally out of present ideas for our first mother’s day!
I can do the usual, like flowers, or a spa day. But, I was wondering if you got anything that you really loved. Something that my male brain wouldn’t be able to come up with.
My favorite? Handmade cards that my kids made when they were small.
I think in your case, maybe something with the child’s birthstone in it? I used to have a charm bracelet with charms on it; one for each child, that I really liked.
Here’s a nice one. This one is a small charm ring.
Can’t go wrong with a nice new vacuum cleaner. Or a new set of pots and pans!
(Just Kidding!!!)
I’m not one for a big song and dance for mother’s day. Usually we all go out to the Chinese buffet with my mother, then home for a piece of ice cream cake and coffee… I’ve also gotten some nice jewelry over the years, but my favorite mothers day present was a little clay statue my husband and daughter made out of play-doh, a ‘bust’ that sort of looked like me, with pea green eyes and yellow hair, wearing a little doll’s hat. I still have it in a display cabinet, right in there with my Lennox Princesses. But of course your kid is still years away from even making a card with macaroni glued on it!..Plant a tree? A lilac or rose bush? Putting up a nice bird feeder, or a bird bath? …Depends on what your wife is like, I guess.
Breakfast in Bed served by my kids.
If this is her first, a small piece of jewelery or a professional photo of her and the baby, you and the baby or all three of you.
The important thing is to get the kids involved in the presents as early as possible. In fact - a plaster cast of the baby’s hand/foot prints is cute too.
A sappy card from the baby is absolutely required no matter what gift you get however 
So far, the best Mother’s Day gifts I’ve received have been from the kids or at least chosen by the kids. Three years ago, I got a painted rock from my daughter. It resides on a shelf in the living room. (“I got a rock.” /Charlie Brown.) And, other than my wedding band and engagement ring, the only piece of jewelry I wear all the time is a ring chosen by my boys about 10 years ago: a Mother’s Day ring with my favorite stone as the “o” in Mom (the other letters are part of the band.). My younger stepson chose this one specifically because, as he described it, “when you turn it upside down, it spells ‘wow’.” Awww!
I do like the ideas of jewelry, a professional photo, or (most especially) a tree. It would be extra-cool to watch a tree or plant grow along with the little one. I’d hint for that myself if we weren’t in a rental right now…
Instead, since I have a very small one along with two pre-teens, and have returned to work already, I’m hinting for gift certificates from the local “pick up a casserole for dinner” place. Nights off from cooking/planning a family dinner sound excellent, and I don’t have to gear myself up for going out to enjoy this - I’d forgotten just how much is involved with getting out of the house with a newborn!
I hate going out on Mother’s Day (or Thanksgiving, or Christmas, etc.). What I’d like is for someone ELSE to cook and serve and clean up the meals for the day. Getting a couple of loads of laundry done correctly would be nice, too. A small box of good chocolate and a card is a sure fire winner, as well. I’d much rather have four pieces of great chocolate than a pound of drugstore chocolates.
Salinq jokingly suggested a vacuum or pots and pans. This is the kind of stuff I routinely ask for. Maybe not romantic, but a mothers job is hard work, and things that make it easier are appreciated by some. I also know some women put their husbands on the couch for that sort of thing. But when my husband got me a griddle and a bigger cutting board, I was stoked. He got bonus points for the cutting board being recycled. Easing someone’s burden is thoughtful, IMHO. If he had gotten me sparkly jewelry he’d be in for it. “You spent how much?! Does it have superpowers or something?! Then what’s it good for?! Can you return it and get me the big tupperware set and some nicer laundry baskets?”
However,you know your wife. Maybe she wants something sentimental. I’m sure whatever you give her she will appreciate, because on Mother’s Day especially, it really is the thought that counts.
The sweetest Mother’s Day present was when my oldest child was 7 and kept getting out of bed at all hours of the night because she was excited about making me breakfast in bed. It was toast (burnt of course) and orange juice and I finally let her (meaning pretended to still be asleep and not send her back to bed) at about 6 am. She was so happy.
My favorite gift so far was when the same daughter (the other was a baby still) gave me a person made out of little plastic beads that had been melted together. Right before she gave it to me, the head broke off. So that year I got a disembodied head for Mother’s Day. It was awesome. I proudly put it on a ribbon and wore it to work the next day. 
The best mother’s day present I got from her father was a beautifully unique handcrafted steel and pearl ring. I’m a huge fan of interesting rings and I fell in love with it when we went to the ACC craft show in Baltimore that year. I am so sorry that I lost that ring. Every year I scour the ACC listings hoping that vendor will come back so I can get another at least similar ring from him. I wish I could remember his name, all I know is where his booth was and the material he worked with.
::swoon::
I wish my mother thought like this.
A certificate for a professional photo of her and the baby, and a nice (crystal maybe?) frame for it.
. . . and a day in which you truly do her job for her to the extent possible.
. . . and a hand-written note from you, on nice paper, about how much you appreciate all she has gone through, and done, to give you this beautiful child.
. . . and start right now to get her flowers on the child’s birthday each year as well.
And feel free to ignore this - I just realized that it’s for your wife, not your mother.
I think my best was the year that I did a couple of sayings in cross-stitch for Mother’s and Father’s Days.
Mom’s a librarian, so I took the last lines of a poem I saw in Dear Abby or Ann Landers and stitched it:
You may have tangible wealth untold;
Caskets of jewels and coffers of gold.
Richer than I you can never be –
I had a Mother who read to me.
Every time my husband asks me what I want for any occasion, whether it’s my birthday, Christmas, whatever, it’s this:
Cue dream sequence
I park my car and walk into the house. It smells so…clean. I look around the basement (our house is built on a hill with the garage at the bottom of the hill, so if you park in the garage, you’re walking into the basement) and all the crap my husband left on the floor is miraculously gone. The floors are vacuumed. The stairs are vacuumed. The bathroom smells faintly of cleaning products.
You get where this is going, don’t you?
I walk upstairs, bewildered. Is this really my house? (Yes, I’m being facetious.) Like the rest of the house, this, too, is clean. Floors vacuumed, crap picked up. My husband’s pants and backpack for once aren’t draped across the couch and my son and daughter’s laundry isn’t heaped in a pile on the couch or in baskets waiting to be folded. In fact, the baskets are placed neatly in their rooms, with all of their other belongings, which are put in their place, not tossed in with the doors closed so no one will see. All the surfaces are clean and dusted and I didn’t have to do it!
I walk into the kitchen, where people tend to congregate and I see it. My dream come true. A clean tablecloth is on the table. And on top of that? Dinner. For the whole family. A dinner I didn’t have to plan for, cook or serve. Right there. Just waiting for me and everyone. I don’t have to direct anyone, decide anything, make anything, set any timers, give any reminders. It’s just there. A miracle on a plate. And the kitchen is clean, clean, clean - the baby bottles are already washed, pots and pans scrubbed and put away. It’s absolutely beautiful.
End dream sequence
My recommendation for a mother’s day gift would be either time or effort or a combination. So, if you notice that your wife does the dishes every night, have her come home one day to a clean kitchen without her having had to ask, then tell her to sit down and relax. I’m definitely projecting here, but that would be my dream come true.
The best Mother’s Day gift I never gave: I intended to buy my grandmother a dozen roses for Mother’s Day last year. Instead, I had them sent two weeks before her 90th birthday, in February.
(Part of the intended effect was to allow her to mention it to her friends and get more birthday wishes:
Granny’s friend: Oh what lovely roses! What are these for?
Granny: For my birthday in a few days, which I would not have mentioned otherwise!
Friend: Oh! I didn’t know it was your birthday, I will get you a card!)
She passed away a year ago yesterday. Never made it to Mother’s Day.
I miss my grandmother. But I also learned that while it costs the same to get flowers any day of the year, a day that they are not expected is about 10 times more awesome.
If she’s worth flowers on Mother’s Day, she’s worth them today.
Yup, my daughter serving me breakfast in bed. Homemade card. Her smile. Just spending the day with her.
Being a new mom, I imagine having some of the normal stuff she does being done by you would make her day