Dad, in a cheetah onesie, pours a coffee with the perfect crema.

Mum opens myriad gifts of matching, pastel-coloured appliances; the aqua toaster of her dreams. 

It's Mother's Day, the catalogue way.

The annual instalment of commercial cliches is up there with a below-average work of Australian fiction for kicks and laughs.

Thankfully, Mother’s Day morning plays out very differently for most of us including in our home, the better-than-average coffee crema aside. (It’s one of the perks – pun intended – of living with a barista-in-a-previous-life!)

At our place the under-10s don’t attempt eggs Florentine (instead they pour a magic muesli) and the over-10s don’t wear onesies.

Our girls’ cards are handmade and heartfelt: I love you for giving me treats and hugs. (In no particular order, I assume!)

They only buy gifts from the Mother’s Day stall at school because, after all, it’s really just the thought that counts. (I’m led to believe canteen sales go through the roof in schools on days of Mother’s Day or Father’s Day stalls, though it could be simply playground heresay!)

I still remember the rare thing of beauty I bought for my mum at my first Mother's Day stall. (Disclaimer: It was circa 1977.)

I had found a miniature dried flower arrangement in a faux ceramic white pot for the bargain basement price of 20 cents at the Corowa Public School stall.

I couldn't believe my luck that no one else in the Infants Department had claimed it from the well-picked over table of recycled trash-cum-treasures.

Confirming my excellent choice, my mum kept the mini dust-catcher among her prized possessions in the display case in our lounge room for years to come. I now realise she has a bigger heart than me. A mini clawfoot bath, complete with cake of soap, I received a couple of years ago on Mother’s Day soon found a new home in the girls’ doll’s house. But I will never part with a hand-written card, nor has my mum with those we made her.

In reality though, Mother’s Day can be a difficult time to navigate for many who have lost their mums or who are separated by distance; it can be painful for those who are childless not by choice.

For others it can boil down to the tricky task of trying to catch up with mums on both sides of the family in a meaningful way on the same day.

We are blessed to have both mums within an hour’s drive of us.

Last year for the first time my mother-in-law, my mum and I did the Mother's Day Classic Albury-Wodonga 5-kilometre walk in Wodonga.

The rain bucketed down for the entire morning; dressed in raincoats and under umbrellas we were mums on the run. Pink-clad families negotiated ever-increasing puddles all in the spirit of community and raising money for cancer research.

We have registered again this year and my eldest daughter will join us.

Who would have thought my favourite Mother's Day yet would be a walk in the park on a wet and wild day?

A Mother’s Day Classic beats a flimsy, catalogue fiction any day!

Note: To those with Tim Finn stuck in their head after reading the headline on this column, You’re welcome.