A surprise mothers day gift
As I left work on the Friday before mother’s day, I chatted with a colleague about mother’s day gifts from the kids. Last year, Darling Angel had made a poster with her picture and a sweet poem that was cut out and glued to it. It still sits in my cubicle.
The year before when she was three and a half, she had decorated a flower vase with felt letters that read “mom”. The vase had soil in it with a budding plant. Darling Angel held on tightly to the vase on the drive home. At home, she proudly showed me the letters she had stuck on the vase. I hugged her and thanked her and tried to take the vase but she would not be separated from it. “It’s mine!”, she screamed. “I made it. It’s mine!” A tug of war ensued. Not because I wanted to lay claim to what should be mine but because I didn’t want her playing with the soil in the vase. I won. And I placed the vase out of reach on the kitchen counter. Whenever she saw it, she would renew her cries of “It’s mine!”, so I placed the vase out of sight. The poor plant eventually died.
Fast forward two years. My girl is older and more mature and actually wants to give me a mother’s day gift. I picked her up and proceeded to look in her school bag. “No! Don’t”, she screamed. “There’s a surprise in there. You shouldn’t see it. It’s a surprise”. She clutched her bag tightly and we went into the car. As I drove, she pulled out the contents of her bag. I glanced back. “Don’t look!” she screamed. Later on she asks me, “do you want to smell something?”. I say “ok”. She passes me a teabag. It smells like tea. I pass it back. She presses it on her nose and sniffs. I file a mental note to remember not to drink my ’surprise teabag’.
She stuffs the teabag back into it’s package and asks me to pass my bag. I asked her why. She says she wants to put my surprise in my bag. I pass my bag to the back. She stuffs something into it and warns me not to look into my bag until Mothers day. I say “ok”.
Saturday morning, she relaxes her rule. I can tell she’s very excited about the surprise gift that I must not see yet. “Mommy, if you need to get something from the middle part of your bag, just close your eyes. Ok? Because you’re not supposed to see your surprise. Ok?”. I say “ok”.
Sunday morning, Darling Angel woke me up with “Happy Mother’s day”, bearing gifts purchased by daddy and cards purchased by daddy. Dumped them on me and made for my bag to get her surprise. Her handiwork included a flower drawn by Darling Angel with her photo in the center, a teapot colored by her and a teabag in a package that said “a cup of tea for mommy and me” all in a beautiful handmade envelop. Thanks Darling Angel.
I also got my first Mothers day gift from Baby Brother who’s hand was traced for cut-outs that were glued to his picture to create some type of tree. I can’t wait for his surprise gifts.
