Mother's Day 2008

May 2006
From the first year that I celebrated Mother's Day as a mother, Mother's Day became my favorite holiday. There are numerous reasons for this. For one, I don't have to really be involved in any stressful preparations (like Thanksgiving or Christmas - great holidays, but have mercy, the stress is ridiculous). It is a day specifically intended to give me recognition and appreciation for the job that I do, which occasionally is considered to be all easy and fun by someone whose name I won't mention. And, this is big, it is the one day that I actually feel justified in relaxing a little. Maybe letting someone else make the food and do the dishes, things like that.

May 2007
Fast forward to Mother's Day 2008. Eric is horribly sick with a lingering illness, and cranky about it (the true meaning of sick and tired). To his credit, he made a pancake breakfast for the company at our house. Unfortunately, much to his annoyance, I'm on this blasted gluten-free diet right now (doctor's orders) and couldn't have any pancakes. So I had to make my own gluten-free pancakes. Eric also made a roast for dinner (incidentally, no rolls or gravy for me either). And there were roses and cards on the table downstairs (Eric helped Christian write his name and mine on the card - I loved that sooo much) when I woke up, which was very sweet. But otherwise, the day was interesting, with Eric being sick and not up to his usual good-guy Mother's day treatment.

May 2008
Eric was too sick to go to church, so Eric's mom and I ended up wrestling Christian all by ourselves - not my idea of a relaxing mother's day, but what can you do? And I won't say how the rest of the day shook down, but suffice it to say, I was somewhat frustrated.

And then I put Christian to bed at night. We had just read the scripture story about Jesus' death and the beginning of what happened after. But it was getting long for a two-year old, so I decided to save the rest of it for the next day.

Christian talked me into lying down next to him on the floor in the dark (I guess he was just in the mood for that?). While we cuddled, he let me tell him the whole entire story from Joseph of Arimathea asking for the body of Jesus through His resurrection. And the whole time he listened so attentively, and whispered, "Yeah. Yeah," after each sentence. It was so sweet. And then we said a prayer together thanking Jesus for suffering and dying for us so we could repent and be forgiven of our bad choices and live with Him again someday, and that He conquered death so that we could be resurrected also. And that Jesus did it because He loves us so much. It was just such an incredible attention span for a "two-a-half" year old (as Christian says). It makes me so happy to see him learn about Jesus and actually listen and absorb it.

So after our prayer, I held him a while longer and whispered, " You make me so happy, buddy." Christian whispered, "You make me so happy too." Chuckling to myself at his adorable reciprocity, I said, "I'm so proud of you." He whispered, "I'm so proud of you too." I said, "Thanks, buddy!" He said, "You're welcome." I said, "Where did you learn to be so polite?" He said, "I don't know!" I said, "I love you so much, Christian." And before I was even done, "I love you so much too." I said, "You're the the best boy."

And Christian said, "You're the best mudder."

What better Mother's Day gift could I ask for?