A Mother's Day

I'm still messing around with how things are looking around here.  Please bare with me.

I'm pretty sure that this Mother's Day was one of the most relaxed and wonderful that I've ever had.  The past few weeks have been hectic and uber-stressful.  Yesterday was a nice break from that.

The boys let me sleep in, eventually jumping on me and covering me is smooches as a wake up call.  In bed, with my eyes still thick with sleep I was thrust two cards from two little boys and some wonderful gifts.  The boys picked me some lovely wildflowers and gave me a personalized mom snow globe and Mike gave me Stephanie Nielson's book, which I had been searching for forever.  (Small town living has it's drawbacks occasionally.  Every single time I went to our one and only book store that book was sold out and I just hadn't gotten around to ordering it on Amazon yet)

We spent the day outside gathered around a fire and cooking on the grill.  Gage and I gathered pine cones to make bird feeders with until he got bored and scurried off to play in the dirt with his trucks.  Brayden and I tossed a ball back and forth for awhile and eventually Gage came back over and joined in.  A glorious and easy-going day indeed.

Brayden threw Gage the ball and his little five year arms just couldn't get high enough to catch it and over his head it soared, landing further down in the yard.  Of course Gage went after it, eager to try and put as much power as his brother had into his toss back.  But little Gage tripped and fell on some rocks from his dump truck dig site and skinned his knees up.  Daddy stepped in to take our places in the game of catch with Brayden and a teary eyed Gage and I walked into the house to cleaned up.

As wonderful as all of the above was, I will remember this part of Mother's Day and it's simple sweetness forever.  I held my little boy in my arms as he struggled with whether it was ok to cry or not as he transitions from small to big.  I told him it was ok to let it out because no one will ever love his as much as his mommy loves him.  I whispered in his ear that mommy hugs are magical and make everything better, even skinned knees.  And then I took Gage into the bathroom and gave him a bath to wash the dirt from an afternoon of playing away.  I dried him off and stuck a Spongebob band-aid on him and made his good as new. 

Soon a band-aid won't make him feel better and soon a hug from mom won't solve all of life's little problems.  I know that because I've had the joy of watching Brayden grow into a strong and capable young boy.  But yesterday and those quiet moments and whispers of love I'll cherish forever.