Mother of all Mother's Days

I guess since this is my blog (and really my husband is the only one who reads it with any consistency) I can take this opportunity to brag about my darling children. This year was the sweetest Mother's Day I've had to date. Dave kept the kids quiet on Sunday morning (not an easy feat) and let me sleep in. I woke up to a button frame from Evie, a beautifully decorated flower pot from Emerson, and a lovely stepping stone from Cole. Thank goodness for teachers who make sure that kids remember their moms on Mother's Day. Then Dave took me out to lunch, having arranged for Cole to babysit the younger three. I was a little nervous about this arrangement as Cole has never really done any official babysitting. We've left him and Emerson home by themselves for up to an hour or so. And I've left Soli with him while she's napping and he's doing homework while I've taken Evie and Emerson to Em's guitar lesson (45 minutes of away time). But, never have we left all three in his charge. At 11 1/2 he's perfectly capable, but sometimes the sibling dynamics can be challenging (to say the least). So we put on The Bee Movie and told them they could have cereal for lunch (a "serve yourself" option that was sure to make everyone happy). We told them we'd be back in an hour and a half (hopefully right as the movie was ending). We left the usual instructions not to answer the door or the phone and left with our fingers crossed. We had a lovely lunch (cell phones close at hand) and we were back in the car and headed home within an hour. We could hardly believe what we came home to... Evie was arranging the pillows on the couch, Emerson was cleaning his room, Cole was vacuuming, Soli was down for a nap, and the movie was paused right at the beginning. They were disappointed that we were home so soon, as they hadn't finished cleaning the house. So apparently, right after we left, they paused the movie, had lunch, Cole put Soli down for a nap (even reading her stories) and then they went to work on the house to surprise me for Mother's Day. Quite possibly the best Mother's Day gift a mom can get -- happy kids and a clean house. That's all we really want, after all! I felt very spoiled. Happy Mother's Day to moms everywhere!!

P.S. This day two years ago, May 11, 2006, we first received pictures of our beautiful baby girl. As soon as I saw her darling sleeping face, I knew she was meant to be ours. Then and now...