When my kiddos asked me what I wanted for Mother’s Day I provided the obligatory “Nothing at all. Just you.” Next year, I think I will be more specific. This is the result of my open-endedness:
As the hubby is the sole bassist for the worship team, Sundays are not tailored to the cherished Mother’s Day tradition of sleeping in. So by 7 AM, my 3 little alarm clocks alarmed into my room complete with bed bounces and dog piles to ensure my participation in their manic morning festivities, and presented me with hand crafted love wrapped in tissue. My husband sat in the shadows with an apologetic coffee and quickly shuffled off to his last minute shower. Too consumed by their contagious joy and audible excitement, and too confused by the jungle of tissue paper now clouding my vision to grumble at my own exhaustion, I was still processing my present when the screams began. “GET IT! GET IT!” As my tiny little terrors collided in desperate flee from fear, trying to escape, well I wasn’t quite sure what, I tried to calm the chaos, while simultaneously rubbing the sleep from my eyes. And then I heard it, “PINCHER BUGS!” And then I SAW them…PINCHER BUGS! Realizing I was pegged down for an insect invasion by my panicked little people, I did what any mother would do…I tossed the children into the air, began smashing their little love gifts, and joined in the screaming. My husband laughed from the shower. In all I captured six slithery stowaways crawling across my bed, apparently hidden among the bushes of flowers my children had stuffed into a makeshift gift bag for my enjoyment.
Later, as my sweet spouse left me with the 3 screaming little beasts still chanting spells of insanity upon me, he left me with one final gift, “How do you suppose so many of those bugs got in there anyways? They must have laid eggs in your presents or something.” And with that, my Mother’s Day morning was complete with the psychological gift of incessant hallucinations of insects on my every inch and an inability to ever sleep again. The gift that keeps on giving.