Mother's Day Love

Can I tell you what a lover my sweet Hopers is?  She and I were alone together yesterday morning because Daddy was at the fire station and Sister was spending the night at her Amie's house.  Incidentally, yesterday was Mother's Day.  My Hopers awoke and ran downstairs to prepare a breakfast for me.  I didn't know what she was doing, and followed her to prod her into getting dressed for church.

"Wait! Wait!" she said, when I started to come in the kitchen.  "Okay, close your eyes. Come over here.  Okay now open!"

My dear six-year-old had prepared a glass of water, a bowl of apple sauce, and a peanut butter and jelly sandwich for me and placed it on a tray.  I hugged and thanked her.  Obediently, I took a bite of the pb&j with its quarter-sized spot of peanut butter in the center and four molecules of strawberry jam spread across the center.

"Yummy!  Thank you!" I said and hugged her again.  I brought the tray upstairs so I could eat my applesauce (with the fork provided for me since she couldn't find any clean spoons) while getting ready for church.  In my room, Hopers popped in again with a card and a pen with a flower attached to the top that she had made at school.  More sweetness and hugs and kisses from my girl.

We spent the rest of our day at church and at Amie and G-Daddy's house with Noodle and the rest of the kid gang.  We gave Amie a lemon tree for Mother's Day and relaxed all the rainy afternoon.

That evening, as I entered Hopers' room to tuck her in and pray, I found her scrambling to fold a piece of paper.

"What's that?" I asked, sitting next to her on the bed.

"It's for you," she grinned.

"It says, 'I love you Mommy. From Hope.'  And that's us, and everyone is having Mother's Day.  The flowers and the sun...everything."

"Aw thank you baby that's just perfect," I told her.  We hugged again.

This morning I pulled out my pb&j sandwich that I'd saved in the fridge, added a touch more pb&j to it, and thought about how great it is to be a mom.