Mother's Day

I woke up groggy on Mother's Day 2010 to two restless kids who had slept peacefully on either side of me, crowded so close to me that I could barely move. One had even refused to sleep under the covers, which made any attempt to turn over nearly impossible.

I put on my best face: "Good morning!"

I took them to the living room for one of our usual Sunday routines of getting them set up with the video players and then going back to bed. As I helped Maya, I told her that since it was Mother's Day, I was going to go take a quick nap.

Her face lit up as she remembered. "Hold on." And she took off, zooming around the room, and came right back with a card she had made herself and hidden behind a bookshelf. On the front of the card, she had drawn a person carrying an umbrella in a rainstorm. Cute. On the inside, she wrote "Natalie to, Maya From" and had drawn three people.

"Oh, that's you, papa and me," I said. "No, that's Guillermo, me and papa," she answered.

When I asked where I was, she said: "I forgot to draw you. Why don't you get a marker and draw yourself in the card."

Then she ran over to Guillermo and told him to get his surprise for me. "It's under the bed. Can you get it mom?" he asked, barely looking up for his video.

I obliged and Maya was hot on my trail. I pulled out a Lego creation (I sort of had a hint about what to expect). He had made me a rose out of Legos. It was lovely. I told him thanks, opened a few more cards with Maya breathless behind me and then snuggled in for a nap. It lasted 15 minutes before I was summed again.

Later, we had a picnic that Maya had made for me at her preschool. She even designed the picnic bag. We sat on a blanket and had juice boxes and popcorn, and that was really special.