As Long as I'm Living, My Baby You'll Be.

What a lovely Mother's Day. I am so thankful to my children for coming along and making me a mother. This morning as I was telling that to middle son, he said, "it wasn't me who made you a mother, it was him" pointing at the eldest. He said "it wasn't me, it was him" pointing at my husband.

Yep. Living with teenage boys. The testosterone drips off the walls. Drips.

I had a fun morning at church. Michael scanned the pictures from the Robert Munch book Love You Forever, and we showed them on a big screen as I read the words. I taught the congregation a little melody I wrote to go with the song the mother sings:

I'll love you forever
I'll like you for always
as long as I'm living
my baby you'll be.

I played a very simple accompaniment on the guitar and we sang all together. The book has some fun humorous parts, like the naughty boy who always says bad words when grandma comes over and the wild teen and the picture of the mother driving across town with a ladder on her car so she can climb into the son's room and rock him if he's really asleep. The congregation laughed. The mother is good though, even when she thinks she lives in a zoo she still crawls into his room at night and if he's asleep she picks him up. She rocks him back and forth back and forth back and forth and sings. We turned the lights down, people sang together, I could see many, many tears on the faces of our loved ones. And I almost coudn't go on when the mother gets older. But I did, and we did. It was quiet and dark and filled with love for our little ones in the room whether we were related to them or not.

We also had a baby blessing, one of the little ones just three weeks old. What a gift to be able to participate in that deeply meaningful ritual with families. And now some of the babies that I did my first baby blessings with are almost three. Oh put a book on their heads and tell them to stop this growing up thing. Please.

Our older elementary kids skipped right past their story and experimented with dry ice for the whole morning. They had a great time, engaged, took responsibility for safety and wore their gloves and safety glasses the whole time. They had fun together and that was a huge success. Our little ones had fun with I Love You Sun, I love You Moon and We Are Saved by Something Green, our middle schoolers explored ethical eating at Pike's Place market. Our congregation held it's second annual Frog-squatch extravaganza rummage sale with Frog-squatch the mascot.
I hope it was successful. I'm trying to minimize the things I own, I have all I need, and I have enough volunteer hours in this year so I stayed far, far away.

My family pampered me for Mother's Day. Even the songs played on the ipod in the car reflected Mother's Day. Norah Jones? Mama Mia? Total sacrifice on my boys' part!

We had a perfect picnic at Alki Beach. Salmon and brie and capers and Peligrino. We came home and I had a nice little nap. I worked all afternoon, then we had amazing burgers with every thing, and grilled veggies and brown rice. The guys showered me with gifts, including the good garden tools we can use to weed our hill! Ha, their own demise......cackle-snort-giggle. My boys picked out a great ipod player I can use while I soak in my lovely tub of bubbly water, and my husband got me silver hoop earrings just like the ones Kate from Jon and Kate plus 8 wears, in WHITE GOLD! I feel spoiled rotten! I am spoiled rotten.

Or lucky.

Or really, probably what it is, well you know...

i'm blessed.

thank you. amen.