breakfast in bed

(tiny good summer No. 1)

In the first years of motherhood, the giving scale is tipped completely in the direction of the child. Some days, I felt like I had given everything I had and still they needed more. One of the most amazing things to watch as their mom is how that scale shifts with time. The child’s physical demands of a mother start to lessen and they start to give back in tiny ways. First, its slobbery kisses and tiny fist fulls of dandelions and it just keeps growing.

The week of Mother’s Day, there’s a whispered conference in the laundry room between my girls. They emerge and announce, “We want to make you breakfast in bed for Mother’s Day. What do you want?”

I reply with my most recent breakfast obsession, a toasted bagel topped with more cream cheese than might seem necessary and fresh strawberries. After putting in my breakfast order, I realize we are out of both bagels and cream cheese. I add them to the grocery list so they are available for my girls to give.

Breakfast in bed got postponed until Saturday because I had other responsibilities on Mother’s Day and needed to get up before everyone else. At 7:00, I heard the girls traipsing downstairs. There was the expected scooting of chairs, minor thumping and bumping, and the hum of the espresso machine. But instead of joining them, I propped myself up with pillows and picked up my novel from the night stand. It was pure magic.

After a few pages, my off spring arrived with so much more than a bagel. There was the sweetest card, a fresh bouquet of peonies and wild flowers, an americano in my favorite mug, and their big, sparkly smiles. I’m convinced the queen of England herself has not been more loved and pampered. But the best part was how they piled their impossibly long bodies onto the end of the bed and watched me eat every bite of the feast they prepared. We chatted about what they really hope to do this summer and their answer was the same: lots of swimming. Many moms feel nostalgia for the newborn days and I can’t really relate but these days, these days are the ones I’m tucking away to remember forever.

(no photos of the breakfast itself but the card and flowers are still beside my bed, reminding me it happened)