Mother's Day Rundown

I had a fantastic Mother's Day this year. First of all, Wiggle's preschool had a Mother's Day brunch on Thursday. The kids sang a song and did a dance; Wiggle charmed everyone by turning to face me during the song and yelling "Mom! Mom! These are called pom-poms!" before he picked up his pom-poms. He then alternated between following the directions for the dance and having a loud conversation with the girl next to him. In other words, he was awesome.
Then we sat down to open presents of handmade picture frames and a card in which he said I was as beautiful as "silence." His teacher came by and said that everyone else pretty much said "flower," and she doesn't think Wiggle likes silence that much, but that he can always be counted on for a different sort of answer. As I write this, it makes her sound rude, but she meant it nicely; she adores him and his idiosyncrasies.
Yesterday, C took Wiggle out to shop for me and then came home and they made a card and wrapped my presents. Wiggle hid the presents and the card under his bed, and as I was putting him to bed, he made me promise not to look into the orange bag and spoil my surprise. He said I could have them "at seven o'clock!" which is the time we say morning activities can start for our early riser. Then around midnight I heard him wake up followed by a large amount of banging and rustling. He burst into our room and asked "is it seven yet?" with the orange bag in hand, when I replied that it wasn't, he retreated, I heard telltale rustling of an orange bag being re-hidden under the bed, and then there was silence. I asked if he wanted me to come and sit with him while he went back to sleep, but he called out in a very sad voice that he didn't want me to come in, he was just going to sit on his bed by himself. C went in with him and consoled him about it still being the middle of the night and not being able to give me my present yet.

At seven on the dot, Wiggle rushed into my room and gave me this.

Two lipsticks and some stress balm

And this...

His handmade card. He even signed his name on the inside!

My kid must know me well because his gift was perfect. Even the lipstick colors were good and Wiggle had chosen one himself.

I also got a Sibley guide to birds and a Peterson guide for trees and shrubs for the East Coast. Since we moved to Virginia, I have been wanting to get into birdwatching. I have never seen so many varieties, and even our common ones are cool. Our yard gets as many visits from cardinals and blue jays as it does from sparrows, which is something I've never experienced before. I also probably need a wildflower guide, but for now I will try to identify some of the vegetative beasts growing in our backyard. There might be some plants worth salvaging and for the things not worth salvaging, I want to be able to spot them early so they don't take over. This is to say my gifts are awesome and I love them.

This morning C made me poached eggs, one Benedict and one Florentine, with pancakes. He also had grapefruit juice which is my favorite. I even had time to read one and a half articles in the Sunday NYT. I read the entire article about diagnosing child psychopathy and half of the one about the rising burden of college costs. I found both of them frightening.

My excellent breakfast

In the afternoon, we went to the Kennedy Center for the first time to hear a concert. In fact, it was the first cultural event we had gone to since we moved here (outside of going to museums), which is a little sad to think about. I like the building and the terraces are beautiful. I would love to sip a drink and look out over the Potomac at intermission in the evening sometime.

We were going to the National Symphony Orchestra Family Concert -Carnival of the Animals. Before the concert, they had a musical "petting zoo." We had waited to tell Wiggle about it until last night because he is obsessed with instruments and we were afraid he would get too worked up if he knew about it well in advance; he and C cut out cardboard representations of whole symphonies every week it seems. Then we spent a long time managing his expectations by telling him that he would not probably get to make sounds on many brass or woodwinds because they use mouthpieces and reeds, and you need to hold your mouth in certain shapes, etc.
It turns out all of our prep was silly for several reasons. We walked in to a cacophony of symphonic sounds, all propagated by children. Kids were blowing tubas, mouthing clarinets, banging drums, and bowing cellos. Each instrument had a dozen or so mouthpieces or the like, and volunteers took the used ones washed them in a bowl and set them out again. Wiggle, however, was completely overwhelmed and almost shut down. He clung to me and said he didn't want to try any instrument, not even the French horn, which he talks about at home incessantly. He eventually agreed to try one... the violin.

What can I say? Suzuki may be in our future.

The concert itself was wonderful and trying at the same time. Wiggle enjoyed the first ten minutes and then declared that he wanted to go; C had to take him out for a few minutes because he was going tostart to yell in the concert hall. When they came back, he was remarkably well behaved, a little fidgety, but generally quiet and attentive. Then towards the end he became restless again and was attempting to talk. I was trying to get him interested in the music, whispering about the likeness of a movement to an animal and such. Just when I thought he was really into it, he broke into a wide grin and said "I peed." C whisked him off to the bathroom while I tried to corral Buster, the acrobatic nurser, to my chest and keep him under the scarf I was using as a cover-up. Wiggle managed to make it back for the finale and clapped in earnest for the performance. Afterward the narrator and author, Jack Prelutsky, was going to sign books. I really wanted to get one for Wiggle, but waiting in the lines would have pushed a nice day into a potentially disastrous one, so we opted to play outside and have a snack until the crowd died down instead.

Me- tired, Wiggle- distracted, and Buster- upset and hungry. Not actually a very good representation of the day as a whole.

We came home and had grilled pizza with fresh mozzarella and sun dried tomatoes for dinner. Both the boys were down by 8:30, and then C and I watched last night's Saturday Night Live. All-in-all a fabulous Mother's Day.