Today I had the pleasure of attending not one but two Mother's Day teas at my boys' school. I hit B's two-year-old classroom first, where the kids sang "Love you in the morning, love you in the noontime..." in a circle and passed out homemade mini pots full of chocolate to mommies wearing tie-dyed hats (I wore mine for a minute, but it was hard to see. Honest). Little B has been sick all week and I couldn't be happier that health descended on us just in time for me to attend his tea. I freaking love Mother's Day and even though this preschool is too heavy on the religion for me I think it was worth sending my boys here if only for the Mother's Day extravaganza they orchestrate each year. I just can't get enough of that excited "I did something for you today" glee that spills out of my boys at these events. Anyway, B's tea ran a bit long and luckily I had arranged for his daddy to show up near the end to cover for me (and to hold court as the only daddy in a room full of hot moms) as I raced upstairs to W's tea.
The four and five-year-old class had a more elaborate program for us, including various musical numbers and a reading (by the teacher) of the book Love You Forever.
Apparently everyone but me owns this book, but I had never heard it. Frankly, I found it depressing. It starts with a mom rocking her baby and singing a song to him. It ends, after detailing how the mommy will get older and older until finally she is so decrepit she can't even finish the song anymore, with the baby grown and singing to his own young child. I get it. It's nice and wonderful and about the circle of life and love and parenting but damn if I didn't see the end of my sweet boy's childhood as well as my entire life whiz by as the story went on. That was not the kind of unfolding of love and life I was looking forward to today. Still, the whole experience was wonderful and I actually felt sad for the first time that W would be going off to Kindergarten next year. I usually am equally excited for the next phase of his and B's lives as I am enjoying the current phase, but I gotta admit to a few sniffles as I heard the description of the growing boy in the story as someone who no longer wanted to be hugged or rocked by his mommy. Of course, that won't happen with my boys. But still.
Anyhoo, we went back to some musical numbers after the story and hope was restored. There's nothing like seeing your child smile unselfconsciously while singing aloud that he loves you more than anything in the world. I know Mother's Day isn't until Sunday, but I'm already feeling very gifted indeed.
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