The Mother’s Day tea with the tall kid was wonderful. Of course, he wrote the time down wrong, so I was early. And if he’d written it down correctly the entire panic could have been avoided because our neighbor’s high-schooler would have been home from high school. But we had a wonderful time, and I had iced tea and cookies. He also made me a little booklet made of cut out hand shapes, filled with wonderful things his mother’s hands do for him. My favorite: My mother’s hands pay the cable bill so I can watch TV.

Yesterday, the tall kid gave me a lovely blue, clay…penholder he made in art class. And the short kid gave me a little flowerpot painted blue with…something green growing in it. He also gave me an old Valentine’s Day card he scrounged up, one of his Spongebob books, his brother’s train bank, and an eclectic collection of old Happy Meal toys. (He loves to give gifts.)

Then we went to Borders. :dance: I got the June RT. (I suppose I really should get around to subscribing). And I bought Strange Attractions by Emma Holly just because everybody else is reading it. (Would I jump off a bridge if my friends did? Oh, probably.) And I bought Lynn Viehl’s If Angels Burn, which I’m really excited about reading, and Charmed and Seduced by Beth Ciotta. I’ve been wanting to read them for a while, because I’ve heard they’re absolutely wonderful, but I don’t read a lot of romantic comedy while I’m writing romantic comedy. But now I’m writing the polar opposite of romantic comedy, so here they are. Of course they didn’t have Jinxed, which is the first one, so I have to order that because my head will explode if I read them out of order.

Then we went to one of those carnivals that travel from parking lot to parking lot, looking utterly condemnable. But the short kid saw it being set up a few days ago, and his excitement level was too intense to resist. So, after 3 straight days of rain, and still an intermittent drizzle, we went and paid umpteen dollars to trudge through the mud and hold our breath while our children soared around on battered-looking rides, waiting for the belts to break and our children to go flying and smack up against the wall of the grocery store. Luckily, it didn’t happen, although the short kid did have a strategic meltdown inside the fun house, leading to him being picked up and cuddled and rescued by a very pretty, blonde teenager.

His father was so proud.

Then we headed home and curled up in front of the TV with our new books and watched the Formula 1 race. All in all, a very nice Mother’s Day. Now it’s back to work.