Mother's Day, Broken Horses and Broken Hearts

Mother's Day was a nice day. It started out lazy enough. The sun trickling into the room, the kids sleeping in late, a lengthy hot shower with hubby. Just a very nice morning. I accidentally saw Lyd's Mother's Day card on Friday. I was cleaning out her folder from school to make sure I didn't miss any notes, homework, or the like. I saw the card in there, but didn't open it. I told her I saw it but didn't read it. She was highly offended I even saw it proclaiming, "How could I do that? It is supposed to be for Mother's Day, and I wasn't supposed to see it yet". I assured her I didn't look at it. Well, she then decides that if I saw it, I must see it completely. She took it out of her folder and gave it to me. It was the cutest thing. On the front was the little pre-made blurb about Mother's Day and how much the child loved you, and that they drew all these pictures inside the card for Mom. Inside were about 5 pictures she had drawn. Each started off with a preprinted line where the drawing began, and the student drew the rest of it. I was actually pretty impressed! She has always been pretty good at drawing, but coloring, and making up what to draw wasn't always her strong point. I told her how much I loved it, and if she did it all herself. She assured me she did, but Mrs. Adkins helped some. Okay, fair enough. I expected that Mrs. Adkins had done some of the drawing, but she said Mrs. Adkins showed them how to draw the pictures on the board, and the kids drew them all by themselves and picked out which colors to color with. There was a picture of a teddy bear, turtle & mushroom, fish, duck, and sunrise. She was very proud of her handy work, and her coloring was very good! She wasn't able to get all things colored because she had worked so hard on the drawing part. It was very sweet and I will definitely be keeping it forever. I will have to scan some of the drawings, but my computer with scanner is currently down. It may be better if I just take a picture of them. It will get done quicker that way.

Later in the morning we went to brunch and had a very nice time. Lyd ate enough strawberries and whipped cream to last her until next strawberry season. Roo did equally well with his Belgian waffles. It wasn't too crowded there, so that was nice. After we got home we played baseball with the kids. Roo has been wanting to play everyday. He is getting much better at his hitting. It was starting to get hot, so we ducked inside the house for a while and the kids played in their freshly cleaned rooms. It is funny how much they enjoy playing in the clean rooms. I won't see them for days after I give their rooms a thorough cleaning. Later in the afternoon we went to my brother's house and had BBQ. All my family was there beside the two that live out of state. It was nice to sit and chit chat. It had been a while since we were all together. Once we got back home we played a little more baseball and Roo heard the ice cream truck. He yells with much enthusiasm to Lyd, "Hear that music, Lyd? That is the tune of ICE C-R-E-A-M!!!" They race over asking if we could partake of the ice cream truck. Of course we can, so we waited and he finally came around close enough. The kids got some sort of rocket shaped popsicle thing that was watermelon flavored. Roo naturally devoured his in record time, whereas Lyd ate about 1/4 of hers and opted to put it away for later. She likes sweet things, but never finishes a package of anything. The rest of the night was Sunday evening wind down..baths, reading, watching a short movie, and then bedtime. All in all, it was a very nice Mother's Day.


Monday was back to the regular beat. The kids did much better than Dad and I getting up. We were both beat and just wanted to stay in bed. We got going in the end though. What is making it doubly hard this week is the fact that I don't have to be at work at a specific time since there are no labs. I have plenty of work to do, but no labs to prep or man, so I can fudge a little on my morning time and spend more time with the kids at home before we head off to school. This in turn is taken advantage of by me, so I tend lay in bed as late as I can. Kids had a good day at school and I had a good day at work. Very productive, but you can't tell by looking at my lab. I am going through all the drawers and cabinets getting all surplus items boxed up to sell as surplus. We have a lot of it here. Roo and I had a good ride home and once home, we played more baseball. I then went in to Lyd's room to play with her for a while before I started dinner. I could hear her softly sobbing and saw her crouched on the floor over a mass of toys. She had all her boxes down from her closet which made the room appear to be very messy. I asked her if she was crying. She looked up with her big blue eyes pooled with saline while nodding her head. I then see the source of the need to cry. She had dropped her large porcelain horse that came with the Disney Belle Doll her aunt gave her several birthdays ago. Now, don't get me going as to how a porcelain doll and horse are not appropriate for a 3 year old. That is just her aunt, that is all I can say about that. She was trying to pick up all the pieces and figure out how they went back together. She was crying and telling me what happened. "I was looking for my little kitty for Polly Pocket, and pulled down my pony box, but I didn't know my big horse was in there because it was too high. It was too heavy and I dropped it and broke my Hoooorrrrsssseeee! Waaahhhh, waaahhhh, sobbbb, sob, sob. I KNOW she breaks so I was always VEEErrrry careful with her, but I didn't know she was in the pony box.....". What could I do? I picked her up and let her have a good cry into my shoulder while telling her I was very sorry. After she got to feeling a little better I got down onto the floor and started picking up the pieces. Lyd kept asking me if I would be able to fix her. I had to tell her I wasn't sure because she was broken into lots of pieces, so it may not work. She kept telling me sobbingly, "Ohhhhkaaayyy". She understood that part had resolved that she just may be gone, but she wasn't happy about it at all. I then quoted to her the Humpty Dumpty line, "All the Kings Horses...blah, blah, blah. And then it really seemed to sink in for her. This horse was NOT going back together. She wasn't able to throw it away yet, so we left all the pieces on the counter in the kitchen. We got out the vacuum cleaner and I let her vacuum up all the little pieces of the horse that were left behind. This helped her, though her broken heart was still in pieces. I then played dolls with her and let her be the boss for a while over my doll. Eventually Roo strolled in and I asked if he would finish playing dolls with Lyd while I made dinner. He happily agreed. Five minutes later, Lyd must have told Roo the woeful tale of the horse, because they came into the kitchen and Roo gingerly poked at the remnants of the horse all the while offering words of condolences to his sister. He then asked if I could glue it back. I simply quoted the Humpty Dumpty line again, and while horrified he understood. Funny how I never knew that little rhyme would be so helpful! It seemed to really drive it home that this horse was not going to be a horse anymore. The horse was still sitting on the counter this morning. I will throw it out later today, but I need to let her get used to it being broken so that when it is missing from the counter she won't flip out.