Mother's Day

I picked Jesse up from preschool and he had a plastic cup with a flower in it. It had tissue paper around it and a ribbon tieing it on. Since it was Mother's Day weekend, I knew it was for me. We got in the car and I said to Jesse, "Did you get that flower from Preschool?"

"Yes!"

"Is it for Mother's Day?"

He looked at me a little strange and said, "No, it's mine. It's not for Mother's Day."

I figure they told them to keep it a surprise until Sunday. Which is sweet, but he's four; I'm not convinced that's going to work out very well. I continued on, "Oh, I thought maybe it was for Mother's Day."

"No, it's not for Mother's Day. It's my little plant and I'm going to put it in my room so everyone can see it."

"Oh, okay." I can see this is going nowhere so I drop it. And sometimes he just likes to mess with me to get under my skin. He's just starting that so I'm not sure what's going on.

I told Tim our conversation and he thought it was kind of funny. Of course.

Later Jesse decided he was going to give the flower away. I get ready to be excited when he gives it to me except he says, "I'm going to give this flower to Dad for his birthday!"

Oh, right. Tim's birthday. In January. That he doesn't care about. Right, give it to Tim on Mother's Day. Real nice.

Tim got a real kick out of that. Me, not so much.

All weekend long he insists it's Tim's flower for his birthday. On Mother's Day Tim convinced Jesse to plant the flower outside of the kitchen window so I could see it since it was for me. I could tell Jesse wasn't throughly convinced, but was accepting it.

Then on Monday Tim bought a new hose for the spicket that's over by the flower bed where the flowers are. Jesse saw the hose and asked what it was. I explained where we would use it and how nice it would be for watering the flower he gave me for Mother's Day.

He got angry and said, "It's not yours, it's mine and I don't want to water it! I want it to die!"

I just looked at him and said, "Well, you gave it to me, and since it's mine I get to decide what happens to it. I think it's beautiful. It needs water to stay alive and beautiful so I'll water it."

He was none too pleased. What does he have against Mother's Day?

It's still beautiful! Next to it are the flowers Noah and Simon gave me for Mother's Day. I enjoy looking at them every day. Eli drew a picture and wrote a note, which is just as beautiful as the flowers. (And now Jesse talks about how pretty the flower is he gave me for Mother's Day. That child!)

Happy Mother's Day!