The day of a Mother

The best part of Mother's Day was receiving this amazing picture that T painted for me at day school. Before having my own kid I never understood how parents could continuously post "ridiculous" Jackson Pollock style little kid art in places of honor. I actually teared up when I unwrapped this amazing representation of infant creativity and motor skill development. Seriously, it's so cute I want to frame it and put it up somewhere or maybe I'll take it to work with me.

I love this painting...


... almost as much as I love the look of concentration on T's face.


Mother's Day didn't get off to a great start - at 3:30am - when T woke up crying just 1 hour after a feeding and wouldn't stop. He's had a cold for several weeks, but despite the coughing and congestion, he's mostly been his normal cheerful self. We found out that even though he wasn't showing any signs of discomfort he has an infection in his right ear. I'm guessing the antibiotics haven't fully kicked in yet and that he's just feeling lousy. He's been uncharacteristically cranky since that early waking.

The Scoot has this favorite stuffed toy that he used to sleep with as a kid. It's a bee with a music box inside that plays the first few bars of Brahm's Lullaby. It usually calms T down when he's fussy and it worked last night too. However, instead of messing with trying to get our sad son to go back down in his crib we just brought T and the Bee to bed with us which was good because there were a few more tearful wakings before I was willing to call it morning.

T shows off the Lullaby Bee and his killer smile!


The Scoot finds T a distraction while we both get ready to go out for breakfast. I had to include the full size image for full effect. So, which item here looks a little out of place?


Wow, these drawer handles make cool noises!


It's amazing what household items can occupy a 6-month-old for minutes ... until he falls over.


Breakfast turned into Brunch as it took us 45 minutes to get to Longbottom's. Almost all of the access roads to our destination were closed due to some sort of Women's walk/run. I couldn't read the T-shirts to figure out what was going on.

We're planning our garden for this summer, so after brunch at Longbottom's we went to a local nursery to look at garden plants and other landscaping options. We enjoyed a long sunny walk around the nursery before it started raining HARD. We strolled among the tomatoes, peppers, herbs, and pots under the canopy while waiting for the rain to die down. By the time we got home the rain had stopped again, and we were able to enjoy the yard for a few minutes before it picked up again.

T examines the lilacs


and gives them his smile of approval


While roaming the yard, I caught a little more Spring in bloom!

A pink flowering tree and a maple with new leaves in our back yard.


Flowering ground cover in the rose garden.


Flowers in the front yard.


More flowers in the front yard.


And thus ends the first half of my first Mother's Day, 2011.