Mother's Day 2020 (Day #57 Phase I)

Sunday, Day #57 Phase I of Reopening

We request continued prayers for my husband's mother D. She has been sick with COVID-19 for six weeks (now negative, but still sick) and is now out of ICU and recovering at a long-term, acute care facility. She is still on a ventilator with tracheotomy: the rehabilitation team's next goals are to get her off the ventilator and teach her how to sit up in a chair! Praise God! 

Joseph (7), John (13), Thomas (4), Mama (don't ask ladies their ages), David (2), Mary (11), Margaret (9)

I was showered with love on Mother's Day! Children had been scuttling around for days making me treasures. On Sunday morning, Chris prepared us a beautiful breakfast and my boys made the homemade popovers.

Glorious popovers before they deflated

The children made me and bought me so many gifts! They even wrapped them all themselves and I didn't even mind the mess left behind in my gift wrap area.

Little sweet Thomas (4) had made me a gift, put it in a box, used about 20 pieces of tape to close it, and then had a sibling help him wrap the box. Then he carried it around for two days, trying to get me to open it early. He would say, "I'm not going to tell you what my gift is! I mean, it's a drawing, but I'm not going to tell you what I drew!"

One child is taking me on an outing to shop for plants and get ice cream. Two children paired up to buy me chocolates. One child wrote me a multi-chapter story and another child drew me a picture. The last child at almost three years old apparently was just old enough to suddenly develop a quivering lip because he did not have a gift to give me, so a sister quickly stepped aside with him and he drew some scribbles on a paper to make me a Very Special Card. My husband gifted me with these rich baked goods and I was glad to have seven other people with whom to share them!

We had a Facetime visit with Grandmom wherein the girls even played violin pieces for her. We also learned that today--get this--Grandmom had the iPad in front of her and used her own hand to push the Facetime button to call one of her family members!

After Mass and Chinese take-out, we enjoyed a cake--as if we needed any more sweets today! I thought making a French Silk Layer Cake by Betty Crocker would be easy, but it still took me hours because of children running everywhere, soothing kids from accidents, disciplining rascally children, cleaning up messes, and so forth. I am not the best homemaker and, while the cake turned out very well, the experience reminded me of why I don't generally bake cakes!

In the beautiful weather this evening, children played in the back yard while I walked around pruning, which is a very pleasing, relaxing activity for me. My biggest boy and I are hatching plans for how to renovate another "garden room" in the yard.

Below are some more botanical photos from John (13). I'm so delighted by his pursuit of this pastime!

Photo credit: John Lauer

Photo credit: John Lauer

Photo credit: John Lauer

Photo credit: John Lauer

Photo credit: John Lauer

Photo credit: John Lauer

Photo credit: John Lauer