Thirty-Nine

Aiden brought me breakfast in bed this morning.  And late last night, he had Lyndsay drive him to the store where he bought me the tulips.  It made me cry.  Tulips are my favorite flower and my 12 year old son knew that and spent his own money to buy them for me.  Then, while I ate, he went downstairs and did the dinner dishes from last night that I'd left in the sink, and cleaned up the kitchen.

Conor's offering was one of his chocolate milks, a bowl of strawberries, and those two boxes of raisins.

And some flowers he picked from the front yard to put in my hair.

I thought it would be fun to have our dinner and party outside in the carport/patio since it was such a nice day.  Adam and Aiden set up the tables and chairs and we all worked to get the salad fixings ready.  The lettuce we picked from the garden.  Lyndsay cut up a watermelon and made my cake.

After we ate, we thought we'd play a game together before cake, but Conor was so excited for presents, so we did that first.  I love his expression in this picture, as I open the gift that Lyndsay got me.

She gave me this beautiful (LOVE the color!) cardigan, short-sleeved.  It will be perfect with a white tee or tank underneath it.  And bless her heart, she bought a size small.  Crossing fingers on that one.

Then Conor gave me his present, really from Adam and Conor.  He wrapped it himself, and wrote me this sweet letter all by himself. (I put a copy of it at the bottom of this post.)

Then he said, "Guess what it is, Mom?"  And the reason I'm laughing so hard is because once again, Conor blew the surprise.  Conor has a long history of blurting out gifts and other surprises. This morning, while I was enjoying my breakfast in bed, he said, "Dad and I are going to give you a new alarm clock."  I thought, "yeah, right, that's random."  But when I tore back the paper there it was, a new alarm clock!  Apparently, it was his idea for my gift because he told his dad that mine was "all dusty and old."
 

When I was first looking at it, I said, "Does it play CDs?" To which my family said, "Mom, CDs are so over."  Well! I still like CDs.  So there.  

Missing my Dylan boy in this picture.  But he called me today.  Twice.  And we had a great talk.

Then we got our Settlers of Catan game going.

Lyndsay painted some Love Tree for her boyfriend.  La La land.  So sweet.  And we had music playing on the laptop.  It was so nice, really.

And then, finally, it was cake time.  Definitely not 39 candles, but we scrounged up what we could find.  And I made a wish.  I was thinking this morning about what my wish would be, and how, inevitably, my wishes are always about my children.  Isn't that the way it is for a mother?  Even my wishes belong to them, just like my heart.

And here's a copy of Conor's letter to me.  I'm used to reading little kid "I spelled it myself" letters, but in case you're not, it says, "Dear Mom, I do love you and I want you to be my mom forever.  Happy birthday.  [comma] Conor Consolo".

It's been a wonderful day.  Now, let's hope I can figure out this newfangled alarm clock and get up on time in the morning.  I have more to say about turning 39, but I'll save that for another post.  Soon.