Mother's Day and May Goings-On

I had a wonderful Mother's Day.

C made a plan that we go for an early hike then out for brunch at our local farm store/gathering place before E and Z's Sunday afternoon baseball practice.

An "early" hike for us meant we hit the trail around 9 a.m.

We went to a place that we visited last fall for the first time in a long time, an old favorite of ours. 

It was a beautiful, sunny day, though we hit it right in the perfect black fly temperature window, so we kept moving at a good clip until we got down to the river, where a breeze kept the bugs at bay.

Despite the bugs, we did manage to do a lot of looking up (for birds) and looking down (for wildflowers*) as we went along.

Once at the river, the boys did their favorite thing--throwing rocks in the water.

And I pulled out a book a friend had given me recently, but hoping for a few minutes to read without the constant refrain of "Mom!" was a bit much to ask. It was, after all, Mother's Day.

C got me a fitness device, about which I'm ridiculously excited and can't shut up (want to know how many steps I've taken today? No? Okay.). E and Z gave me a field guide to waterfowl (due, I think, to my woeful inability to answer questions about ducks we see) and M gave me a Ramones CD. Pretty awesome.

E and Z also made Mother's Day acrostic Poems. Z's reads:

Healthy

Awesome

Pretty awesome naturlist

Passive

Yummy food you cook

Makes me happy 

On the ball

Tidy

Happy
Enthusiastic

Rais [as in I raise him]

Stupendous 

Dandy

Alternative

Young

E's poem goes:

Handy

Amazing

Positive most of the time

Prettey

Young

Mysterious

On the ball

Tidy

Helps

Essential

Rocks

Stupendous

Dandy

Adventurous

Yucky

I have to admit, these crack me up. I like the combination of generic flattery (Pretty, Awesome, Essential), brutal honesty (Positive most of the time, Yucky), flat-out lies (On the ball, Tidy, Young), and inexplicable (Mysterious, Dandy). They remind me of this poem M wrote for me for Mother's Day a few years ago. What would we do without teachers to encourage our kids to write fabulous poems for their moms?

In other news, we're thick in the craziness that is May--three boys' birthdays coming up in a few days, a camping trip planned for the next weekend, baseball season. My Master Naturalist class is coming to a close this month, and though we have two classes left, I've handed in the last of my homework and presented my final project last night. It was a big push at the end, and I'm relieved to have it done, though I'll miss the class. But now I will have a bit more time to spend in this space again and work on some other big projects I have in mind for the coming year.

Happy (late) Mother's Day to my mom and all of the women our there who respond to the incessant, endless cries of "Mom!" I hope you had a wonderful Mother's Day!

*wildflowers, in order of appearance:

Canada Mayflower

Wood anemone

Sessile-leaved bellwort

Trailing arbutus

Bluebead lily