Mother's Day--Bear Style

Leo was so excited about Mother's Day. The night before, he was plotting and planning; he was almost as excited as Christmas Eve. You see, he has this Berenstain Bears book about "Mama's Day" where the cubs and Papa Bear surprise Mama Bear. Here are the Cliff's Notes:


Mama Bear marks her favorite breakfast recipe in a cook book and buys all the ingredients. Early in the morning the cubs and Papa Bear sneak into the kitchen (loudly) to make breakfast. Mama Bear hears the whole thing. They make a huge mess. They bring her breakfast and say, "Happy Mama's Day" and she says, "Mama's Day? Well I suppose it is!" Then they give her her favorite breakfast, flowers, a card and a new robe. When the baby wakes up, Mama Bear says she better go get her. Papa Bear says, "No, no. We'll take care of Honey and clean up the kitchen." And they do.

So Leo basically wanted to reenact that. Frank told him to ask me what my favorite breakfast was but he asked me what my favorite dinner was. I told him fajitas and he kept insisting to Frank--right up until the night before--that they make fajitas for me for breakfast. Frank and I had to do this whole phony dialogue right in front of him: "So mommy, what is your favorite breakfast?" "Pancakes." "But I thought you liked fajitas?" "Oh, I do! I just like them for dinner. Kinda like Leo likes pancakes for breakfast but mac and cheese for dinner."

The whole thing went down very Berenstain Bears-like: Frank and Leo got up early, banged around in the kitchen and came in to "wake me up" and surprise me. I said, "Mother's Day? Oh, I suppose it is!" and after sampling their pancakes (although fajitas would have been good!),  admiring my flowers and card (but hey, where was my robe), I pretended I heard Gus waking up. "Oh, I better go get the baby!" I said. Frank said, "No, we'll take care of him. And we'll clean up the kitchen!" And they did.

Later Leo dragged his easel into my bathroom where I was getting ready to show me this:

We tried to get a Mother's Day photo; we did ok!

Here I crouched down to be their size and they both crouched down too!

Later (after a fajita dinner!), Leo hugged me and told me, "I love you so much now."  Huh? And apparently he is sleeping with paper and a pen on his nightstand because he is planning another surprise for me for tomorrow. How lucky am I? I've got one boy who loves me "now" and another who thought the whole day was his birthday.