Aug 13: The Bracelet

Does anyone else love the movie 'Overboard' as much as me? There are many favorite parts but remember Goldie Hawn's noodle necklace? The one made lovingly by a kid? And remember how at the end of the movie she throws that baby on over her gorgeous cocktail gown because I'm a mom and that's my kid and take me back to them right now! ? I'm totally having a noodle necklace moment. Except it's a bracelet made of heart-shaped beads.

During the summer months, our daycare lady Lori has a sister they call 'Auntie Therese' who comes to help out with the kids. She is a teacher and therefore off for the summer, and Truman just loves Auntie Therese. He loves Lori, too, but 'Auntie Therese' and Truman seem to have a special bond. She loves to tease Truman, saying that she will bring him some tuna fish to eat the next time she sees him, and he will grin with his giant dimple and say, 'Noooooooooo!' It's a group effort to get Truman eating more than total crap at Lori's and Therese is trying all kinds of ways to inspire T with his food choices. It only works part of the time but I give her an A for effort.

Last Friday I was picking up my kids from daycare, getting the best hugs of the day from the sweetest kids I know. Lori usually gives me a quick run down of their days and today both kids had spectacular reports. And she mentioned that on Monday, Therese promised to do a surprise craft with Truman but 'we can't tell mommy because it's a secret.'

Truman quickly responded, 'We are going to make you a necklace, mommy.'

He just couldn't hold that secret inside anymore. And then he told me the same thing no less than 20 times that night, asking if he was going back to Lori's tomorrow? Tonight? He couldn't wait to get back there to make his craft.

So Monday morning, I told him it was a Lori day and reminded him that he was going to make me my special surprise with Therese. He lit up and started to move at record speed, which is nothing short of a miracle for a daycare morning. He said, 'I really love Lori's, mommy,' and my heart almost exploded. Because we have had our fair share of 'I don't want to go to Lori's, today,' moments. And any working mom knows that the request to stay home on a work day is pretty much a dagger through your heart. So to hear him say he was excited to go and that he 'loves Lori's' was the highlight of my day.

Until I picked them up. Then there was a new highlight. I got my huge hug from my boy. My girl reached out for me from Lori's arms and opened/closed her hands over and over again, as if to say, 'Get over here, mommy!' I grabbed her and sniffed her head and gave Truman another hug and kiss. Then Lori said, 'Want to show mommy what you made today?'

Truman started jumping up and down and reached into our daycare bag, pulling out a tiny little bracelet. I guess they didn't have the stamina for an entire necklace. But this bracelet was full of shiny, rainbow-colored, plastic hearts. And the look on Truman's face when he handed it to me made my heart ache.

'This is your bracelet, mommy!' He was SO proud. Of course I made a huge deal over thanking him, telling him it was so beautiful and immediately put it on my wrist. Cecelia tried to grab it off my arm several times because the girl likes accessories as much as she likes to eat.

On the drive home, Truman told me a few more times that he made me my bracelet. He wanted me to hold my wrist up in the air so he could count the number of hearts. Then he exclaimed that the hearts weren't in 'rainbow order.....like red, orange, yellow, green, blue, purple'. A boy after my own heart: keeping things in order.



We snapped a few pictures at home to show daddy. I wore the bracelet all night and couldn't stop telling Truman how much I love his special bracelet.





Because I do. My son made me my first piece of jewelry. And I feel like this is a badge of honor for a mom whose heart is swelling from pride over some dumb cheapie beads. I'm his mommy and he tells me regularly that I'm still his best friend (along with his monkey blanket and his daddy). He is the sweetest sometimes. We won't talk about the other times;)