Mother's Day Tea

      All the first grade classes at Little Man's school put on a "Mother's Day Tea" for their moms the Friday before Mother's Day.  Little Man has been talking about it, without talking about it, for weeks.  He'd mention almost daily, but would never give me any details.  He would cover his mouth with his hand if he let a word of a song slip out and quickly ask me, "Did you hear that Mommy?  Did you?"  The day before the event he was literally bursting with anticipation and broke down and told me that they would be serving us snacks there.  The night before when I was tucking him in he said, "Mommy, you are not going to believe my manners tomorrow.  We have been practicing!"  

      The first part of the "tea" was held in the individual classrooms.  They had all of us moms wait outside in the hallway and then we came in one by one.  There was music playing and Little Man's teacher's husband was video taping us.  As I stood waiting for my turn, listening to the music, I started to get a little emotional.  I walked in the door and Little Man was beaming from ear to ear.  He came over, handed me a tissue paper corsage he had made, gave me a hug, took me by the hand and led me over to get a picture taken of us and then to his table (which was covered with a purple table cloth).  He then proceeded to pull out my chair for me, bring me a plate of goodies for the two of us to share and two glasses of punch.  He read me a book of ten reasons why he loved me and then we ate our snacks. His teacher had prepared a slide show of pictures of the kids throughout the year which she played with accompanying music.  One of the songs was titled, "Let them Stay Little."  Do you know it?  The chorus goes, "Let them cry, let them giggle, let them sleep in the middle...just let them stay little."  Umm...  I had to bite my lip and distract myself from going into the full out ugly cry all over the purple table cloth.  

       After the slide show ended, the first graders all excused themselves to go the gym and get ready for their performance.  We followed and found seats.  Other people were invited to this part of the show and my mom was able to make it at last minutes notice so that was fun for Little Man.  He didn't know she would be there and got really excited when he saw her in the audience.

       The performance was really well done and very cute.  Little Man had told me he had one line, but wouldn't tell me what it was.  In actuality he read an entire page of the "I'll Love You Forever Book" (I started to get the feeling they were trying to make us cry :).  He surprised me with how confident and animated he was in his reading and it was fun to see him do it, especially since it was a surprise to me.  

        As we walked out the car in the beautiful sunshine filled afternoon when it was all over, Little Man looked up and me and said, "Will you always remember that Mommy?"

        Of course I replied that I would, but later that day I found myself wondering if he would remember it.  All the preparation, anticipation and excitement...but he is only six and it was only one afternoon.  My memories of first grade are few and getting a little hazy as the years go by.  Sometimes I wonder if my children will remember any of the things that we are doing with them at this stage.  But I hope that if they don't always remember the specifics they will look back and remember the feeling.  I hope that Friday's Mother's Day Tea gets tucked into his memory nestled somewhere between popsicles on sunny days and bedtime stories and that someday he will look back on his childhood and even if he memories are vague and hazy he will remember the feeling of being happy and loved.  

       Because oh, how we love this boy.  And for now, I am going to enjoy letting him be little.