THE BEST THINGS IN LIFE ARE FREE

So on Friday, I was invited by my five year old daughter to come to a Mother's Day tea in her pre-k classroom. Absolutely so cute! She made me all of these adorable things which if I was more adept I would post pictures of, but since I'm not, you'll have to use your imagination.

One thing was a fill in the blank paper that was laminated.

My mom is as pretty as.... most of the kids put a flower, my little lady wrote "pumpkin." Hope she really loves Halloween, and does think that I look orange and, or round.

The favorite thing that I do for her is read her stories, which is also what, according to her, I am best at. I am really smart...because I know what 10+10 is. Oh, if only everyone I knew was five.

At the end of the tea, the teachers passed around a class scrapbook, made by one the teachers, chronicling the pre-k year with pictures of all of the kids in the class. There were pictures of the first day, of field trips, of special events,etc. and they were all arranged beautifully. This scrapbook was one of the items up for bid at the school's annual auction/fundraiser held this past Saturday night. Of course, on Friday, all of the kids were clamoring for their mommies to buy it.

Since, I rarely ever have a camera, and if I do, it is usually without the memory card, or about to die from lack of battery power, I decided that I would bid on this item. I have loads of pictures of my first, and a good amount of my second, but pretty much that is where the picture taking ended. No one has a scrapbook, so I thought this would be a great thing to get.

At the auction, however, the mom of one of my daughter's best friends made it clear that she was determined to have this album. Since my limit was extremely low, I knew that she would win. Even though I attempted to shame her, and make her feel sorry for me, and guilt her into not using her insane wealth to gather all the goods, she wouldn't budge. Her daughter wanted to buy it for her for mother's day, and so she was willing to spend any amount of money.

On Mother's Day morning, my little Isabelle came upstairs to give me flowers that she had picked out at the supermarket. She was beaming and proud. She came into bed and cuddled up with me. She asked me about the auction because by the time we got home, the night before, she was already in bed.

It was fun, I said. I tried to win your picture book, but K's mommy won it instead. Why? she asked, did she win it?

Well, I said, because she paid more money.

Oh, she said, well I can go and visit it.

Yes, you can, I said, and I smiled and hugged her, and thought to myself what a gift that all she needs to make her happy is my love, and a few bites of the egg that my husband made for me breakfast.

She never asks for anything directly, coy little angel that she is. As my husband brought up breakfast in bed, she looked at my tray and said, "why do sometimes mommies share their mudder's day breakfast with their little girls?"

Because they love them, I answered, putting a fork full of egg up to her mouth.

The smile on her face, while she ate the egg, sitting on my lap, absolutely priceless. And while I don't have a picture of it, I 'm certain, it's an image that I'll never forget.