Mother's Day on this end of the line was just about perfect, I should note. Charlie actually got me something On The Day, and with his own money - a candle and a dorky card. I'll take it. I'll more than take it . . . by the time I was his age, truth to tell, I was deliberately not buying my mother gifts on Mother's Day because I knew it would bug her (perhaps you had to have known my mother for that statement to make any sense). So I've reacted badly over the years, when Charlie, in his adolescent oblivion forgot to get me anything, or couldn't find anything in time. I find it very reassuring to get presents on time, and to get a present on time from him - no matter what it was - really mattered to me . . .

And Emma got me an absolutely wonderful book (albeit a day late - second kid; I'm more forgiving). It's a book of photographs called The People I Sleep With, and it's a wonderful compendium of quirky people/pets photos. She got it for me because, for her birthday I gave her two volumes of poetry that matter to me, and she wanted to return the favor/idea/what have you - this is her all-time favorite book of photographs. How much better can it get than that??

Well, but wait: There's more! Emil gave me a photo frame with two pictures of the kids as toddlers. They're the kind of pictures that make you think, "Yep. That one's been that way since birth." Oddly reassuring, somehow . . .

And, of course, miracle of miracles, a royal blue gazing ball appeared on the pedestal in the yard on Mother's Day morning, too . . . just the thing to gaze at while eating my Mother's Day breakfast amid the sunshine in the sunroom, surrounded by Sunday papers . . .