Montessori Birthday, New Dog, and Mother's Day

I tend to not have the best luck with Mother's Days.  Mother's Day 2013, my first Mother's Day, we were at Grampa Mayne's funeral, which was a nice way to remember him, but not the Hallmark version of what one might think of doing for Mother's Day.  Mother's Day 2014, I was sick and in the middle of packing our house to move, so we didn't do anything to celebrate.  Mother's Day 2015, I was just getting over a pretty bad illness.  Mother's Day 2016 was the first Mother's Day since 2013 that I wasn't sick of feeling bad, and it was actually a very lovely day.  We were in California and had a nice brunch together and then dinner with my first cousin once removed and his family.

This Mother's Day was back to being a physically terrible day.  On Wednesday, I threw my back out and thought I was doing better by Saturday so I overdid it and yesterday as I was getting ready to go to church, I definitely set myself back quite a bit.  It was much worse than Wednesday - so bad that I couldn't walk at one point.  It's going to be quite a road to recovery, I'm afraid, and it's coming at a terrible time when I have so much to do to get ready for school winding down, and a big package of documents due at work, plus getting things ready and packed to go to Oregon and Washington.  We leave in 10 days and I hope it'll be better by then.  Today I'm on some pretty nice muscle relaxers, but it's still a huge effort to get up from a sitting or lying down position.

But I digress.  Even though I wasn't feeling well, I was determined to get to church with Evie today.  We sat together during the service and she was very helpful in putting my shoes on for me.  Granna came and picked us up since I knew I couldn't drive, proving once again that motherhood is forever.  She offered to keep Evie while Seth was at work, but I didn't want to spend my 5th Mother's Day lying on the couch without my baby.  So we just hung out and watched TV and Seth came home early and got her ready for bed (which was good because I could barely move).

We did manage to recreate this photo of me and my mom in 1987. You all know by now how much I love trying to get pictures of me and Evie wearing the same outfit or in the same type of photo.  This is not the same blue dress that I am wearing in 1987, because I wore that thing out, but I think it's a decent stand-in.

Emily and Patsy, Mother's Day Luncheon 1987

Emily and Evie, Mother's Day 2017

Even though my Mother's Day was a bummer, the rest of the week was really nice.  On Tuesday night, we had dinner with my parents, per usual, and Evie, Granna, and I made the cupcakes for Evie's birthday celebration the following day.  That was kind of a comedy of errors.  I had been at the school all day and was running late.  It was my turn to cook dinner and I knew we needed to get Evie's cupcakes baked too, so I just brought everything over, thinking we could do it at my parents' house.  But it was a new (delicious!) recipe for carrot cake cupcakes and it called for putting the ingredients in a food processor to pulse.  Well, my food processor has a different top on it that is meant specifically for processing liquids so they don't splatter.  Granna's, apparently, does not.  But I didn't learn this until after pouring all the liquid in the processor and spraying it all over the walls of Granna's kitchen.  Then we moved things to the blender, but I didn't seal the blender tight enough so more liquid sprayed out.  We did eventually get the cupcakes baked, and they were very, very good, but it was a mess!

Making cupcakes

Wednesday was Evie's Montessori class celebration of her birthday, since they won't still be in session on her actual birthday.  I love the Montessori birthday ritual and Evie seemed to really enjoy being the center of attention and sharing her cupcakes with her classmates at lunch.

Video of the Montessori birthday

Birthday girl

Wednesday is usually the night we eat out as a family, but Seth got called in to work, so we went on Thursday instead.  We went to Huey's this week, and Evie joined in the Memphis tradition of writing on the walls.

Friday was the Montessori class day for the "short friends", as they call them, to be the teachers.  Parents were invited to come and let their kids give them lessons so I stayed after drop-off and let Evie teach me subtraction.  She's gotten very good at solving equations involving 3 numbers, even if they have different operations.  For example, she can tell you what 7 - 3 + 2 is.  It was a joy to see her so confidently teaching a math skill.

Probably the biggest thrill of our week was Saturday when we drove 2 hours to meet our new pup.  We're getting a standard poodle pup in a couple of weeks and we drove out to meet her and make sure we still thought she was the one.  Evie was in love, so this little black and white parti will be coming home with us after we get back from the Pacific Northwest!

Saturday night, my mom's side of the family got together for Mother's Day.  Evie enjoyed playing with her cousins, as usual, and especially enjoyed Zach.  They have quite a sweet relationship.  I am so proud of the young man he has become.

Language funny from this week:
We were playing Guessing Animals, one of Evie's favorite games.
Seth: I'm an animal that's pink, stands in the water, has long legs, and likes to eat fish.
Evie: A BEAR!!!
Seth: That's not pink.
Evie: A naked bear?