Weeks before Mother’s Day, it became clear that six-year-old Claire had absorbed the importance of the day and had big plans to check off every box a child could check to mark the occasion. Bags of artwork would come home from daycare and school, but I was not allowed to look — it’s a surprise, she’d say. Pockets were filled with pebbles one day and pine cones the next, but if I even asked about their purpose, I was met with a plea not to look, not to ask, not to wonder. It’s a surprise.
She fretted that her oven mitts were at school (for the class pizzeria — don’t even ask): how was she going to bake? She needed a recipe for chocolate cake, but I was not to inquire why. She needed to know how much something would cost, but she wouldn’t tell me what, or where, or how.
Frankly, by the time we turned the calendar to May, I was dreading Mother’s Day. There is nothing so determined as a child whose dreams exceed her grasp, and nothing so disappointing as the failure of a plan to come together, when you’re six and your plans are big.
I’m a single mother by choice, so there is no other adult in the house to help my kindergartener carry out her schemes. I dialed my mother’s number and handed the phone over to Claire, so she could consult an adult about her plan from 300 miles away. I did not want to listen, and I strode quickly away so as not to spoil the surprise, but alas, she is not a quiet child and I had no trouble hearing her query: “Grandma, how much does a rose cost?”
Grandma asked how much money she had, but of course the cost of the rose really isn’t the issue for a six-year-old. The bigger problem is how to go to a store on her own, buy a rose, return home, alone. It’s not really possible yet. Could I drop her off at a florist on Sunday morning and hope for the best? Would she tolerate me knowing she needed a florist?
Oh dear.
I tried to talk her down. I said that cooking was too hard for her without an adult, she should save it for another year. Baking a cake on her own is too hard. She cried with frustration and dismay that I had even gleaned her plans. She protested. She said she had been planning for weeks “And all my hard work is for nothing!”
Oh dear.
I emailed the neighbours, good friends. Could one of them take her to find a rose? They agreed they could. I talked to her daycare teachers — had she confided to them? No, though she was working on a lot of art for me. I explained the rose, the baking, the gigantic plans. Her favourite teacher, Maureen, said they were getting roses as part of the little flower pot the kids were making for mom — she’d save Claire an EXTRA rose to give to me. She’d ask Claire what she wanted to bake, and if it was something she could bake for Claire, she would. Maureen is a mom too, her kids are older. She’s a great teacher, and knows my little anxious people-pleaser well. She was ready to help make the dreams come true.
Then, on the Friday before Mother’s Day, Claire got sick. Sore throat. Glassy eyed. Slow and tired. She wanted to stay home. I agreed she should. But wait! The daycare was having a special breakfast for moms, we HAD to go! And all her projects at daycare and at kindergarten were waiting — they needed to be brought home! So she went to school. I got my take-away breakfast, a muffin and tea. I left her to finish her dreams.
The school called me to pick her up shortly after noon. She came home and went straight to bed, while I carried all the Mother’s Day projects, in full view. She didn’t plead with me not to look – she just asked me to carry it all. She was beyond caring and barely coping with a seatbelt, much less a flowerpot and poem. The weekend arrived with a whimper. I was a little relieved.
After a quiet day at home, Sunday morning arrived early, and she hadn’t forgotten. She arrived at my bedside by 6 am. “It’s Mother’s Day! I’m making you breakfast in bed!” And presented me with a written and illustrated menu of choices: cheese, cheese string, Babybel cheese, fruit, or vegetables. She’d accepted the “no cooking” ground rules. I ordered the fruit and lay back to wait, and the girls trotted downstairs to begin working. Anna, 3, only lasted a few minutes before I heard the TV go on and her succumb to cartoons. But Claire kept working, and I could hear the clink of cutlery and the chopping of something on a plate, not a cutting board.
After about 20 minutes, Claire came excited upstairs to report “I cut myself with a knife but I didn’t cry, I just wiped the blood away.” And showed me a small incision on her index finger. And told me to go back to sleep, she was almost done. I did as I was told, though it’s possible I was not very sleepy at that point.
Finally she returned, hauling an entire plate of chopped fruit — apples, peaches, banana and mandarin oranges. Her limited chopping practice at my side, packing lunches, had paid off. She’s managed a great fruit salad, bite-sized pieces and good variety. And as I tucked into my breakfast, she presented me with arts and crafts, one after another. Weaving, beads, a card with jewels, notes from her friends about my best attributes (I love your curly hair), several very decorated popsicle sticks, a pipecleaner or two, drawings, the flower pot, a rattle made out of googly eyes. No pebbles, no pinecones, though I suppose I’ll find those eventually, if I get around to cleaning the house one of these days.
Of course, just when relief set in that she’d carried off her big project without a hitch (and only a small flesh wound), she told me she had menus planned for lunch and dinner as well — she was going to feed me all day! And she still had to get the rose.
Oh dear. I’m not sure I could stand an entire DAY of Mother’s Day. Surely breakfast in bed was as good as it got? And that’s what I went with. I explained that she’d already fulfilled the great tradition of breakfast in bed, and that she’d done it! I was so pleased and proud. What a gift. No more, please. I couldn’t be happier. And just look at the art!
And she accepted that, possibly with some relief. She glowed with accomplishment. She reviewed all her plans with me so I knew what she’d been prepared to do, and seemed happier just in the telling. Secrets are hard when you’re six. And as we went downstairs together to watch cartoons with the 3-year old, Claire gathered up the menus for lunch and dinner set them aside on her play table. The project was complete.
I shared the photo of Claire and her plate of fruit salad with Grandma and all our friends. I was so proud of her, and so flattered to be the object of all her plans. But next year, I’m definitely going to order the cheese string. No knife required.