The Best Mother's Day Gift in the World

My children make me laugh. There's no better gift in the world.

Fortunately for me and for them, they were in rare form today. It meant I had a great Mother's Day even though they didn't make me cute little Mother's Day crafts involving their handprints.

At 9 this morning, running late for our own church, we sped past the deaf church on the corner. For the first time, I noticed that there's an enormous metal bell sitting on a concrete slab on the deaf church's property.
Me: Did you guys see that bell? I never noticed it before. Wonder why they have a bell.
Ben: They were going for irony.


At 1, I'm trying on clothes at Gap as Bob and Ben wait. (Billy had to work.) I come out of the dressing room in this shirt I'd been coveting. It's sort of a Liberty-looking print in periwinkle and green, with 3/4 sleeves and pintucks down the front. I loved it.
Me: So what do you think?
Ben: You want my honest opinion?
Me: I'm going to buy it no matter what you say, but sure.
Ben: It look like "Uncle Henry, go get Dorothy! Tornado's comin'!"


At 9, Bob and I come home from a church choir party. Billy, 17-year-and-11-month-old honor student, tells me in grave terms that his knuckles have been bleeding for two hours.
Me: What happened?
Billy:(gravely) Well, I was in the bathroom sitting on the toilet, and I was playing with the plunger. And I pushed it down real hard on the floor, and it stuck. And so I yanked really hard on it, and when it finally came loose, I scraped my fingers on the toilet seat, and now they won't stop bleeding.
Me: Maybe you shouldn't play with the toilet plunger.
Billy: I'm not going to believe it if this means I end up making a 4 on my AP Chemistry test.