4 pancakes and a funeral

My birthday started out as any other Tuesday would have. We all woke up, Daddy hopped into the shower, and I got the kids dressed and Connor ready for school. When Brian came out of the shower, I took my turn getting clean. I got dressed and started to head down the stairs. Like a troll guarding the bridge my son, Connor, popped out telling me to stop!!! He said we're making you breakfast in bed for your birthday. This was a tradition brought in by my husband's family. Decorating the house is something mine would do.

 I explained to Connor, "This is not how breakfast in bed works honey. Usually you surprise the person with breakfast before they wake up. I'm already dressed and ready to go!"

 Tears began to fill in his eyes and that old familiar lip twitch started to emerge.

 I quickly took back everything I said and told him, "But it's ok, I'll go back to bed and wait. It's a very thoughtful special thing you are doing for Mommy, so it doesn't matter when you bring breakfast!"

 To my relief this was a satisfactory answer and the tears never fell from his eyes. Crisis averted. Daddy decided to make pancakes with a new raspberry syrup that he had just bought.

 The next question Connor asked me was, "Do you want 1 breakfast in bed or all of us breakfast in bed?"

 I guess I didn't really think that through...I said I wanted all of them with me, but the next thing I knew I was begging to feed my 6 and 3 year old sticky red pancakes fearing that the sticky syrup would drop on our bedspread. The thing I kept reminding myself was that the boys were happy, and memories were being made.

 After the successful breakfast in bed, Daddy had left for work. We had a fish that the boys won from a carnival a few days before.

 Connor yelled to me, "Mommy! Come here! The fish is not moving!!!" 

The fish had died during the night. Again - the lip twitch emerged. I quickly asked him if he would rather let him go down the toilet to go back to the ocean, or bury him the backyard. That was a no-brainer for him. He wanted a funeral.

 He didn't really understand this concept at all, but it was a good learning opportunity for them both. We dug a hole, put the fish in and covered him up. We found a nice rock for the headstone and put it on top. Connor didn't know what to say, so I said a few words and I explained to them that God made the fish from the earth and now he would change back into dirt.  We would always have the memories and those would never go away, so he would always be with us somehow.

 As I drove Connor to school he was deep in thought. When I opened the door to let him go to school he smiled at me and said, "I'm glad we put the fish in the hole in our backyard Mom."

 Somehow that was comforting for him, and I'm glad.