A miobile Mother's Day

Only a small portion of my Mother's Day was devoted to cleaning vomit off a car-seat (because that's what mothers do), which is a good thing because it wasn't exactly the high point of my day. What was the high point? It's hard to say:

Sitting in the front pew at my brother's church along with my parents, my children and grandchild, both of my brothers and a sister-in-law, a cousin, and a pair of nephews, who had all gathered in North Carolina for a fun family weekend involving a pile of old family photo albums, finger-licking barbecue, and lots of stories.

Waking in my motel room to the sound of my adorable granddaughter singing to her stuffed animals--and, later, sitting on a bench at the Wal-Mart where we stopped during our long drive home and hearing her sing "The Itsy-Bitsy Spider" to me as we waited for our traveling companions.

Following I-77 through a long dark tunnel under a mountain in Virginia and then, as soon as hit the other side, hearing my granddaughter say, "Do it again!" (But there are only so many tunnels on the interstate....)

Sitting in the passenger's seat secure in the knowledge that the driving was in the capable hands of my son, who maneuvered us around an interminable line of stopped cars on I-77 by detouring around the blockage on a twisty country road. (The episode of carsickness caused only a small delay compared to the time we would have wasted and the nerves we would have frayed lurching through stop-and-go traffic in the afternoon sun.)
  
Sharing a crackers-and-snap-peas supper with my family during that long drive home, which, despite interruptions, went smoothly enough to get us to bed by 10, exhausted but thankful.

So forget the vomit and the traffic congestion--my Mother's Day put me in the presence of four generations of my family and took me through tunnels and over mountains accompanied by crackers and snap peas and silly children's songs, and what greater gift could I want?