My Mug of Love Runneth Over

Menopausal Symptoms.
My doctor said I should keep a log.
Insomnia?
Insomnia.
Check. Moving on .....

Yesterday morning, my wonderfully thoughtful mother brought me a cup of coffee in bed. Post-op and Brian out in Portland, I am bunking with her. Sometimes, no matter how grown up a person might be - I still want and need my Mommy. And I thank God I have her!


I love coffee. I love my mother. I love sharing coffee in the morning with my mother. No one else in my house shares the same joyous experience produced by simply holding a warm cup of love in one's hands. Coffee has been a part of my morning routine since I was 15 or 16. Like cigarettes, coffee was "cool" and "adult." In my the-world-is-the-size-of-a-pea teenage logic, in some sense it was non-conformist and Kerouacian. My mom and I are the only ones in our house who drink coffee. Frankly, I don't understand people who are non-coffee drinkers. I am starting to wonder if they are really aliens from some sad coffee-less plant inhabiting the earth so they can figure out how to perfect some other-worldly super coffee bean. To just not like coffee - well that is just plain bizarre.


My love affair with coffee has grown ever more torrid over the years. In the beginning I tolerated coffee and hoped that it was merely an acquired taste. For years I would only drink it if each cup was wantonly sweet. After Brian's cousin, Karen [one of the most amazing, mother-earth, deeply soulful spirits of a woman I know] came to help take care of me and Ella (and our whole family, now that I think about it), I cannot drink anything less than industrial strength, high octane, it puts hair on your chest and curls the hairs you already have coffee. I prefer mine with approximately two teaspoons of creamer. MMmmmm....creamy warm mug of love!


So, yesterday I woke up to the gift of coffee in bed and listening to my Mom trying to rouse the dynamic duo and get them dressed for school. Once I can get upright and catch my breath (Yes. It still hurts like hell to get out of bed), I wander in there to help out as much as I can. Dressed and ready to go, Em and Gma head downstairs for breakfast, and I am upstairs with wardrobe crisis Ella. After several attempts, she pulls on the perfect shirt for a February, but it is going to be warm later, Tuesday in Kindergarten.


Much to her dismay, I can't carry her downstairs. I remind her that Mommy just had surgery on and in her tummy. Doctor says I can't carry anything for a while - not even my favorite little monkey girl Ella. With her blanket over one shoulder and my mug of love in hand, we head down the stairs. Ever the inquisitive child, Ella wants to understand why I can carry some things and not others. I think it is so cool to watch the wheels turning in there as she categorizes things by weight and mass - heaviness and lightness - all that super neat science stuff that my husband reminds me I could have paid attention to while I was in school.


Ella points out that I have a cup of coffee in my hand. Smart ass that I am, I playfully tell her that Mommy's doctors know how much I love coffee and that I have to drink it in the morning, so I have special permission to carry it around as long as I don't pick a too heavy cup. I don't know that she totally gets my humor, but Ella certainly understands - to borrow a term of endearment from Junie B. Jones - that her Mommy is a nutball.


Fast Forward to 6pm yesterday evening .....


Emerson wanted to make her own cup of chocolate milk. Sometime in the process of making the chocolate milk and hugging Daddy Allen, the cat coffee cup (thankfully not one of my favorites) crashed onto the tile floor cascading chocolate, milk and cermaic cats everywhere. Tears dried (there is no sense crying over spilt milk after all) and mess cleaned, life as I know it goes on. About five minutes later, Ella starts dragging a chair across the kitchen floor so she can reach something in the cabinet.


"Can I help you?" I ask. "What do you need?"
"A cup," she answers.
"Are you thirsty?" I ask. "Do you want Mommy to get you something to drink before you climb up the cabinet like a monkey and fall and crack your head open?"
"I need a cup," she implores. "I need to make something."
"How about one of these cups?" You can't see me, but I am pointing to a disposable, plastic Solo cup on the counter.
"No. I need a mug kind of cup." I can feel her impatience with my questions.
Gma enters stage left and assesses the situation. Ella whispers something in my Mom's ear that makes her say "We've got it under control."
I walk back over to the kitchen table where I had been looking over the girls' daily school work and filling out forms for them to order some books - autographed by the local author - at school. Ella and Gma depart the kitchen, hang a left into the craft room - where I can hear them scratching around like little mice - and then they head back into the family room. Those two are up to something. Again. 


My suspicions are confirmed when I walk into the family room and Ella dives on top of the covert operation she has set up on the rug by the coffee table. I assure her that I am not looking and prove my point by sitting down at the computer and looking up the SDPC website. Em and Ella have racked up considerable milk balances at the cafeteria and we are starting to get those recorded messages that threaten broken knee caps if the $2.50 balance is not satisfied.


Finally, Ella announces that I can close my eyes because she has a surprise for me. I follow her directions and sit, eyes closed, eager with anticipation.
"Open your eyes Mommy," says Ella, beaming with a huge smile and those big brown eyes of hers. "I made you a special mug since your cat one got broken."


And she had.

Gma had helped her find one of the plastic mugs she and Em use to drink their morning milk. Using glue dots out of the craft room, she adorned the bottom with a band of irridescent pink ribbon and multi-colored buttons (Ella loves buttons and will glue them on practically anything that stands still). On one side of the cup she glue a paper heart cut of pink cardstock all by herself and decorated with red heart stickers left over from the valentines she and Em took into their classmates. On the other side of the cup, Ella glued on individual flower petals from a white rose that had been in an arrangement Nyda brought me while I was in the hospital. "This rose was looking kind of woggily," Ella explained. "So I recycled it Mommy."

"Ella.....it's beautiful!" I said. "I love it! Thank you, Ella B. You are such a sweet pea girl."

"It's a love mug Mommy," she said. "Because you love coffee and I love you and your cat cup got broken."

"I love you too, Ella B." And I pursed my lips and she squated down and gave me a kiss. "I will drink my coffee in it tomorrow."

As I sit here this morning, writing, I am enjoying a delightfully creamy, warm cup of coffee love, in my mug of love, crafted, by Ella, with love, for her Mommy who loves her and her sister so very, very much! I am thankful that in my life, as I know it, my mug of love runneth over.