I am, at this very moment, sitting in a Caribou Coffee place, sipping a latte and catching up on the blog world. 6 blocks away, my darling daughter is curled around her doggie, sleeping deeply.
Within hours, I'll be sharing lunch and conversation with my best friend in the world.
All's right with the world.
Sort of.
Katie and I had dinner last night with her boyfriend and his mother. Before we went, I gave her The Cookbook, thinking she'd like to show Craig's mother. She opened it, looked at every page, and bounced up to brush her teeth and get ready to go. No deep emotion. A quick hug. One "I love it, Mom." One "Thank you."
No surprise. Seems she knew I was making it. "Well," she said. "I had asked for recipes. You asked me to send pictures. I made the connection."
No surprise. "It's what you would do, Mom."
So I float between disappointment that it wasn't a surprise and an odd kind of satisfaction that she knows me as well as I know her.
8 comments:
May not have been a surprise, but I'm here to tell you that cookbook will be in her kitchen until she's an old, old woman.
In fact, you'd better bind up a couple more, because that one's going to wear out from use.
What a coincidence...I'm having lunch with my best friend in the world today, too.
That is not the last you will hear of the cookbook and maybe the 20 other gifts have her sentimental space full for the time being, I know mine would be close. That girl loves you and knows how much you love her. All is well.
I have a cookbook that my mother made for her mother. It's got a (now gaudy) quilted cover that my mother sewed herself and inside are pages upon pages of recipes that my mother got from her friends and my grandmother's friends and family. She wrote out each recipe in her beautiful calligraphy and wrote a beautiful inscription on the front page.
I'll give it to Julia when she's old enough, perhaps when she gets her first place, and although the recipes might not be her style (many of them aren't mine), I know she'll hang on to it.
Ain't that the truth!
: )
So appropriate, don't you think, that at 21 your best friend is getting closer and closer to deep friend status and less daughter to mother status. So glad for both of you.
Isn't this the mark of a good mother? That a child would so know they can count on this kind of love and attention, that it is as sure to them as the sky being blue?
I think so.
I would like to be that kind of mother.
;)
Jerri: First off, I love and miss you dearly. Second, I read this and thought I would let you know a little something; Kate, Craig and I went out for a drink and appetizers at a local bar near her new house for her birthday that week and when I walked in the door (the first time seeing her house), one of the first things she did was run and grab that cookbook to show me how cool it was (ps, great idea and I loved the old photos)...Just thought that would brighten your day. I love you. <3 Stephy
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