My girls are the greatest kids! It’s weird, sometimes, realizing how old they are, especially when I don’t look my age (according to most other people). For example, I went to a college graduation party last weekend for Rachel, my bass clarinet partner at Gordon College, and two people asked me if I was a classmate of Rachel’s! It was fun, I admit, telling them that I had kids older than Rachel.

But here’s one of the reasons why my kids are so fantastic: they know just what to get me for Mother’s Day. Being the Aspie that I am, I tend to shun “commercial” holidays like Mother’s Day, Valentine’s Day, etc. To me, they exist just for people to make money. But my kids can cut right through that by giving me presents that they know will not “just make someone money”. Kerri got me these beautiful treble clef earrings (this is the photo from the store website):

And Katie painted her gift to me! Since I expect that most of you can’t read music, it’s the melody from Leonard Bernstein’s West Side Story song “Somewhere“. Not that the words especially mean anything to me (although they’re sweet, and Stephen Sondheim wrote them), but the melody is one of my favorites, and of course WSS is my favorite show, and it’s inside the entire ballet/dream sequence, which is my absolute favorite part of the show (on any instrument), and when done right, gives me chills.

Where in the world did this kid get her talent from? Certainly not me! I can’t even take the photo without it being blurry. I really hope Katie gets into doing more painting. As much as I’d love to see her actually sell something, I wouldn’t mind if she gave everything to me!