The Number Field

Happy Mother's Day!

Now that Mother's Day is over, I can write about what Elena and I did for Jenny. First, the gifts we gave her were:

• A framed photo of Elena , for which we used a free Walgreens offer from last week.
• A new 9"x13" glass baking dish.
• The movie Enchanted , which was for both Jenny and Elena.
• A box of peanut M&Ms.

At least two of those gifts deserve more explanation. With regard to the M&Ms, it seems that at gift-giving times Jewel usually gives me some small snack-type item. Jenny explains that "Jewel has to use her own money" to buy these things. In return, and for the first time, the official giver of the M&Ms was Elena, "using her own money." On the package, I wrote "mommy" and "me" under the respective m's.

In some quarters, I think that practical gifts are not appreciated, and are even joked about, for example the man who bought his wife a vacuum cleaner for Mother's Day and ended up sleeping on the couch for a month. Or even worse, the man who bought his wife a chain saw. But in this case, Jenny requested the baking dish. Right now she really enjoys making and eating homemade granola bars, and now she'll be able to make a double batch. In addition, the new baking dish will allow her to delay or possibly push onto me some housework: if she wants to make something that requires baking (e.g. brownies) but one of the pans is dirty, she can just use the other one and let me wash them both later.

One idea didn't quite come through for me. I wanted to put Elena's handprint in Jenny's card. When I found an inkpad, it was out of ink, so we headed to the craft store for a new one on Friday afternoon. Upon our return, I decided to try it out myself first, before getting messy with Elena's hands. I discovered that it was nearly impossible to remove the ink from my thumb--a repeated sequence of washing, rubbing alcohol, lotion, baby wipes, and hair spray (all recommended by various websites) faded but did not eliminate the stain. It was good enough that Jenny didn't notice it and figure out my plan. I didn't try it with Elena; if I had I'm sure her hand would still be ink-stained now. I left room on the card for her handprint; now that I told Jenny about the idea, maybe I can add it, even if the ink stain remains for a while. Also, I think that if I get to the ink before it dries, I'll have a better shot of cleaning it off. I might run some more trials on myself first. Finally, a word about the big breakfast. I made waffles with bacon baked inside of them, along with orange juice. I meant to get whipped cream and fresh fruit, but that never quite happened. Jenny was happy with the waffles, and had a nice time during the remainder of the day also.