The Perfect Card for the Perfect Mother

Mothers’ Day recently passed and like any good husband I waited till the Saturday before to get her a card (in my defense, I also took her out to dinner, got her breakfast in bed, and made a concerted effort to commit my entire weekend to the family, but I digress). So, I walk into the living room to draft my son into assisting me in selecting a card at our local drug store. He is sitting on the couch with my wife so I of course smoothly slide into speaking into father/son code, "Son, I need some help running errands and moving stuff, wanna help?"


"No thanks daddy."

I obviously have not properly trained him in the father/son code, so I try again. "Seriously, son, I need your help."

"Thank you, but I'll stay here with mommy." Still not getting it.

"Son, I don't want to go alone."

Then comes the response of the day, "You won't be alone daddy, Jesus is with you."

Two things ran through my mind at this point. First, an incredible, overwhelming amount of pride in my son and his understanding of our Lord. My wife and I have worked hard to raise our children in a Christian home and this was one of the first indicators that he is applying these Christian principles to his life. However, after that moment of teary-eyed pride, the second point rushed into my mind, shoving the first point to the side . . . my son didn't want to go with me. Now I could do one of two things in this situation; 1) I can pout and run my errand alone, feeling sorry for myself the entire time; or 2) force him to come with me. I chose option #2.

This is where the adventure began. We arrived at the card aisle only for me to feel mildly overwhelmed with the choices (they have cards for EVERYTHING). However, my son knew what he wanted. He immediately went directly to a card with a bulldog's face with Cheetos in the position of its eyebrows and a mustache (two of his most favorite things, dogs and Cheetos). He said, "This is the one I want to get mommy." I opened the card to find it said, "It's your day, you can be as silly as you want - Happy Birthday!" I insisted we keep looking, giving him several choices of funny and meaningful Mothers' Day cards, but as you have probably already guessed, he insisted on buying the bulldog birthday card, so we bought it.

When we brought the card home, I had the children use their beautiful scribbled handwriting to sign it (which included a total lapse in my brain and resulted in me momentarily misspelling both children’s names . . . seriously) in crayon. When they gave it to my wife, her face lit up and she loved it, it didn’t matter that it was actually a birthday card, it was a card the children had picked out specifically for her. It was the perfect card for the perfect mother.