Easter Egg

After 138 pictures, for the 138 days you have attended school, the inevitable happened: I forgot to make you a picture last night.

And then I lied about it and told you I accidentally put it in my work stuff.

My reasons were honest: you have come to depend on these pictures, to cherish them and even though they rarely make it into your lunch box because you usually buy lunch now; you relish getting to look at them before or right after school. Sometimes I place them in your shirt drawer, sometimes in your backpack; I imagine it's like looking for Easter Eggs. You know this is my special gift to you, that no other mother in your school does this for her son and the thought of admitting to you that I just plum forgot hurts my heart and I knew it would hurt yours; so I did what a mother is supposed to do and I protected my baby. True, there is more to it than that, and I could wax on about WHY it is so important that I don't forget these things, but my guilt and your knowledge are quite enough of a statement, I think.