Mother's day 2006 Chapter 14

Celeste lay supine on a deck chair,blissfully flipping through a Maeve Binchy novel.Today was her day to be pampered and her son Sebastian was making sure of that.

Sebastian was in the adjoining kitchen whipping up strawberry waffles, he favorite.The kid wore battered red jeans and not much else.Celeste heard him singing along with Alice Cooper on the Ipod.This was part of her Mother's Day gift.The other half of his Mother's day present to her,was a bouquet of balloons he had placed on the marble bathroom counter,while she had been taking a shower.

She looked forward to Sebastian's culinary creations.Not just because  she was his mother,either.Sebastian's dishes always tasted better than any of Celeste's feeble attempts with her enemy,the stove.If it was up to her,they would exist off Lean cuisine,Special K, and take out.

Her son's love affair with food began early.Celeste vividly remember's Sebastian,who recently turned three,wearing a Burger King crown.Her brother Tony and late husband ,Joel were preparing a fourth of July feast.The little tyke followed them around chanting '' I wanna help '' all day.

When Sebastian turned nine,Soledad sent him a cookbook chock full of neat snacks and kid friendly recipes.Much to his mother's suprise ,Sebastian tackled every recipe in the book,except for the banana smoothie.Banana's made him violently ill, a fact Celeste discovered when her  five year old son barfed all over her.

Sebastian put a steaming plate of deliciousness in front of his mom, and poured a sizable glass of Sunny D for himself.Celeste too that moment to shut her eyes and reflect.There had been days as a mother,Celeste was certain she would not survive.Like the year her son almost repeated the sixth grade.Or when he had taken a leak in the flower bed's because the neighbor kids  dared him to.

Last year when he tattooed a dragon on his neck out of sheer boredom,Celeste worried she had failed the boy.But in this particular moment,she was in a good place.None of these negative feelings fermented inside her.Today was a perfect day, a handsome reward for life's troubles.