Cream Cheese Mints

Every time we go to a wedding shower or a baby shower, my mom and I giggle and wonder if there will be cream cheese mints. Cream cheese mints: cream cheese, butter, and powdered sugar all rolled around together, mixed with a delightful hint of peppermint, and molded into cute little shapes.

We giggle because when I was four, we (myself and my four-year old classmates) made cream cheese patti-mints for our Mother's Day Tea. ("patti-mints" because that's what we did--we pattied the cream cheese and sugar with our precious little four year old hands. There was no Purell in 1981. Think about it.).

And so, when we see cream cheese mints, we wonder whose fingers were patti-minting.  If ever I doubted that my mother loves me, I remember this: she ate those patti-mints. With a smile. Without Purell.

Today was my patti-mint day; it was RJ's Mother's Day Tea. His teacher has taught him to be a gentleman. He took me by my hand, led me carefully to my seat. I squatted in his three-year old sized chair and tried to delicately adjust my skirt over my knees. A lady does not show her panties at the Mother's Day Tea--but it's awfully hard to squat in a toddler chair like a lady.

There was Purell--his teacher made sure we all got some. They served us cookies. RJ ate mine. They gave us presents. RJ tried to carefully disassemble mine. He sat in my lap. To the uneducated eye, it looked as though he was snuggling with me in the chair. He was not. He was trapped. I had a pinch hold on his leg under the table. He was trying to kick his sister in her carrier.

RJ sang a special Mother's Day song with his class. I almost cried. GiGi did cry--she wanted her crackers. RJ's classmate spilled the crackers in the floor. She enjoyed the tea with her mommy. This mommy got the broom and did what mommies do best--clean up messes.

There weren't any cream cheese mints. And RJ ate my cookies and drank my lemonade. It's almost Mother's Day; I think I'll make some patti-mints and send them back home. Being a mom isn't easy. Being appreciative is.

Thanks for eating the patti-mints, Mom.