Monday, May 12, 2008

It's Not Really Mother's Day without a Hydra Death Match

I woke up yesterday thinking this year's mother's day would generally follow the direction set out over the previous four installments: I wake up (even though I don't want to), breakfast near bed, receive a homemade something something, and then lay out my trail of incessant and uncompromising desires that have finally broken ground after a full of year of tantrums and whining have beaten them to inevitable yet reluctant surrender.

(I so do love getting my way. At least one day of the year.)

And, for the first three hours, I was right. Mother's day followed a predictable and yet still joyous path. There was an omelette and a bowl of tea. Finn made me a card that he snipped and glued himself. Barry gave me a book of essays (even though I am decidedly not his mother--go ahead and put all those rumors away).

And Finn "gave" me a Golden Compass, from the movie of the same name, that he quickly co-opted, under the guise of "showing me how it works."

But that's not where things went awry. Even I could see that one coming.

After food, card, and treats, we decided to go for a one-mile hike through a nature trail near our house. I decided. (Whoop. Wish equals command.) But with Golden Compass secured safely in its purse and slung around his shoulders, Finn quickly announced the mission: find Narnia.

So we set out. Our water turned into elixir, our path turned to adventure. We were looking for anything out of the ordinary that might lead us to a gateway to another world. We jumped rivers of lava, we hid from ogres, we climbed a mountain. We deftly yet narrowly escaped enchanted nettles that reached out from the ground with their poisonous tentacles. We deciphered clues disguised as a self-guided walking tour. We successful traversed the dangers of the Waterfall of Nefarious Intent.

And then, just when we thought we had survived all the challenges of the nature trail turned evil forest, we met the five-headed hydra, camouflaged under a big pile of glass clippings.


But we weren't fooled. We had our eyes open. Using Finn's magic and my knowledge of mythic creatures (reading is power!), we defeated that hydra and left the forest much better than we had found it. And relatively monster free.

I think mother's day got an upgrade, too.

2 comments:

spamchang said...

Wow, I approve of Finn's imagination! Definitely more fun than my Sunday, which was spent scrambling to get Mother's Day stuff on behalf of other family and then dealing with a final project =P

carie said...

You are so funny! What a great mother's day. Now that I found your blog, I hope you don't mind all my lousy comments :).