Replacement

When Addie was born my dear friend Karen came over to meet her and brought me a coffee mug and a wonderful jar of lavender scented honey balls. At first it was the honey balls that I was most excited about - they were from one of our favorite lunch spots and somehow made every cup of tea magical.

But it was the mug that I grew to love.

It was big. It had one of those perfectly shaped handles, the rim was wide, but the base was narrow. It was sturdy in my hand. Even better, the front read "Mommy Needs Sleeps" and the back read "But I'll settle for Caffeine".

It was a mug that held the perfect amount of coffee. It was used so much that there was a crack down the center. When we moved from Chicago it was one of the last things wrapped up and packed and when we arrived in Cincinnati I rooted through boxes so that my first cup of coffee in the Queen City would be familiar and comfortable.

In early March I was unloading the dishwasher and dropped my beloved it mug. It shattered across the kitchen floor. I cried. Almost uncontrollably. Almost to the point of being irrational. My mug - gone. My comfortable, sturdy, perfect mug.

After regaining my limited composure I called Karen and told her about the broken mug. I might have cried a bit. I think I was so upset because that mug got me through a year of early morning after a year of sleepless nights.

It was held through long phone conversations with Karen and Christie, after we all lived in different cities. It steeped an ideal cup of tea with a lavender honey ball.
It had steadfastly gotten me through two-and-a-half years of mothering.

Fast forward to May.

Girls Weekend - glorious girly-girltime with friends who I adore, including Karen. And Karen, who had spent an afternoon frolicking in Chicago with Addie in March, came bearing a gift.

A new humongous coffee mug. It holds half a pot of coffee. My entire hand fits in the handle. It is bright and colorful and makes me smile.

I think this mug will get me through the next hundred years of motherhood.
And I'll look back and see how tiny her hand was and smile. And be thankful for my coffee, for my daughter, and for my fabulous friend Karen.

As a sidenote, the blue bunny next to my mug also came to Girls Weekend. Apparently as Addie and Karen left the pottery shop that they created my mug masterpiece in, Addie turned to Karen and asked, oh so sweetly, "What Addie get?". So Addie got to paint the bunny, which I affectionately refer to a the decaying rabbit. Seriously who paints a bunny blue and green and orange and mustard yellow?