This wish extends to my wife – mother of my two boys. She is the perfect mom in my eyes and I can’t express my gratitude and appreciations enough.
I had lived a period of five years without my mom due to family issues. I had learned first hand just how difficult life could be without a mother. Fortunately my mother had rejoined us – myself and my siblings, for the past 22 years. Although she now lives thousands of miles from me, I want to send her our best wishes. I do hope to visit her again soon.
Every year I pull my hair out trying to think of what I can do to celebrate Mother’s Day, this year is no exception. My mom is easy, she loves the "usual" things, a bouquet of flowers, a nice dinner at her favorite restaurant and she is as happy as a clam. My wife, on the other hand, represents a big challenge year after year. It’s not that she has very expensive taste or is high maintenance. She is the exact opposite, T-shirts and jeans only, she wears no make-up at all. No fancy jewelries, nauseating perfume, designer handbags, and hates electronic gadgets with a passion!
After over a week of contemplating with different ideas, I think my sons and I have finally come up with a good game plan. The thought process brought me back a few years when I gave her her her first Mother’s Day surprise. We had just welcomed our first son in the year before. We had also just settled into our new home. My mom was staying with my sister at that time to help look after her two kids. We would drop off our son so grandma could also watch the little one.
It was about a week before Mother’s Day. After a week of planning I decided to take half a day off from work to get the big surprise ready. It was my wife’s first Mother’s Day, this time, as a mother. During the years when my mom was absent from my life, I had learned how to take care of myself. One of the things was – learn how to cook. I can’t cook up a ten course meal but four – five dished aren’t too big of a challenge for me. So the plan was, when my wife went to pick up our son, my accomplices – my mom and my sister, would try to stall her. Meanwhile I would be at home cooking up a storm.
My wife normally left work at around 4:45 pm and the usual commute time for her was about 40-45 minutes. I had asked my sister to stall her until 6 pm, that should give me enough time to cook and prep the table. My menu consisted of 魚香茄子, 糖醋魚, 烤白菜及乾扁四季豆, 外加蕃茄玉米湯. The fish required deep frying and the cabbage baking, the other dishes were done rather quickly.
It was about 15 minutes before 6 pm, I figured that my wife had to be at my sister’s. I called my sister to let her know that I was done cooking and she could let my wife go. My sister was less than 10 minutes away from us. I took a military style shower – about 3 minutes flat. Got the table ready for my wife’s arrival. Before I went down stairs I heard the garage door open, I got it all done in the nick of time!
My wife, with our 13-month old son in her arms said to me "Well, you’re home early! How come you didn’t go pick up the little one? Did you take a shower already?" The she sniffed a few times, "What did you do? Did you cook dinner?" I picked our son from her, handed her a big Happy Mother’s Day card and we had a family hug. She had a smile from ear to ear. My dishes were all right, the fish was a little too sour and the cabbage didn’t have enough time to bake to a nice texture but the rest of the dishes were spot-on. It has been a few years since that big surprise. The history has a way of repeating itself….only this time, my accomplices are my two sons. My menu for Sunday? 鹽酥雞 , 清蒸釀豆腐, 炒芥藍, 炒鴨掌, 貢丸湯. I just hope to see that big smile again.
Happy Mother’s Day to all moms out there.
Update: Slight change of plan, better half wants to visit a local restaurant that we haven’t been to for over a year since we started cutting back on dining out. Anything to make her happy, it’s her special day. I’ll get the breakfast instead.
Extra…extra:
Everyone liked the strawberry pancake + egg breakfast.
I’m still making dinner but menu has been changed. 炒芥藍, 宮保魷魚, 鹽酥鯧, 貢丸湯.
breakfast dinner
I would take a picture of anything leftover, but there wasn’t any.
original post date: May 8, 2009
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