Not Your Typical Mother's Day Post

I went to Mass today, and unexpectedly ran into my family after Mass was finished.

We stood outside in the warm sun chit-chatting about school, the weekend and whatnot. My two nieces began digging in the flowerbeds full of geraniums. The oldest one is 5, and her little sister is 3. Ladybugs and rolly-pollies are about the only bug they like. With giddy smiles, they bring me over a rolled up rolly-polly. I open my palm and leave it flat so the rolly-polly will unball itself and begin to tickle my palm. I tell the girls to watch. "Let's make it feel safe. Let's not squash it."

A few seconds later, the rolly-polly squirms open, and rolls over from its shell-covered back to it's tiny, numerous legs and begins to explore my palm and hand. It ends up falling off my hand, safely falling to the pavement in it's hardened shell, ball form. Dang -- what a nice piece of equipment, huh? Sometimes I wish I was a rolly-polly so I could fall on my shell. :)

The girls go back and dig for more. My brother in law, who happens to also be my Godfather, is standing next to me. The youngest niece (his daughter), brings over a small, light colored rolly-polly. Godfather puts it in his palm like I had done moments earlier. It unrolls itself and begins to scurry about his hand. Then, the most amazing thing happened!

It began to GIVE BIRTH on his hand!

There, across the grooves of his carpals, she delivered about 6 or 8 tiny mite looking baby rolly-pollies! (Guess it's not just us humas that have to push when we're ready. When it's time -- IT'S TIME!) She kept walking and the babies kept coming out! He was so calm about it and I was so utterly excited!

"Oh my goodness!" I exclaim, "Check that out!! And of ALL days to see that?! It's Mother's Day!"

Godfather smiles and says "yeah" so matter-of-factly (because that's how he is).

I beam, "how cool is that?!"

So Godfather takes the momma rolly-polly, and all her lil babies to the dirt from which they came so she could finish in nature. The nieces were very thrilled to witness this event.

And so was I.

Happy Mother's Day to all you mom-types out there.

~Whoosh!