Happy Birthday to Mummy

Mithradia’s slanted green eyes stared with incredulity at the colourful voucher in her hands, forcing a smile. "Five yoga classes at Eldergrove Mystic Wisdom Sanctuary! How... thoughtful."

Her husband, Gehmorhin, beamed from pointy ear to pointy ear. "You used to love yoga, honey, and you're having all that back pain recently. I bet if you just got back into a bit of yoga, you'd be so much more your old self again. "

Mithradia's gaze whipped up from the voucher to squint at her husband's open and earnest expression. But before she could decipher whether the barb in that statement had been intentional or accidental, her eldest child was already chiming in.

"Yes-yes-yes, Mummy!" Elysia said. "Let’s do some more yoga now already. I love doing yoga with you, Mummy."

Just like that, Mithradia knew she'd be choosing between bolting down the rest of her breakfast too hot, or coming back to it later, cold. It didn't matter that she'd had to wait for 40 minutes in bed — starving and bursting for the toilet — for the kids to prepare it for her. Giving mum a surprise breakfast was done now, as far as they were concerned. They'd had fun making it, and they'd had fun presenting it to her. That's what making mum breakfast on her birthday was all about for them, and that was all over now. Giving mum a chance to eat it as well as receive it? Totally an optional extra!

Mithradia's emerald eyes turned with a passionate longing towards her cup of still hot dawnberry brew. Her relationship with dawnberry brew seemed to have changed as much as her relationship with her husband had since having children, she reflected. No more quiet, cozy and relaxing time with either since the kids came along. She had learned to be quick and efficient with both, or go without. So, she knew she had scarce seconds to decide whether to bolt the mug of dawnberry down now and scald her mouth or hope she might have a chance to drink it cold later. Taking one more slug of the fortifying brew she'd waited so long for already, she stood up just in time to catch Valoria, her younger child, and lower her safely to the floor. Valoria's highchair had been rocking and tottering, threatening to fall as the toddler tried to climb out of it unassisted again. Meanwhile, Elysia was still chattering as she pranced around 'doing yoga' and nearly knocking over the pile of paperwork that had been hastily pushed aside to make room on the table for this birthday breakfast.

"Look, Mum, I can do a headstand now," called Elysia as her pinwheeling legs soared through the air, a whisker away from colliding with the illusion-orb cabinet, before crashing down with a thump. Oblivious to the near disaster, she pushed back up again immediately, her legs pinwheeling back the other way this time. Her second uncontrolled descent collided directly with g down her chubby cheeks. Elysia immediately knew a scolding for being thoughtless and hurting her sister was on its way. Being a bright young elf, she saw her best path to dodging it lay in bursting into tears and yowling too. "My neck hurts," she wailed.

"Come on, girls," said Mithradia with resignation, grunting in pain from the twinge of pain that shot through her lower back as she hoisted Valoria up onto one hip. "Let’s all go outside."

When exactly did they think she'd have time for yoga between making sure Elysia's homework was done, ferrying the kids to junior forest guardian training and music lessons, making sure the family was fed and clothed, appeasing her troll of a boss, and everything else that kept the household from descending into chaos? But Mithradia swallowed her sarcasm as best she could. "Thanks, you guys. I'll love the yoga classes. Breakfast was delicious, too." Both bites I actually got to have of it were, at least, she thought to herself, but continued out loud with "sometimes I really feel like the luckiest Mum in the world."

Also technically true, she thought. Sometimes, I'm sure I do feel that. Just because this isn't one of those times, doesn't mean that statement is untrue. Mithradia kept the smile plastered tightly to her face as she traipsed down the spiral stairs wrapping around the central tree-trunk of their treetop home, little Val in one arm and the other hand on the twisting vine of the stair's railing.

Ten minutes later Gehmorhin came down to where she sat with her knees up around her pointed ears at the child-sized picnic table, supervising the girls playing on their swings. He'd blessedly brought her dawnberry brew down for her, as well as — less blessedly — her com-crystal. It was glowing red with the notification of an urgent message.

No sense in putting it off. She took the crystal and closed her eyes to better concentrate on receiving the message clearly. It was her boss (of course it was). And there was an emergency at work (of course there was). He hated to ask this of her … again, but could she come in and get the moonlight sieves aligned right away? He knew she'd been busy, but she was the only one who could do it properly, and technically, she had been supposed to take care of the realignment before leaving yesterday. Everyone else's work would be held up by hours on Monday if they weren't running over the weekend.

Mithradia didn't know whether to laugh or cry at the message. Was she being flattered for her indispensability to the company or being chipped for not getting it done? Seemed like a case of both at once, to be sure. Yes, she was the only one who could do the moonlight sieve realignments, and yes, he had reminded her to do them before leaving yesterday. But it was a three-hour job, and he'd asked her to do it just as he was leaving to go home for the evening himself. Then the new guy had come to her begging to get his grimoire onboarded to the company network before going home for the evening. By then she was the only one left in the office who could do that job too, so she'd taken care of that first. By then she'd been so late she'd nearly missed the Grove of Guidance maximum pickup time for little Valoria. She cringed at the thought of her little face alone in the admin block of the Grove — with the last cranky early learning guide waiting impatiently to hand her over and go home themselves — wondering if her mummy was ever coming, after everyone else's already had.

When she had finally scuttled away from work (leaving the damn moonlight sieves unaligned) she'd raced over to the Grove of Guidance, paid the late fee, grabbed Valoria and marched straight out with her. That’s how she'd completely failed to see that little Val only had one shoe on until after getting home, at which point her missing shoe had suddenly become the most important thing in the world to little Val.