My daughter (age 3) asked me about Mother’s Day last week.

I told her it’s a special day for letting mothers know how much they mean to us.

She became very excited and immediately wanted to start making plans.

The two of us had a "top secret" planning session in her bedroom and we whispered our ideas back and forth in order to keep the proverbial cat from escaping from the proverbial bag.

My wife became immediately suspicious.

"What’s going on?" she asked as she walked into my daughter’s room and the whispered conversation suddenly came to a halt.

"Uh…," I said. "We’re talking about the trip to Canada. Yeah…. that’s it…. Canada."

"Yeah…" my daughter and co-conspirator said. "That’s right... Canada… We’re talking about Canada."

We continued with our "pretend" conversation about Canada in order to keep our secret plans a secret.

"Molly, did you know that in Canada they sell milk in plastic bags?" I said.

"Oh, that’s just crazy!" she said, rolling with laughter.

"And they have these gold one-dollar coins called loonies, and these larger gold and silver two-dollar-coins called toonies!" I told her.

"Oh, you have got to be joking!" She said, continuing with our phoney-baloney conversation.

After my wife left the room, we continued with our planning.

We decided to get up early in the morning on Sunday and clean up the house. Once we had the house cleaned, we would go outside and pick some wildflowers that we would arrange for "Mom."

It was decided we would make a large banner reading "Happy Mother’s Day!" and we made other plans including balloons, streamers, etc.

My daughter loves to make things and decorate.

The big day arrived Sunday morning and I woke my daughter up so that we could begin our secret mission.

Together we gathered wildflowers from the yard, and found an improvised vase to hold them all. When we returned to the house, we found out that "Mom" was already awake. Our 11-month-old son woke up early and hungry, and so his mother was making breakfast for him.

We should have started earlier.

We presented the flowers and, of course, "Mom" was delighted with the surprise. We spent the rest of the morning working on the banner, which was not so much a surprise as it was simple gesture of appreciation.

Later that afternoon, we went over to my Mom’s house and brought her some flowers and a card.

Gifts and gestures of appreciation are nice, but they fall so very short of expressing what our Moms really mean to us.

Moms give so much, and they show so much love – it is impossible to tell them or show them how much they mean on just one day.

To all the Moms out there:

Thank you for all that you do.

Happy Mother’s Day!