soon he begins his summer internship at hallmark

I'll be the first to admit that sometimes I'm a rotten mother. Sometimes I get so focused on getting things done around the house that I lose all perspective. Like how I will have just finished cleaning the kitchen floor and someone, say Ryan, comes in from playing outside and instead of being thankful that he was playing outside so I could get some work done, I start to freak out because he just tracked 4 specks of red clay dirt on the floor I just cleaned. And then I go off on some ludicrous diatribe about how all I ever do is clean and re-clean the same things because nobody cares and wah, wah, wah, poor me, which, of course is totally true, but not something Ryan really wants to hear, evidently, because he rolls his eyes and walks out of the room, muttering something about how I totally make such big deals about nothing at all. Now, this sort of thing happens more often around here than I care to admit. But after this specific episode, something must have clicked with Ryan because he did something that he has never done before. He actually came back a few minutes later to finish the conversation:

Ryan: Mom? First of all, I just want to say thank you for all the hard work that you do.
Me: eyeing him suspiciously
Ryan: Really! And second, I just want you to know that I know how you feel. It's like how sometimes I think I do a really good job sweeping the floor but then no one says anything about it.
Me: Well, Ryan, at least you get paid for sweeping the floor.
Ryan: True. But you get paid too. In love. And good-night kisses.