Valentine's Day

Oh, Valentine's Day. This goofy, made-up holiday always cracks me up. As a child, I thought nothing was better than waking up to a heart-shaped box of chocolates and a little red teddy bear. Any holiday that involves waking up to chocolate is alright in my book. Then, I started dating, and it was all about flowers and more chocolate. Even today, PJ knows enough to buy me chocolate. I can't eat flowers. (But, I can certainly suck down a king-sized Hershey bar.)


Now that I have children, Valentine's Day has taken on a whole new meaning. Much like every other event in our lives, I put off doing anything about it until the last possible minute. Then, I go to the store and literally take the last three boxes of valentine cards right out from under some other poor mom's nose. Hey, lady - you snooze, you lose. I'm sorry you needed to find your glasses in order to read the boxes. Good luck with the 32 Teletubbies valentines I left you with, four eyes. (I'm not sure why I just turned into a 5th grade boy from the 1950's, there - sorry.)


I was so excited that the cards I picked out were actually appropriate for the kids: Animal Planet for Patrick and Disney Princess for Lucy and Sophie. Not only that, but they even came with little lollipops you could stick into them. Am I the coolest, or what? (Don't answer that. Especially if you were handcrafting beautiful, homemade valentines all week.) Of course, Patrick and Lucy were horrified that I forgot that there is a strict 'no food' policy at their school. So, Sophie happily stuck the lollipops into her valentines and now I have 60 lollipops hiding in my house. They'll have to end up in the trash because I have issues and can't handle sticky things. (I know, I really didn't think this '5 kids' thing through, did I?) But, I digress...

I set up a Valentine's Day sweatshop at the dining room table. The three big kids were so excited to sit and write their names over and over on each card. All I could hear was, "Sophie M., Sophie M., Sophie M..."

Lucy managed to remember all of her classmates since I lost her list.

Sophie informed Lucy that writing valentines was a dressy occasion.

Patrick got right to work writing out one for each child and his teachers.

Of course, I spent the night making sure everyone had their red shirt to wear to school. My Catholic school kids cherish 'no uniform' days. I even laid out red and pink shirts for Sean and Charlotte in honor of the holiday. A little funny back story: Sean LOVES turtlenecks. He calls them "neck shirts." He was so excited on Valentine's Day morning when he was getting dressed to be wearing his "red neck shirt." Say it fast. It's funny.

In all, it was a good fake holiday. The kids came home with a billion tiny valentines which will now take up residence in every nook and cranny in my house. I'm sure to be throwing them away in time for Christmas. (Who am I kidding? I bet if I looked hard enough, I could find some of last year's valentines tucked away somewhere.)

Happy Valentine's Day!

I even got my favorite gerber daisies in addition to the Hershey bar that was as big as my head.

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