My Valentine's Day Debacle

Have you seen the ballot for "Worst Mom of the Year" award? If my name isn't already on it, consider me a strong write-in candidate.

I forgot Valentines. Not Valentine's Day, per say. No, for that I dressed Faith up like Pinkalicious.

Doesn't she looked thrilled? Credit for the shirt goes to Aunt Donna and my husband. I just thought of it and they executed.

 I also baked two dozen cupcakes for work and fretted about Rob's present.

In between my best efforts to accomplish the things above and train for 10 degree races, read the Hunger Games series, keep my house from looking like it was ransacked (#fail) and put off my thesis for another month, I missed it.

You know what I'm talking about. "The sheet." (Dun dun dun).

When I picked Faith up from daycare on Valentine's Day, her teacher handed me all her Valentines. (Imagine the look on my face and the horror in my heart as I didn't know the kids were exchanging Valentines).

I told them I never got the sheet. They were sure they gave it to me. My mom picked up Faith twice and Rob once in the past month. For sure they'd dropped the ball. Because it wasn't me. After calling them both, somewhat hysterically, it was confirmed. They never saw such a sheet. I ran back into the daycare, sure that they must have passed the sheet around the week Faith was out with Pneumonia. One teacher smiled and nodded and said that must've been it. But the owner, God love her, wouldn't let me believe that. "No, we would've kept it in her folder and it would have gone home the next week," she told me very matter-of-factly.

In the very back of my mind, the cornery, cobweby one, the world's tiniest lightbulb clicked on. There was a small chance, miniscule really, that they had given me the sheet. I left a pile of Faith's "artwork" in the backseat of my car awhile ago, but I never saw a Valentine's Day sheet. It can't be back there, I told myself. I checked, and sure enough, right there, under two pieces of paper with one scribble on them each, I found it. Damn you, sheet. How did I miss you the first time?

It didn't matter though, because Faith had already missed out on distributing her Valentines. All the kids were now at home, opening them and there wasn't one from my little girl. The thought of her not partaking in the party broke. my. heart. I called my mom bawling. She assured me Faith was too young to notice. Still, I felt like a failure. How could I let her down like this?

Tentatively, I helped Faith open her Valentines. Of course, some moms went overboard. Especially you, Lux's mom, who gave out scratch and smell cards. Ours was garlic and it was gross!

Seriously? A melted crayon heart? Cough-overachiever-cough.

I was not about to let this go. So I did what any insane, guilt-ridden mother would do. I racked my brain for ideas and proceeded to write a cheesy apology poem 26 times. I attached each of them to 26 boxes of grape juice, which I made my husband pick up at approximately 11 o'clock at night on his way home from basketball. That there, was Valentine's Day present enough for me.

In case you can't read that, it says (as I hang my head in shame)
"My mommy missed the memo,
she's really sorry this is late.
But I loved all my Valentines,
and think you're really "grape."

Get it, great/grape? If you don't, feel free not to tell me. Let me have this small victory. I already feel bad enough and am already thinking about how to overachieve the overachievers next year. This motherhood stuff is exhausting.

In other news, I'm already preparing for St. Patrick's Day...

Get it? ;)

Valentine's Day (A man's take)

I've never been much for Valentine's Day. I've done the roses, candy, gifts, cards thing with Nicole before, but I am a guy. For the most part, I feel that Valentine's Day has become a "buy me this or you don't get that" holiday for most people. Nicole, in many respects, has the feeling that "if you get me something from the heart, then I will continue loving you forever." That's my guess anyway.

I had decided for this year to make an animated video of refrigerator magnets moving and spelling out "I love you" and "Happy Valentines Day". It was kind of dorky and cute, just like me. *PS - We have already exchanged gifts so this isn't blowing the surprise. Had it not been such low quality, I would show it to you here.

But today Nicole and I did a little exchange (she got me a running/training shirt; I got her a bottle of wine and cards from me, Howie, and Faith).  I knew Nicole was also doing a video of some sorts; come on, we were both Journalists. This is it (the quality of photo is because of the size of file):

Now, I don't get sappy, but this is good. I think it's very important to say that I love my wife very, very much. She does so much for me, for Faith, and for our family that my words and blog posts don't do justice. This video was basically a time line of our lives together, and it brought a tear to my eye. She understands that Valentine's Day isn't just an excuse to buy a card and then ya know. Maybe one day I'll understand that a little more too. This did help.

To finish it off: guys, do the extra something for your girls. Girls, do the minimal for your guys. In both cases, remind them that you don't need a specific date to show that you love them.

Wow, that was about as sappy as I get.

~Rob