Potato Prints, Classroom Casanovas, & Walmart Lingerie

Valentine’s Day is yet another day that highlights how much my life has changed since my kiddos came along.  The first Valentine’s Day that A.J. and I were dating was filled with all the quintessential surprises of love in the early stages.  It happened to fall on a Friday which was perfect.  The day started out on a high note with the gift of a silver Tiffany bracelet with a heart charm on it.  I was teaching art at an elementary school at the time and joked to A.J. that I wanted him to dress as an ape and deliver flowers to my classroom.  Well, he came pretty close- he did have flowers sent and along with them was a cute little stuffed monkey.  They came hand delivered by my principal to my classroom door.  The school I was teaching at was a Catholic school and I was one of the younger teachers so everyone got a kick out of seeing me in dating mode especially after hearing about several of my dating disasters prior to A.J.  I was on floating through my day.  We concluded our first Valentine’s Day with an awesome romantic dinner at a steak restaurant capped off with a bottle of red that cost more than our dinners combined- that was a big OOPS!  A.J. still reminds me about it to this day.  In my defense, it did taste pretty good when the waiter brought us a sample of it.  How would I know how much it cost?! 

Now let’s fast forward time nine years, one dog, and four kids later.  I went out to dinner Monday night with some girlfriends for a much needed Mommy escape.  Spent the later part of that night finishing up Josie’s and Jimmy’s home-made Valentine’s for their classes.  They had done the artsy part of the cards earlier that afternoon with me(potato prints) and I was doing the labeling.  Got up extra early yesterday to assemble the kids’ Valentine’s bags from me and A.J.  Then got the kids up to rush them through opening their shirts which I think I was more excited about then they were.  Let’s be honest- all that was on their minds was CANDY!!!!  My short-attention-spanned Sawyer even acted surprised when he opened his card which he had picked out the day before with me and Bart at Walmart.  The kids fought over who got to hand A.J. his presents and cards.  They managed to lose the card I had gotten him.  We wasted ten minutes looking for it until I saw the white of the envelope poking out from under the stove. 

Note to my mom if she should read this, skip ahead to the next paragraph at this point!! I tell A.J. he will get one present later- this being a cute lingerie set I bought at Walmart for myself.  Yes, I said Walmart.  I got it when I had Sawyer and Bart with me on Monday and I guarantee the lady who happened to be shopping next to me was thinking to herself-“lady, lay off the lingerie and find the birth control!”  She really would have thought this if I had the oldest two with me.  Yes, gone are the days of spending exorbitant amounts of money on super silky lingerie at Victoria’s Secret though the thought crossed my mind.  Then the reality of taking at least two children with me into that store popped into my head, visions of bras and panties being hurled like missiles across the store, and the decision became crystal clear. 

Jimmy kept asking “where is your gift, Mommy?”  To which I replied “I am sure Daddy will be bringing it later.”  To which A.J. replied “I thought we agreed we weren’t doing any gifts this year.”  Ah still the romantic I fell for!  I then had to rush Josie through signing all 24 of her Valentine’s before school, stuffing them into envelopes, and packing it all in her backpack.  You or I could sign our names in about a few seconds per card.  Getting a six year old to sign her name in purplish pink marker twenty-four times with the distraction of her brothers around her and the taunting of a bag of goodies on the counter next to her is as painful as it gets.    But it got done.  And I managed to get a cute picture on my phone of my little love Monkey before she bolted out the door to school.  I don’t think I could have gotten any more hearts on that girl’s clothing if I tried- heart tights, hearts on her little monkey shirt, a rainbow pattern of hearts on her skort.  And the colors...She would have given Madonna and Cyndi Lauper a run for their money back in the eighties.  Do the usual assembly line of getting my goonies(the boys) ready to take Jimmy to school.  Being the crazy facebook obsessed mom I am, I attempt to get pics of all the boys in their Valentine’s shirts, Bart in his onesie.  Because we all like to show off our kids and facebook is the ultimate redemption for spending so much time finding the cute little clothes we force our kids to wear. 

Later in the morning, my mom and I take Bart and Sawyer to Jimmy’s preschool for his Valentine’s Day party.  Get a frantic call on our way from my mother-in-law who is supposed to be meeting us there that the road is blocked heading into the school the way she comes due to the rescue squad needing to medevac someone from some sort of accident.  Mother-in-law had been re-routed and was having trouble figuring out which way to go and then ended up heading out towards the next big town.  Try to be polite and not cut her off, but am running late myself and just need to get to this party since the classes always do the cute singing thing first and I have missed this on one or two occasions because of my perpetual lateness.  Make it to preschool party and they delayed singing songs because of the road block issue anyways.

Spent the rest of the preschool party being informed by not one but two mothers of girls in Jimmy’s class how smitten their little girls are with Jimmy.  I had been forewarned about Jimmy’s charms as his teacher told me during our conference last month that Jimmy is the Classroom Casanova. The one mother seems a bit overzealous about her daughter’s love for Jimmy and sounds like she is ready to arrange a marriage- stalker much?  One of his teachers tells me that earlier in the school day before the parents/grandparents came, the kids were saying what they “loved” and one of these two little girls said “Jimmy”.  The boy refuses to talk when I am there- not sure where this animal magnetism comes from?  Though it does make A.J., a past prom king, quite proud.

The rest of our day is status quo with a smidge of extra sugar on top.  Okay, a ton of sugar.  My serenity arrives home a bit late with carryout from a little Italian place nearby, grocery store roses, a Whitman’s sampler, and a three foot wide heart-shaped balloon that plays “Everlasting Love”.  The kids stay up a bit later than usual due to all the sugar and two exhausted parents.  We end the evening watching a Valentine’s rerun of “The Wonder Years” followed up by a random rerun of “Family Ties”. 

Here’s to hoping your Valentine’s Day was filled with the simplest things that can bring you the happiest heart!