Parent of the Year, it's in someone else's BAG!
The First-Time Mother's Valentines Experience:
Spend several hours making special Valentine sacks filled to the top with fun treats for your 2-year-old to hand out on Valentine's Day at their school. Customize each sack with the classmate's name in a little "heart."Stay up until very late the night before making pink rice crispy treats cut in the shape of a perfect heart.
Wake up early the morning of the party, so you can dress both you and your adorable daughter in reds and pinks. Leave early for her school so that you can stop off at the store and buy both teachers a lovely (and expensive) potted plant in a cute Valentine's pot.
Arrive early to the party and distribute all the goodies beaming with Heart-Day love. Stand back and watch adorable child pose for the many pictures you and the teachers take. Hold back tears. This is your son/daughter's first Valentines party at school. Their first Valentines for friends. Their first heart-shaped iced cookie made by a teacher. Oh...it is just all so special!
Begrudgingly leave for home 15 minutes after the party was supposed to be over, looking over your shoulder as you go and feeling that "they're growing up too fast" emotion bubbling up once again. Go home a cry a little.
The Second-Time Mother's Valentines Experience:
Realize the day before the party that you have not filled out the Valentine's for your daughter. Address the Valentines (bought two days before at Walgreen's on sale) as from your daughter, but leave the "To" blank. (It just makes it easier for distributing them.)
The morning of the party, rush to find your daughter's only heart shirt and find that the only pants that work with it are some hand-me-down ones that had a small hole in the knee just one week ago. (Say a prayer of thankfulness that you actually stitched that hole, albeit somewhat sloppily, earlier in the week.)
Decide to leave late for school since the party doesn't start until 30 minutes after school starts. Realize at the time that you need to leave, that you never got treats to go with the Valentine. Decide it is better to stop and get those and be even later.
Arrive at school for the party, where you see lots of little girls in more dressy dresses than your child wears to church. Notice moms taking careful turn to put each Valentine "gift" in the already overloaded Valentine sack.
Help your daughter put her measly Princess Valentines with the lollipop attached into the bag, realizing that she is the only one who did not give out a gift "sack" of goodies. Daughter refuses to have her picture taken, so you stand at the back watching the other moms happily pose with their first born, glistening eyes as they hold back their tears at this momentous time.
Glance at your watch...15 minutes until you go home and the scrapbookers come to your house to play! Then, start stressing about your son's Valentine's party that you're coordinating as Room Mom for his 1st grade class.
Help the teachers hand out food while other moms continue to "glisten." Give lots of kisses and hugs to your little girl and leave soon after. Check the reflection in the window as you leave, to see if the word "BOOB" is on your forehead and you did not realize it. Feel extreme guilt for not going overboard as the other parents did, and not doing an extra special gift for the teachers. Then feel annoyed that you felt that guilt at all because, darn it, you did what you had always done for Valentines and it seemed special before you saw what everyone else had done.
Rush home to scrapbooking group. Instead of scrapbooking, cut out Valentines Bingo cards for son's party and create birthday invitations for father's surprise party. Leave early to pick up and spend too much money at Walgreen's buying the Dove Valentine's chocolate roses for your daughter's teachers and your son's for the next day. (Darn that guilt under peer pressure. Darn it!)
Try to cut yourself some slack. This is not your first child and you don't get as carried away, although you still love your daughter dearly. Decide that Parent of the Year award is definitely out of the works for you now...
Spend several hours making special Valentine sacks filled to the top with fun treats for your 2-year-old to hand out on Valentine's Day at their school. Customize each sack with the classmate's name in a little "heart."Stay up until very late the night before making pink rice crispy treats cut in the shape of a perfect heart.
Wake up early the morning of the party, so you can dress both you and your adorable daughter in reds and pinks. Leave early for her school so that you can stop off at the store and buy both teachers a lovely (and expensive) potted plant in a cute Valentine's pot.
Arrive early to the party and distribute all the goodies beaming with Heart-Day love. Stand back and watch adorable child pose for the many pictures you and the teachers take. Hold back tears. This is your son/daughter's first Valentines party at school. Their first Valentines for friends. Their first heart-shaped iced cookie made by a teacher. Oh...it is just all so special!
Begrudgingly leave for home 15 minutes after the party was supposed to be over, looking over your shoulder as you go and feeling that "they're growing up too fast" emotion bubbling up once again. Go home a cry a little.
The Second-Time Mother's Valentines Experience:
Realize the day before the party that you have not filled out the Valentine's for your daughter. Address the Valentines (bought two days before at Walgreen's on sale) as from your daughter, but leave the "To" blank. (It just makes it easier for distributing them.)
The morning of the party, rush to find your daughter's only heart shirt and find that the only pants that work with it are some hand-me-down ones that had a small hole in the knee just one week ago. (Say a prayer of thankfulness that you actually stitched that hole, albeit somewhat sloppily, earlier in the week.)
Decide to leave late for school since the party doesn't start until 30 minutes after school starts. Realize at the time that you need to leave, that you never got treats to go with the Valentine. Decide it is better to stop and get those and be even later.
Arrive at school for the party, where you see lots of little girls in more dressy dresses than your child wears to church. Notice moms taking careful turn to put each Valentine "gift" in the already overloaded Valentine sack.
Help your daughter put her measly Princess Valentines with the lollipop attached into the bag, realizing that she is the only one who did not give out a gift "sack" of goodies. Daughter refuses to have her picture taken, so you stand at the back watching the other moms happily pose with their first born, glistening eyes as they hold back their tears at this momentous time.
Glance at your watch...15 minutes until you go home and the scrapbookers come to your house to play! Then, start stressing about your son's Valentine's party that you're coordinating as Room Mom for his 1st grade class.
Help the teachers hand out food while other moms continue to "glisten." Give lots of kisses and hugs to your little girl and leave soon after. Check the reflection in the window as you leave, to see if the word "BOOB" is on your forehead and you did not realize it. Feel extreme guilt for not going overboard as the other parents did, and not doing an extra special gift for the teachers. Then feel annoyed that you felt that guilt at all because, darn it, you did what you had always done for Valentines and it seemed special before you saw what everyone else had done.
Rush home to scrapbooking group. Instead of scrapbooking, cut out Valentines Bingo cards for son's party and create birthday invitations for father's surprise party. Leave early to pick up and spend too much money at Walgreen's buying the Dove Valentine's chocolate roses for your daughter's teachers and your son's for the next day. (Darn that guilt under peer pressure. Darn it!)
Try to cut yourself some slack. This is not your first child and you don't get as carried away, although you still love your daughter dearly. Decide that Parent of the Year award is definitely out of the works for you now...
Labels: holidays, school, Valentines Day
posted by Crazy MomCat @ 6:10 PM
5 Comments:
My second child, should there be one, is screwed. I am already at stage 2 with my very first Valentine's day. We did the cheap dollar store Valentines with a sucker taped to them. I picked up a bag of pre-cut cheese cubes at the store as our party contribution.
Here's the way I justify it:
1) THEY CAN'T READ
2) THEY WILL EAT CHEESE OR NOT, it doesn't matter to me
Oh my goodness....I think you should get an award for perservance. Come see my new grandchild....3 weeks old and already reading!
You did more than I ever did! MAybe it's because I have all boys but V day has never been a priority for me. But this year it has been exhausting! Trying to get them to help out filling in the to/from spaces is like pulling teeth! And I wore myself out yesterday making cookies/cupcakes for our playgroup party and I don't know if anyone even noticed...
Please tell me we aren't expected to do anything for St. Patrick's day!!!!!
This was too funny! I think my sister and I were always Stage 2 Valentine's gift givers. Oh well, take some B-12, that will help with the guilt, or so I learned on House last night ;)
LOL!!! I was always a stage 3 mom... forgot it all every year. They got store bought valentines - purchased the year before for pennies. They like to get them, not read them. I usually chucked them the minute they got home from school....
Bad bad mommy I am...
LBC
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