Valentine's Day the "Two small children and no babysitter" Way

My husband and I did Valentine's Day the "two small children and no babysitter" way. We went out to dinner Friday night to avoid the crowds with our two small children in tow. I think we may have gotten to the restaurant at 5:30 too. Feel the romance.

On Valentine's Day, we decided to exit the house with the children. We'd been trying to make it to the zoo for like a month. The weather kept toying with us though. The day the weather was perfect we didn't realize it was going to be that perfect until mid afternoon. The next weekend we had everyone dressed and walking out the door only to realize it was drizzling and overcast. This weekend when it was kind of chilly I let my husband convince me that it would warm up when the sun came out and we piled into the car anyway. Except it didn't warm up. And he talked me out of the heavy winter coats. And it was an Arctic tundra.

On the plus side, no crowd. On the downside, my three year old was semi shivering while gripping the cold metal pole riding the merry go round. I know. Who gets on the merry go round when everyone's cold to begin with? I'll tell you who. Us. So there. We rode the train too. Because we laugh in the face of drippy noses and red cheeks. Those kids need to learn to toughen up anyway. They're lucky we don't make them walk uphill in the snow to get to the zoo, too.

After the zoo and lunch with my mom, we headed home and let the kids eat all the candy their hearts desired right up until our three year old began projectile puking all over the kitchen. While carrying the kid to the bathroom and aiming his face at the toilet, I did a fair amount of screaming. Not wenchy, "Get the hell in here and help me" screaming so much as "Holy guacamole the presence of vomit stresses me out" screaming.

My husband would like everyone to know the kid's fine and I completely overreacted. I would like everyone to know my husband once closed the bathroom door and went back to bed while I was throwing up. Okay, so now my husband would like everyone to know that has nothing to do with anything and, besides, he got me a glass of water and a washcloth and asked if I needed anything else before he closed the door. Furthermore, he'd like it noted for the record that it was five years ago and that even mentioning it is a violation of the statute of limitations on thoughtless spousal acts which everyone knows is three years tops. Whatever. I do not acknowledge that statute of limitations therefore it does not exist. But I digress.

So I flipped out a bit and the house smelled like puke and, lo, it was romantic day. Luckily, I've decided Valentine's Day is for the kids now anyway. Here they are with their bags full of valentines from school:

Seriously. Makes me remember covering a Kleenex box with construction paper as a kid. So sweet. Excuse me while I dab my eyes.

For anyone concerned about whether or not we wasted hours of our lives making homemade Valentines again this year, never fear. Pretending you're crafty is a terminal disease. Here's the card I made my husband with my own two hands:

And here's one of the cards I helped the newest Kindergartner make for her class:

The writing's hard to see because my copywriter opted for pencil after several typos. The pencils taped to the back were supposed to be inserted through little holes to make them look like arrows. But it's not like kids care about pencils anyway what with all the candy getting handed out so I decided oh well. And what's up my kid was the only kid in her class giving out homemade valentine's? What is the world coming to? Or perhaps a better question would be, how far into left field have I wandered? Oh, well. Here's my homemade valentine maker hard at work:

Before she clocked in for work, she had to prep the work stations by cutting out heart shaped name tags for everyone's chair:

Almost as wacky as the gift cards but cute. And when I sat in my husband's chair she actually got up and switched the name tags. I love that more than I should.

The night before my son's class party, I realized that we'd forgotten to make his class any. I'm an equal opportunity offender though. So if one kid's going to hand out raggedy homemade crap to her classmates I think we all know that other kids going to need some raggedy homemade crap to hand out too. So my husband and I temporarily swapped bodies and he led the crafting brigade. Dude's not into crafting so imagine my shock when he came up with a plan and did all the haphazard paper cutting and gluing. I tried to suggest tape but he explained that real men don't use scotch tape when they craft. They use old school white Elmers and they get it all over the table while they are doing it and that's just the price of doing business. Here he is cutting out the hearts:

Some ladies want a guy that'll bring you roses and chocolates. I say, hold out for a guy that's willing to craft homemade valentines for your kid. The three year old did his best to assist. That included assisting with gluing and trying to steal the scissors. Here's his finished product:

I like to think the black Sharpie writing across the front gives it that special "last minute thrown together 30 minutes before bedtime" look. The next day, I felt a little bad for not spending more time making them fabulous. Mostly I felt bad for not making his teacher a 2 carat diamond ring for Valentine's Day. Because she took the time to make me this:

It says, "My hand and my heart are yours!" She even laminated it. I know. The laminating was a nice "Hang it in your office until they graduate from college" touch. I plan to hang it next to his sister's hand prints and force them both to hold their hands up to them to see how big they've gotten every time they visit me at work. Then I'll blink away tears and tell them sappy stuff like how they're never allowed to leave me and how I'll die if they forget to call me. Should make for good times.

So, in summary, Valentine's Day weekend was pretty sweet but it smelled like vomit. I'm capping it off today with a day off from work. Paid holiday actually. But the kids still have school so it's a total freebie day for me. Holla. So far the highlight of my day off has been debating whether I should go shopping for shoes I don't need or go to the movies for the first time in 2009. Decisions, decisions!