It’s about Love

Wow I cannot believe it is Saturday. I do not know where this week went. You know this week had Valentine’s Day and Love Day, a trip to the mechanics for a pickup, a tow and another trip to pick up a vehicle. All afterschool was cancelled on Thursday which was really nice. Turned out that book club was cancelled early in the day so Elizabeth did stop reading mostly out of protest. She made a great deal of progress on reading this book and now she will wait to finish it. I think a lot of people thought that they had one more week to read the book!

I said I would share what we did for Valentine’s Day at Girl scouts. Most of the credit goes to my amazing co-leader, Jaime. I can’t say enough good things about her. The best thing I ever did was ask her to be the co-leader for our troop (now troops) and she has become a great friend over the years. She puts up with my crazy, and helps to ground me when I am getting to over the top. She is creative and patient, exciting and kind. What more would you want out of a mechanic. Did I forget to mention that? She is my mechanic, one of the reasons I only feel like I am going to throw up when the vehicles break, but I never really do. When I count my blessings she is certainly one of them.

So for Valentine’s Day we wanted something special because it was the actual holiday. Early in the year we made plans for what we were going to do during the year and Valentine’s Day was planned based on the boxes and tissue paper Jaime had. We decided to mold chocolate. This is a fairly easy process in the comfort of your kitchen, actually had dipped strawberries for the teachers earlier in the day. We then added dipped pretzels and decorated cupcakes. Jaime then decided brownies were fun to decorate as well. Being the amazing person she is she made the cupcakes, and brownies and all the different frostings. She showed the girls how to use the decorator bags and how roses were made. We let them make dual colored hearts and dip pretzel sticks that they got to put sprinkles and other things on. If anyone has made chocolate with kids you know it is not the neatest activity. Well add to that we had to do it with 15 girls (and a bunch of sibling boys!) and we really had no good method for melting the chocolate. None the less, the girls seemed to have a great time and certainly enjoyed their creations! I just hope that these things are making memories for them like making chocolate in first grade is a memory that has lasted all this time. Next week is easy, we go to the movies! Nice and neat, and no planning need. Okay that is a lie, I have to coordinate it all, and make sure that we have all the permission slips in. Oh and I need to ensure we get there on time, not my strong point and each time we add a kid it gets worse!! A local paper said did an article on boy scouts and said that about 75% of the work done at home is for the Boys Scout troop, I wish I had that amount of time for Girl Scouts, but I need to split myself between Girl Scouts, CCD, Swim, Kids and Work (I work at home, I will talk about that one day. I much as it is a pain, it is a blessing for many reasons. Imagine that work a blessing.)

Now I promised I would tell you about Love Day. I am not sure if it happens around you, but it seems if we do it one year and it was a success, it becomes a tradition. (It helps to explain why we give out teacher’s gifts for the first day, Christmas, Valentine’s Day, St. Patrick’s Day and the last day. You will have to stay tuned to learn why St. Patrick’s Day is a gift giving holiday!) Years ago, when the girls were little, we had a very bad Valentine’s Day. It was one of those days that nothing lives up to what you expect and each part just makes the next worse. The worst part was actually the next morning when Joe said that what was the worst for him was he did not even get a card. It made me think about how selfish I was being. Things were not just as I pictured so I was pouty not thinking about the effort that was put in, or about how others perceptions were different. It was at that moment that I decided Valentine’s Day was not a big enough of a holiday to celebrate together, that the Dads and husbands need their own holiday. I was at home with two little ones so I had to become creative. Everyone at my house loves my meatloaf, which I make to resemble a bundt pan, so I shaped it like a heart. I made real mash potatoes, and set the table with a table cloth and the fancy dishes. Elizabeth said it could not be a special day without dessert so I went into the cabinets and we made a dessert together. When Joe came home he saw the table set, and the dinner cooking and wondered what was going on. The girls were excited to tell him it was Love Day, a day to celebrate how much they love their daddy. This was 7 or 8 years ago, but the tradition has lived on ever since. The kids all look forward to celebrating this special day. We normally have meatloaf, but I bet there were years we had something different. Every year the kids make a card and a present. Every year it is and will be a holiday in our house and hopefully my children will bring it with them to their home. Maybe it seems silly to people on the outside, like when I call my mother in law and say I need vegetables for Love Day, or when I tell me friends I need to get home to make Love Day dinner, but I hope that this shows Joe how important he is to me, to all of us. Our traditions are what is important to us, what make our family special and different from all the others. Our traditions help make use the family we want to be….at least we can hope, because you know every day really should be love day.