I am farther behind than I wanted to be on my holiday posts, but that’s what happens when the house gets sick over and over. No time to do any sort of writing, or cleaning, or being responsible because as a mom you end up taking care of everyone, and then getting sick yourself and taking care of yourself. But I digress, this post is not about that. This post is how we spent Valentine’s Day 2020.
Valentine’s Day is not a big deal in this house, it never has been, I don’t know if it ever will be. I’ve never really been one to celebrate the day, probably because I never really had anyone to celebrate it with when I was younger. Then I made the mistake of telling my husband that I thought it was a stupid Hallmark holiday. And he took me at my word, and we have never celebrated the day, even though now I’m sort of coming around to it. That’s what I get for opening up my big mouth at the start of our relationship. Ha-ha
Once Cameron was born, I did start to see Valentine’s day in a little different way, especially because my husband showers her with love, so that she knows how she should be treated by all men. Of course, her daddy will always be her first love, and her first Valentine. So we have started a tradition where my husband buys her some flowers, and then some sort of chocolate or fruit. The first year it was some sort of wildflower and chocolate covered strawberries, and then this year it was tulips and a candy covered apple. (Side note, he didn’t do it for her first Valentine’s day for two reasons, we were out of town, and she was 4 months old)
This year Cameron was also at a new school, as I’ve mentioned in many previous posts. They through a Valentine’s Day party and also exchanged cards with the class. This was a first for me to have to go and buy Valentine’s Day cards for a class, and the options seemed endless. Luckily, I was able to pick whatever cards I thought would be best for Cameron’s class, since she didn’t have much of an opinion. I got “cute animals” with funny pun-like sayings and I thought they were perfect. They made little “mailboxes” in class earlier in the week so that they had a place to put all the cards from their classmates. It was nice because we didn’t have to address the cards, we just brought them into class. So we sort of got a little bit of a reprieve because I know those long evenings of having to address everything to the class are coming slowly but surely as she gets older.
As I stated above, they were having a Valentine’s Day party in class at school during the afternoon of Valentine’s Day. They had a sign up sheet on the door during the week where parents could sign up to bring in things for the party. I signed up for string cheese, plates, and “other” where I had this brilliant idea to send in this sort of trail mix, but a little different since it had to be egg free and nut free. I figured, I could make it out of pretzels, chocolate chips, craisins, and banana chips. Easy peasy right? WRONG! I had the biggest mom fail and found myself scrounging through my pantry for things to use at 8:15pm the night before the party.
Here is why it was a mom fail. Like I said, the stuff needed to be nut free, and egg free due to classroom allergies. I figured that pretzels, chocolate chips, dried banana chips, and craisins were all good to go in terms being nut and egg free. I began to open the bags and containers, and was throwing everything into one big bowl so I could just scoop a cup full into each of the treat bags I had gotten for my trail mix. What I should have done first, was double check all of the containers, because the dried banana chips MAY have been packaged on a contaminated surface. Had I read that first, I could have just left out the chips and gone with pretzels, craisins, and chocolate chips. But no, I had to dump everything into a bowl therefore possibly contaminating all the other ingredients, because knowing my luck, that would have been the package of banana chips that did come in contact with eggs or nuts, and I did not want to be THAT mom. So now, I had no banana chips, no pretzels, very little chocolate chips, and some craisins. That is not enough to make a trail mix of sorts, but I didn’t want to not send anything since I felt I would be letting the class down since I did sign up to bring an “other” item. So here I am, going through my pantry for anything that doesn’t have nuts or eggs in the ingredients, that I could throw into a treat bag and call it trail mix. I came up with animal crackers and goldfish. So craisins, goldfish, and animal crackers because my great idea trail mix. I don’t know if the kids ate them, I know the teachers sent them home with the kids, so I wouldn’t be shocked if the parents didn’t throw them away. Next year though, I will stick to what’s on the list, or pay better attention to the ingredients.
Other than that, it was a fairly boring day. My husband was coming back into town from a work trip, I had to work, and was starting to feel a little under the weather. But I’m glad Cameron was able to pass out cards to her class, and enjoy a class party. I am really loving that the school makes all these holidays special for the kids.
