To Be or Not to . . . "Be Mine"

Despite my general attitude of "any excuse for a party!" I am not sure how I feel about Valentine's Day. Like most holidays in the U.S., it has become overly-commercialized and is now more a celebration of consumerism than love. Lena and I have never chosen to recognize Valentine's Day in our relationship (or rather, we try to take on the attitude that "every day is Valentine's Day"), but I am amazed by the extent to which the general public seems to have bought-in.

I'm especially ambivalent about the school celebration of Valentine's Day. I understand that the kids' teachers see it as a literacy project: the kids get to address valentines to each of their classmates, and then deliver them to the correct bag. But it seems that the literacy component is only a very small part of the whole experience. A couple of weeks ago, each of the kids' teachers sent home a list of all of the names of the children in each classroom so that we would be sure to make enough valentines for everyone. I looked at the list of names, and did not feel inspired.

Lukas contemplating his class list

Jasper and Lukas didn't feel particularly inspired either. But, we all reasoned together that if they chose not to make valentines (Lukas was quick to remind us all throughout the process that "it is a choice!") they would probably feel really sad and left-out during the school celebration. So I scrounged up some craft materials (card stock, craft sticks and googly eyes), and we set up a valentine-making station on the dining room table.

Jaz in the midst of Valentine production

Jaz made a prototype, and then Lena and I helped to mass-produce the valentines so that Jaz could focus on writing kids' names on them.

This valentine is feeling ambivalent about Valentine's Day too.

Lukas couldn't quite motivate himself to do any valentine-making whatsoever, so Lena and I made enough of Jaz's design for Luke's class as well. And then Jaz signed the ones for Luke's classmates: "from Lukas." By Friday morning, both Luke and Jaz had a bag full of googly-eyed hearts-on-sticks for the kids in their class, yet it was hard to call the experience a total success. Lena and I had done most of the valentine-making, and on a scale from 1 to 10, I'd say the kids' excitement level was at about 2.

I felt even less enthused about the school Valentine's Day celebration when the kids came home on Friday afternoon, in tears about the unfairness of the fact that Lukas had received two halogram valentines, and Jaz hadn't gotten any. I was shocked (and somewhat horrified) by how many parents had chosen to purchase ready-made valentines with character pictures on them (you know, instead of making the valentines for their kids the way Lena and I had). Maybe it's just me, but I think a store-bought card with a picture of a Storm Trooper on it is about as far from the original intent of Valentine's Day as one can get.

Yesterday morning (Ferbruary 14th), Zeben woke up with pink eye (how fitting!), and I decided that despite my bah-humbug attitude about Valentine's Day, I would go all out and make heart-shaped pancakes for breakfast (we've had the heart-shaped pancake molds for years, but never used them before). As an extra special treat, I added mini chocolate chips to the pancakes instead of our usual default of mini blueberries.

The kids very much enjoyed watching the pancake hearts
cooking on the griddle
while nibbling on some spare mini chocolate chips.

But when it came time to eat the pancakes? Not so much enjoyment going on. Lukas and Jasper both burst into tears, complaining that they didn't want to eat chocolate in their pancakes. Oh the horror! Blueberries go in pancakes, not chocolate chips! When we asked them why they didn't say anything earlier, like for instance when they were watching us cook the pancakes, Jaz sobbed, "well I knew you were making chocolate chip pancakes, but I thought you'd know that I still wanted blueberry pancakes!" Apparently my mind-reading skills were not up to par on this particular Valentine's Day.

A very disappointed Lukas

So Lena and I ate the (delicious) heart-shaped chocolate-chip pancakes all by ourselves, and then I resolved to try and save the rest of the day by taking the kids to the library to check out a movie. We actually got a couple of movies, one for the kids to watch as soon as we got home, and one for us all to watch later that night, take 2 on "Special Valentine's Day Treat." Lena was asleep when we got back from the library, and I decided to surprise my lovely wife by getting our old futon couch out of my mom's basement, and setting it up in the living room (she hasn't ever adjusted to the couch-free living room set-up, and Valentine's Day seemed like an appropriate time to remedy the situation). I moved the train table back up into the kids' bedroom, and put the futon frame together in its place. It makes so much more sense than the blue couch we had there before because it takes up less space and can convert to a guest bed (and isn't covered with the most-annoying dust-attracting material nor is it likely to get turned into a daily "couch fort" (two of my least favorite things about the blue couch)).

Lena was thrilled when she woke up from her pregnant afternoon slumber and discovered that she'd no longer have a reason to sigh and complain about our living room every evening, and we all enjoyed cozying up on the couch together after dinner to watch "Duma," a love story of sorts about a boy and his pet cheetah.

My Sweet Family
(living room set-up #3)

Our second attempt at doing something special was a big hit, and we ended the day full of love and appreciation for our sweet little chocolate-chip-pancake-hating children. I'm still not sure how I feel about Valentine's Day, but the good news is I've got 364 days before I need to think about it again.