Would You Be My Valentine?

I'm about to share with you one of my deepest, darkest secrets. Are you ready? First we must travel back to a specific moment in time when I was pregnant with Amaya and Chase was going to school a couple of days a week. Perhaps you remember how I was when I was pregnant? The term basket case would seem appropriate here. I can't really be blamed for my insanity as it was directly caused by the alien that was growing inside of me. I maintain the theory that the little gremlin was spiking my blood with some sort of elixir that turned me into a scatterbrained, energy-less droid. I think she did it via reverse osmosis or something.

Did you catch my attempts at building up an excuse there? Preemptive strike, that's my preferred MO. I hope it worked because what happened two years ago is this: I completely forgot to send Valentines to school with Chase. No wait, forgot would imply that I actually had thought to do it at one time, when in truth the red holiday was nowhere on my radar. What’s really sad in all that is that I was an elementary school teacher for heaven’s sake. It’s not like I was unaware of the protocol. So there you have it--my deep, dark secret. I am that mother.

So last year, I overcompensated by stuffing treat bags so full of chocolates that the seams were near bursting. Then I felt another wave of guilt as I looked at all of the junk that came home with Chase February 14 and nearly hyperventilated. No kid needs to eat that much candy especially on the heels of Halloween, Thanksgiving, & Christmas.

So this year, well I just nearly lost my mind is what I did. I scoured the Oriental Trading catalog looking for something not food related to give as Valentines. Sure, there were lots of really cute stuffed bears and whirly gigs, but since I had a list of 60 students between Chase & Amaya, that wasn’t really what you could call cost effective. What to do, what to do?

This is what I came up with. I just printed out the circle labels, made enough copies of each, cut them out, backed them with the scallop circle and then adhered them with glue dots to the fan frame. I was a bit bummed that the red background copied as that washed-out color, but hey the kids are 3 & 1—will they really care or even notice? Of course not, it’s only my perfectionist inner demon that is screaming its displeasure. So I put in earplugs and ignored that sucker.

I made the tags so that the fans can still open and close because I wasn’t sure if the boxes would be big enough to accommodate an opened fan. The fans were a fairly frugal find from Oriental Trading, but if you’re super industrious, you could always make those yourself too.

I’m beginning to feel a little less guilty about my slacking two years ago. It would be awesome if I’ve completely forgiven myself by the time the cherubs are in elementary school. If not, I’ll settle for being guilt-free enough to just smile and hand over boxes of conversation hearts.

And now that you know my awful secret, do you think you'd still consider being my Valentine? I have no qualms about bribing adults with chocolate if that makes your answer any different.

This post is linked up with Cop Mama’s Mama Guilt Mondays. Check it out to add your own post or read other guilty tales.