Happy Weekend

So it's Valentine's Day on Sunday.  What are you going to do to celebrate this rather commercial holiday?

Most people exchange gifts or go out to dinner and a movie or exchange valentines or some combination of more than one of those things.

For the last 10 years or so, Valentine's Day has meant something different to my wife and me.  It used to mean doing some of the stuff in the list above.  Once your oldest child enters Kindergarten, the meaning changes somewhat drastically.  The time I used to spend figuring out what to do for my wife or the money we used to spend on each other was re-purposed. 

With grade school-aged children, Valentine's Day means:

• Dragging your child to the store so they can pick out a box of valentines so they can give one to each of their classmates.
• Finding out that all of the valentines in the first store aren't cool enough or fancy enough or don't happen to have just the right cartoon character on them.
• Going to several other stores until the child finally realizes that the ideal valentines don't exist and you can convince them to settle for what the stores are actually selling.
• Getting home and realizing that your child has misplaced the class list that has all of their classmates' names on them.
• Helping the child search frantically for the list.
• Getting a break once the list is found, since there's a lull in the activity as the child often spends a good amount of time deciding which child gets which valentine.
• Returning to the store to get some sort of treat to affix to each valentine, because all of your child's friends are going to tape a sucker or something to their valentines.
• Helping the child put together some sort of box for their valentines.  This leads to several fits and tirades because your child had something else in mind--like a life-sized cupid complete with moving wings and real bow-and arrow.  You have something much MUCH simpler in mind, like a shoe box with red, pink, and white construction paper.
• Running out of red, pink, and white construction paper, thus making yet another trip to the store.
• Returning home to find that the glue bottle has gone dry.
• Returning to the store for more glue.
• Learning that your child also has to bring some sort of treat for the Valentine's Day party.  This piece of information usually comes out as your child is being tucked in for the night.
• Spending the rest of the night making cupcakes or cookies or some other treat for the whole class.
• Finding out the next morning that the school doesn't allow home-baked goods any more due to safety and security reasons.
• Rushing out to the store to find all of the other parents from your child's school fighting over the last box of donuts or cookies at the nearby grocery store.
• Going back to the school with the crumbled remnants of heart-shaped cookies you found at the seventh store you visited.
• Realizing that you've spent all of your time worrying about your child's afternoon Valentine's Day party and you've completely forgotten to buy/plan/do something for your spouse.

Those of you that have children understand this.  You KNOW I'm right here!

However...

My youngest child is in Junior High now.  I didn't have to help with a Valentines box.  We didn't buy a single crappy box of crappy valentines.  We don't have to bring a treat for a party.  The above situation is over for me.  OVER.

So this year, I have actually been able to spend some time thinking about my own Valentine. 

And what am I doing this weekend?

I'm going to go camping in the snow with my older son.

Happy Valentine's Day!