My Valentine’s Day Debacle

Have you seen the ballot for “Worst Mom of the Year” award? If my name isn’t already on it, consider me a strong write-in candidate.

I forgot Valentines. Not Valentine’s Day, per say. No, for that I dressed Faith up like Pinkalicious.

Doesn’t she looked thrilled? Credit for the shirt goes to Aunt Donna and my husband. I just thought of it and they executed.

 I also baked two dozen cupcakes for work and fretted about Rob’s present.

In between my best efforts to accomplish the things above and train for 10 degree races, read the Hunger Games series, keep my house from looking like it was ransacked (#fail) and put off my thesis for another month, I missed it.

You know what I’m talking about. “The sheet.” (Dun dun dun).

When I picked Faith up from daycare on Valentine’s Day, her teacher handed me all her Valentines. (Imagine the look on my face and the horror in my heart as I didn’t know the kids were exchanging Valentines).

I told them I never got the sheet. They were sure they gave it to me. My mom picked up Faith twice and Rob once in the past month. For sure they’d dropped the ball. Because it wasn’t me. After calling them both, somewhat hysterically, it was confirmed. They never saw such a sheet. I ran back into the daycare, sure that they must have passed the sheet around the week Faith was out with Pneumonia. One teacher smiled and nodded and said that must’ve been it. But the owner, God love her, wouldn’t let me believe that. “No, we would’ve kept it in her folder and it would have gone home the next week,” she told me very matter-of-factly.

In the very back of my mind, the cornery, cobweby one, the world’s tiniest lightbulb clicked on. There was a small chance, miniscule really, that they had given me the sheet. I left a pile of Faith’s “artwork” in the backseat of my car awhile ago, but I never saw a Valentine’s Day sheet. It can’t be back there, I told myself. I checked, and sure enough, right there, under two pieces of paper with one scribble on them each, I found it. Damn you, sheet. How did I miss you the first time?

It didn’t matter though, because Faith had already missed out on distributing her Valentines. All the kids were now at home, opening them and there wasn’t one from my little girl. The thought of her not partaking in the party broke. my. heart. I called my mom bawling. She assured me Faith was too young to notice. Still, I felt like a failure. How could I let her down like this?

Tentatively, I helped Faith open her Valentines. Of course, some moms went overboard. Especially you, Lux’s mom, who gave out scratch and smell cards. Ours was garlic and it was gross!

Seriously? A melted crayon heart? Cough-overachiever-cough.

I was not about to let this go. So I did what any insane, guilt-ridden mother would do. I racked my brain for ideas and proceeded to write a cheesy apology poem 26 times. I attached each of them to 26 boxes of grape juice, which I made my husband pick up at approximately 11 o’clock at night on his way home from basketball. That there, was Valentine’s Day present enough for me.

In case you can’t read that, it says (as I hang my head in shame)
“My mommy missed the memo,
she’s really sorry this is late.
But I loved all my Valentines,
and think you’re really “grape.”

Get it, great/grape? If you don’t, feel free not to tell me. Let me have this small victory. I already feel bad enough and am already thinking about how to overachieve the overachievers next year. This motherhood stuff is exhausting.

In other news, I’m already preparing for St. Patrick’s Day…

Get it? 😉