So, the above is a photo/great idea of what one could do for their family on Valentine's Day morning. It was sent to me by one of the most put-together, inspiring women I know, the super talented Kriste Michelini, Interior Designer Extraordinare. (http://kristemichelini.com) She is in my working Moms Networking group, and posted this photo, along with great ideas/suggestions for what special things you could do for Valentine's Day: "I thought it would be fun to plan a little Valentines celebration for my family before they go off to school on Monday morning. This is my game plan: 1. Heart shaped pancakes 2. Hot chocolate with heart shaped marshmallows - just use a small cookie cutter 3. Gingham tablecloth 4. Strawberries 5. Fresh flowers. 6. Little handmade love notes. Have a great weekend! Happy planning."
Inspring?? Very! Mostly because it seems so easy! Could I do it?? Heck, I've got a red table runner already, I can get some flowers, I can make valentines! Who shouldn't make a little extra effort on Valentine's Day?? I was so excited to do this, receiving the info a few days in advance made it all the more do-able for me. I asked myself why I wouldn't have thought of something like this myself, and if there was any reason at all that I wouldn't do this? After all, pre-kids, I was a craft queen! I took sewing with my friend Lizzy! (for 6 months) I took up woodworking for another period (also about 6 months...) and was gung-ho on starting my own flower-candle holder business (more on that at a later date...), made many of my friends/family wooden shoe racks, and made my own bookshelves. Anything artsy/crafty was right up my alley, and I relished being able to make cute things for people with my own two hands. So what happened to me??? Did having kids rid my crafty gene? Was I not that into it anymore? Seeing this post by my Mom friend made me re-think why I never did anything cute/fun/nice like this for my family on a whim, and I decided that it was high time make Valentine's Day super cute & memorable for my kiddies & my husband with a few cute & simple ideas that were TOTALLY DO-ABLE!!
So...Sunday afternoon- following my Open House, I hit up Crate & Barrel to look for all the essentials...unfortunately, the day BEFORE V-day, they are pretty much sold out of everything Valentine's Day-ish. I managed to snag a heart-shaped pancake mold (we had one, but the kids must have taken it out to play in the sandbox), and 2 cute small irish coffee mugs for my older two to drink hot cocoa out of. No special heart shaped marshmallows here, alas....
Then: David M. Brian- OK, impulse stop. They had a cute v-day display, so I am suckered in, and I get Samantha & Sacha each a cute book that teaches them how to draw flowers and trains/planes, along with new colored pencils- they are super into drawing, I know they will love them.
Next stop: Safeway- cute tulips, only $7 a dozen, M&M's, gum and small cute V-day boxes to put these in: done!
And later that night: a quick trip with 2 kids to get some construction paper (to make the Valentines of course! We had construction paper, but no red/pink, they are popular in this house)
Even LATER that night (9/9:30pm...) Ed goes to the market for our weekly big market run. I forget to tell him to get strawberries...drat. Oh well, it will be ok without them. The kids and I are up late making their valentines for their classes, they are loving it.
LATTTTER that night (11ish) I am up cutting/gluing/writing up the valentines. I was a little tired, after a long day working, errands, putting the kids down, but I was really enjoying creating cute valentines for my family, and the basic cutting, gluing, etc made me feel like I was 5 again. Before hitting the sack, I put out our cute red table runner, put the tulips in vases, put the mugs on the table, gifts/goodies out.
I go to bed, setting my alarm, realizing that if I'm going to be making pancakes & hot cocoa, that I'd better be up before anyone, or it's not happening. I wake up at 6:30, bounce out of bed (OK, I roll), and get started on the pancakes. I never, ever get up this early pregnant...I need way too much sleep (minimum 8, optimum 9 hours a night) and I am dragging.
Ed is at the gym, so I have the kitchen to myself, and he will be surprised too when he gets home, so I am glad. I start making the pancakes. I say START because each pancake takes about 12-15 minutes to make- the heart mold is thick and so are the pancakes. While each one is going, I make hot cocoa & coffee. I put out the Valentines by each place setting. I make 1 whole pancake. Ed gets home- I tell him to come to the dining room, he loves the surprise. He gobbles down his pancake, asks for his coffee to go, as he needs to be OUT THE DOOR in 5 minutes. He totally loved the valentine I made him, and thought that the kids' were super cute as well, he thanks me, gives me a kiss, and heads out the door. I feel justified in spending the time. I manage to make 1 more pancake before Adam wakes up. Darnit! He is in either a SUPER good mood, smiley and giggly when he gets up or grumpy and not easily pacified. Guess which one it was this morning?
I spend the rest of the next hour making the rest of the pancakes, sitting down with Adam and trying to feed him a pancake and feeding myself one. I am starving (need to eat 1st thing in AM) and have not had a bite in an hour. I cut Adam's pancake instead of letting him grab it with his hand. This is a grave mistake. He arches his back in agony, and screams/wails as if I had just stabbed his foot with a fork. He is MAD. I spend the next 10-15 minutes trying to pacify him so he doesn't wake the other kids just yet/trying to feed him so that he gets some food in his system and calms down. We now have syrup all over both of us, the runner, and a smashed up heart pancake thrown on the floor/table/all over Adam's face. He sees the box for him on the table (full of M&M's) (Really Mom???? What was I THINKING????) and he wants it. I spend the rest of the morning trying to hide the box of M&M's, and then finally relenting and feeding him M&M's for breakfast. Awesome. He is still mad because I did not give him the whole box. There are now M&M's on the floor too. Adam does not seem to appreciate the special valentine I so lovingly took the time to make him last night. :( Oh well.
OK, the other pancakes are being finished (with Adam on my hip now, crying in between M&M's being fed to him.... so I go to wake up Samantha, then Sacha (I couldn't wake them both up at once, pancakes were taking too long, would get cold, etc). The reaction from each of them is enough to make the whole thing worth it. I tell Samantha to come out to the kitchen, she jumps out of bed like it is Christmas. "Presents??? WOW!" "Where'd you get the heart pancakes??" She sits right down, asks me to read her her Valentine, and digs into her pancake & hot cocoa. (never did get around to getting the heart-shaped marshmallows...darn, maybe next year...)
When it is time to wake up Sacha, Samantha asks me if she can do it---I can hear her from the kitchen "Sach! Wake up! You won't believe it! It's Valentine's Day and there is a big surprise in the comedor" (dining room) She eagerly ushers him to the dining room, I hear them both running down the hall. His eyes light up just as hers did, and he is super excited about his new art book, and even starts eating his pancake (which says a lot, the kid eats like a hummingbird). They both ask about who got the flowers, who made the valentines....they love the whole thing, and I feel so happy to have given them this joy and something to randomly be happy about.
As they are enjoying their breakfasts, and treats, I realize: Crap. I have to get going if I am going to get Samantha to school, and make 20 sandwiches for Sacha's Valentine's party in his classroom!! I spend the next hour frantically cutting the crusts off 20 sandwiches (preschoolers, of course!), cutting cheese, and putting turkey together in cute little sandwiches for 20 little preschoolers who will likely take 1 bite then move on to their Valentine's jello. I am also making Samantha's lunch, trying to get dressed myself, finding the kids socks that match, and continue to warm up my coffee, for I am hitting a wall of tiredness after 3 hours of being awake. All the while, I am either holding, or pacifying Adam, who is still in needy "I am mad you still won't let me have all those M&M's-mode", and trying to coerce the kids to put on the clothes that I brought out to them to get dressed in.
I must also point out at this time...that our kitchen is a TREMENDOUS mess at the moment. The dishes were not done ALL weekend- in between birthday parties, working, and being sick- first me, then Ed- they just didn't get done, and the dirty ones are finding their way onto the sides of our countertops. (We usually try to do them every day, hello, there is just no other way.) So, aside from the weekend's worth of dirty dishes, we now have the additional mess of the special Valentine's breakfast dishes... overwhelming the kitchen completely. And so, it is in the midst of this mess, in the midst of the morning madness, that I realize that I am going to need to bring a camera to Sacha's Valentine's Day party at school, and that we have (of course) accidentally traded cameras with our good friends, the R's, when we were at their house over the weekend. I call Ms. R that minute, to see if she is around to trade cameras. I am in luck. She is 1 block away from our house and is headed right over with our camera. When I say I am in luck, I WAS in luck because I managed to get the camera we needed for V-day, and I managed to get her theirs as well. I did not, however, feel very lucky when she came to the door and I looked behind my back at the massive dish pile, food on the floor, kids still in their PJ's at 9:30 in the morning. My friend is one of the neatest people I know, even after a tremendous party at her house her kitchen would not look half as bad, and I was cringing. Oh well. Samantha tells my friend: "My Mommy made heart-shaped pancakes!" I am proud that I did something that is making my daughter feel like bragging to someone...happy I did something that made her happy.
It is now 10:15AM.... I have managed SOMEHOW to get all 3 kids dressed, their hair done, lunch made, sandwiches made, camera in the car, and kids in the car to get to school. I can't believe it!! I drive 1 house over. I realize I left the 20 sandwiches in the house. I go back, grab them, and go on to take the kids to their school Valentine's celebrations. It feels like I have had a full day already.
So...when I originally asked myself- why wouldn't I be able to pull off such a cute breakfast/treat for my family? Why DON'T I do those cute Martha Stewart type things for my kids? ....I failed to remember that...due to the nature of having 3 kids under 5...there are 5 million other factors to consider in adding even one other small thing to the mix: tantrums, kids that need/want you to go potty with them every time they go, poopy diapers that need to be changed, kids not wanting to get dressed, the 20ish sandwiches you promise to make for their class....it makes adding anything else at all feel almost impossible, and a wee bit stressful.
Will I do it again next year? YES! The response was great, really, even though it was hard. Will I be pulling off a President's Day breakfast? Or a St. Patrick's Day breakfast??? ....ummmm....likely not.
Below is the reality of how my V-day morning turned out...
(The table, after dishes were cleared, wish I got one with a whole pancake on it...)
And that was only ONE of our kitchen counters & the mass quantity of dishes....
The super cute, but very time-consuming heart-shaped pancake mold.
What was left of the kids' cute pancakes...oh, did I mention they were chocolate chip??? Of course! Our favorite!
