Valentine's Day dilemma

The above picture reminds me of the little brother in “A Christmas Story” but this is not a post about the weather (snow, again. On top of the frozen precip that fell yesterday, it made shoveling the driveway more like making snow cones, but I’m sure you’re as sick of hearing about it as I am about living it!)…

No, today’s post is brought to you courtesy of the most anal retentive family in the state – mine. Thursday happens to be Valentine’s Day, and C’s teacher sent home the list of kids in the class on Friday. Since I’ll be out of town until Wednesday night, we decided we’d get a jump start on addressing the valentine cards since there are 29 kids in C’s class (plus her teacher and teacher’s aide) and C sometimes doesn’t like to print her name.

She and I had bought the valentines shortly after Christmas (don’t look at me like that, we were at the mall, Hallmark had special packages with an appropriate amount of cards for a surprisingly low price). Armed with the list, I was ready to just start addressing them so C could then sign her name. Captain Anal jumped in – the boys couldn’t get “girl” cards. Now, I don’t know about you, but when I was in grade school, I didn’t care what the card looked like, just that I got one. And sometimes that meant that I got a Transformers or Superman card; I don’t think I’ve been scarred for life.

It was eerily similar to a LSAT question – there are 32 cards. There are 4 designs on each of 8 cards (C chose High School Musical valentines – so the choices were: Sharpay, Gabrielle, Troy and whatever character Corbin Bleu was). There are 13 girls and 16 boys in the class. Assign the cards so the girls all get a girl card (Gabrielle or Sharpay) and the boys get boy cards (Troy or Corbin Bleu) and no one gets a card intended for the opposite sex.

D immediately starts making notes on the list of names – because of course the cards couldn’t be assigned willy nilly even if there were enough girl cards and boy cards. Certain friends needed certain cards – for instance, C’s friend J, got a Gabrielle card because she has dark hair just like Gabrielle does. What should have been a simple exercise turned into a list making, cross checking adventure.

And once we finished the cards, we had to put together the goodie bag. Oh yes, last year we (simple, naïve parents) just sent cards to school. C came home loaded with more candy than Halloween. It was ridiculous. So this year, we put together simple goodie bags (lollipop, M&Ms and a Kit Kat – healthy and nutritious!). I’m sure this year she’ll come home with just cards, but I’ve resigned myself to being a day late and dollar short when it comes to this parenting gig.

Happy Valentine’s Day!!