Ahh, Valentine's Day

There's nothing like Valentine's Day. Let's go down the "love Day" checklist:

-red/white/pink cards for the kids: check

-gifts for the kids: check - Legos, teeny tiny Cinderella to play in the dollhouse, and a hot pink hedgehog stuffed animal

-gift for Steve: sort of check - we have the ingredients to make a chocolate banana chiffon pie but haven't executed the plan yet

-card for Steve: another sort of check - we have them but haven't signed them yet

-gift for me from the family: check - a new coffee press

-card for me from the family: I have no clue

-cards for extended family/friends: halfway done. Well, maybe a third done. Waiting for time to work on them. Audrey can only do two at a sitting before she gets bored and declares that she's done. And of course the kids never work on cards for the same people simultaneously, so we have cards done for several family members, but not cards from both kids...make sense?

-yummy gourmet dinner for 2: check - did it last night. Had smoked tomato confit with baguette toasts (it was like a tomato dip with crackers), polenta (corn grits) with sauteed mushrooms, Caesar salad with fresh dressing, knotted olive rolls, and duck in pomegranate sauce. Then we had black and white floating islands for dessert. Fancy meringue in a fancy chocolate pudding. I probably set myself back a week on Weight Watchers just with that meal.

-yelling at the children this morning: check.

Yes, I yelled at my children this morning. What a way to start Valentine's Day, yeah? I actually only yelled at Caleb. For the love of Pete, I told that child 10 times to put his snowboots on. I hate having to repeat myself. I hate even more having to yell at him to get his attention. Especially when he's 5 feet away.

After I got myself under control and was loading kids in the car, I decided that before we prayed on the way to school, I would apologize to the kids. I have their undivided attention in the car. So I'm trying to get the 2 big kids buckled into their car seats and I discover that Caleb has pulled his seatbelt all the way out from the wall of the car. This is one of my big pet peeves because our seatbelts are the kind that when you pull them all the way out then let them back in partially, you get no slack again to pull them out. It's handy when installing a car seat but a pain in the patootie when you're trying to get a 5-year-old "clicked." So I fussed at him for pulling it all the way out and told him that it wasted time because I had to get it fed back into the wall, straightened out, yada yada yada. He said, "I know what that makes me."

Suspiciously I said, "What does that make you?"

He said, "A big jerk."

Cue knife in Mom's heart.

I told him he wasn't a jerk - just that he was a little boy who wasn't listening very well. He tried hiding his face, acting like his feelings were hurt, but when I gently pulled his face back to mine, I saw a smile hiding there. I told him he was a giant goofy goober (a silly phrase we use from a movie), but not a big jerk. I told him he was the farthest thing on the planet away from a big jerk. Then I told him that the next time he called himself a jerk he would have to apologize to himself then to God because God doesn't make jerks.

So on the way to school I apologized to the kids and assured them that it wasn't their fault that I yelled at them when they told me it was their fault. I told them that I chose to yell and it was wrong. Personal responsibility here. But I did tell them they needed to listen better.

Occasionally I just yell at them. Usually immediately following the yelling, I realize that I haven't taken my Zoloft in a few days and I go pop my "happy pills." That's the first symptom that I'm not on my meds: a dramatic lack of patience with the kids. And then I berate myself for hours because they're just little kids doing little kid things - like playing with their new Valentine's Day gifts. How unfair was it of me & Steve to give them presents then tell them they couldn't play with them? Hmmm.

Anyway, we're all better now. I got Caleb to school almost 10 minutes late. I guess it was that 10 minutes I lay in bed hoping to see "Los Alamos Schools: Two Hour Delay" flash across the TV screen this morning. It snowed again last night, but not that much. Maybe an inch. All of Albuquerque is shut down, but not Los Alamos. Sigh. But it's snowing again now. I don't know why I was hoping for a snow day. I guess it's a holdover from my childhood. Snow days are somehow magical.

But I can trace most of my "need to be accepted" issues back to the very first snow day that I can remember. Interesting.

Jules is still working on her top 4 teeth. She's back to being "Drooly Julie" for the time being. I know she'll be darned cute when they come through, but there's something about getting teeth that makes kids lose that baby look.

I'm going to scoot now. I need to make some CBS phone calls.