F*&^in' Mother of the Year!

Most of the time I feel like I'm the worst mother on the planet: The yelling, the screaming, the guilt...and that's just from my end. But today, I actually feel like I'm Mother of The Year. Mother to the Rescue. I ROCK!

My 10 year old son told me several weeks ago that they don't give out classroom valentines in 5th grade. Shortly after, I quizzed another friend of his on this and he agreed. So imagine my surprise last night (THURSDAY before Valentine's Day) when my son wailed that his teacher had passed out paper bags in the event that kids wanted to distribute valentines to each other. Along with a CLASS LIST! Talk about pressure. He went from having zero interest in giving out cards to obsessing over whether he would be the only one not distributing.

This was at dinner time, and I had no intention of going back out for the evening. My husband was on his way home from work but his cell was dead, so there was no way to reach him about stopping to purchase cards at Wal-Mart. My son dejectedly said "Maybe I can make some, everyone knows that homemade valentines are the best."

But it took him the rest of the evening to finish his homework, and by the time that idiotic show "Chowder" was on Cartoon Network, all thoughts of Valentines had vanished.

Fast forward to this morning at 4:30 a.m. Having fallen asleep last night at 9pm, I awoke early and silently crept downstairs in order to catch up on this week's episode of "Lost". Before detouring to the television side of the basement, I decided to hop on the computer and check out any age-appropriate, free printable valentines for my son. No easy task. Many were too girly or lovey for even his female classmates.

Finally I found some generic but pretty printable valentines which could be customized for the girls. Going down the class list, I modified each valentine to include the girl's name and signed each from "Your friend Xander".

The boys would be much tougher. No hearts and flowers here. I happened upon a website that included a template for a valentine for boys. Preprinted with a boyish message, the valentines could be cut and folded to make "whirlygigs". Boys could throw them up in the air and then watch them twirl to earth. Better yet, my son is currently in a paper airplane phase, so he could show them how to fold and throw their valentines.

When my son woke up, he was thrilled to see that there were valentines ready for his class. Yes, it would have been better if HE had done them, yes I saved his ASS, but for one brief shining moment I was the fucking Mother goddess of all moms.

Again...I ROCK!