I am having some troubles posting here again so am not double-posting on both blogger and hsb right now. So come see me at my blogger site and add that one to your reader. For those anxiously awaiting some new reading material, there are a couple of new posts up there.
Couple weeks ago I wrote about my homeschool group’s annual Valentine party and why we were sitting it out. Well, I semi-caved on the deal; we went after all, and I’m glad I did.
First of all, we did not exchange valentines. But, the venue was one much desired by my children: Chuck E Cheese. This was the third time in their young lives they have been there. I hate it, but it’s a fun place, once in a while. They hadn’t seen their homeschool friends in a long time; we’ve been housebound, the pizza and token were cheap.
So I emailed the leader of the homeschool group and asked if we could just come. She readily agreed. We knew that in the chaos no one would really notice that my kids were not exchanging valentines.
Boy were we right.
When we arrived most of the 20-odd moms and kids were trickling in, armed with the valentines they’d prepared and the bags to collect in. The kids immediately ran off to play the games, leaving the moms holding the bags. (Hahaha.) Over half were people I’d never seen before. One woman commented that she knew only one other person there! (I managed to restrain myself from asking her why she had her kid do valentines for 30+ strangers.)
I did receive a few exclamations of surprise at my presence. Embarrassment that they did not have valentines for my kids. I tried to explain, without explaining exactly why, that we weren’t really there in an official capacity and did not expect any valentines.
Then, the moms proceeded to fill the kids’ bags with the valentines! The kids were no where in sight! No exchange was being done. The kids played, the moms walked around looking for names on bags and put valentines in.
As moms finished filling the bags, some wandered over to where I was hanging out. While publicly everyone was full of enthusiasm for the exchange, privately… well… More than once a mom told me that she had a hard time explaining to her kids why they were making valentines for people they didn’t know. Every single one told me that when trying to explain, they related the custom of valentine exchange to school. Let’s take a moment to remember that not one of these kids goes to school! Most have never been to school!
So in that context I felt comfortable explaining why we did not participate. At that point it didn’t need much explanation.
These women are not dopes. They are thoughtful, educated women who are taking on full responsibility for the care and education of their children. They research learning styles and educational methods. They know the benefits and downsides to phonics and whole-language. They can tell you which Latin curriculum worked best for them and why they chose (or did not choose) to follow the classical education model. They are intentionally counter-cultural.
Except on Valentine’s Day, I guess.
Usually one every 2 years is enough, but I was noodling around on the ‘net today while my kids are trying to make snowballs out of the eighth-inch on the ground and came across some ruminations on the topic. (Moo!) I am reminded of the first V-Day I spent with my husband.
He took me out to a nice Italian restaurant, his favorite place. It was not a fancy place, but not a plastic-grapes on the ceiling pizza joint. The food was fabulous.
He had made a reservation (I think) but there was still a wait. Well, that turned out to be the most entertaining part of the evening! People-watching on V-Day is such fun! The atmosphere was thick with passive-aggressive discontent. I think I was the only happy woman in the place. The rest sat around looking put out, either because the place wasn’t nice enough, or because they had to wait. The waiting, I think, implied to them that the man had not thought ahead and made a reservation.
I am surprised we could converse over the sounds of exaggerated sighing.
Now I am not a big Valentine’s person. In the past a dinner out with some good wine has been the standard celebration. But I have young kids. My girl is really into the whole heart and love thing, and at her age it’s cute. She make valentines for special people, relatives mostly. My boy couldn’t care less about it.
But, we have realized that we should probably make a slightly bigger deal out of it for our son. See, some day (we hope) he will have a wife. And while I pray (fervently and frequently) that he doesn’t end up with someone like those sighing passive-aggressive dames I used to see at La Galleria, he might end up with a woman who’s just a little bit into Hallmark holidays and would like something. Not jewels, you know, but maybe a Whitman’s sampler (is that the one with the little map on the lid?) or, our personal favorite, Ghirardelli espresso escape. The poor kid is already a freak, not having an x-box or even a real game boy. We may as well not handicap him any more.
So, what to do? There’s not much time, and between school, homeschooling, our dog, the visiting dog, the electrical fire in the back yard (more on that another day), life is just plumb full! But my husband and I are not above pulling a long-forgotten (and never noticed by the kids) book off a shelf and wrapping it up, just so we have a gift to give. In our house, books are the best gifts anyway. Hm… I wonder if they ever noticed this new copy of the selected writings of Thomas Aquinas that’s sitting on the desk here…
Isn’t that a great term? I’ve been reading some blogs lately about men who delay marriage or don’t bother to marry. The comments on these blogs say a lot about men and their attitudes toward women. More than once I read the term "parasite" attached to "housewife."
I feel like changing the name of my blog to that, but that’s too much work. I have way too much to do, watching Oprah, eating bonbons, spending all my husband’s hard-earned dough, and sitting around with my girlfriends dissing my the old man all day long, waiting till his 401K is big enough for me to dump him and take all his cash, and the house! (Should be a long wait, what with this seminary thing he’s doing.)
Oops! And here some of you thought I took care of and educated my kids, cooked great meals (OK, they’re not all great), kept the house running reasonably efficiently and cleanly, hung out with and enjoyed my family, and generally contributed to the wellbeing of that family.
Nope, you’re wrong. I’m just a parasite, living off my husband, sucking the very life out of him as we speak.
Hahahahahaha!
Yesterday it was warm enough to open the windows and get some fresh air in here. Lovely. The kitchen door – which is the door kids and dogs use to get out to the back yard – has a screen that had a little rip in the bottom corner. Note the use of the word "had." No, we didn’t fix it yesterday. Have you already figured out what happened?
It was our dog, little Max, who wanted to get outside but was a little impatient. Rather than wait for us to open the door, he just plowed through the screen, which easily parted from its frame to create a little doggy door for him. Big dumb Casper, the visiting dog, still waits for us to open the door. I am very happy about that, because that would create a really, really big open flap.
However, an opening is an opening, and now we’re not sure what to do. It seems apparent that in his life before us, Max had access to a doggy door: he uses it with such ease. However, we live in mosquito country, and summer is really not all that far off. (Just check the stores and clothing catalogs if you are dubious.)
Margaret