Motherhood Plus Sainthood Equals Saint Mommytine's Day

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Yes. I really do believe that in addition to Mother’s Day, we Moms, especially the stay-at-home variety, deserve another bona fide Hallmark Holiday. Let’s face it. We’re so not appreciated as much as we should be by our kids, our partners, or by ourselves! And, I decree Saint Mommytine's Day to be March 24th, the day after Live Life as a Six Year Old Day!

This has been the week of projects with Iz. At the beginning of the week, we needed to come up with an idea for her 100 Day project. At her school, they celebrate the 100th day of school. I just asked her why it was so special. She said, “I dunno.”

At school, everything revolves around 100 for a week. The big project is putting 100 things on a piece of poster board. Last year, Iz used 100 pieces of ziti.

When I asked her what we should do this year, she said, “I want to use pennies.” 100 pennies? Glued onto a piece of poster board? Were pennies even supported by Elmer’s glue?

I looked the Elmer’s disclaimer. Pennies weren’t porous and were going to be preposterous when producing our project. I had to promptly present plenty of potential preferences to my precocious progeny!

“Hey, it’s Valentine’s Day soon, so why don’t we use candy hearts?”
Aw. I wanted to use pennies.”
“But, pennies will be hard to glue and the project will be very heavy to carry.”
“Oh.”
“Candy hearts will be much lighter, and we can eat the leftovers.”
“Okay!” (Oh, of course, I had her at “eat the leftovers!”)

I went to CVS yesterday afternoon to purchase Sweethearts. There I was in aisle five of CVS, groping a bag of Sweethearts while channeling Kreskin to try and figure out how many Sweethearts there were to a bag. As usual, I feared I wouldn’t buy enough and would end up in aisle five of CVS two hours later, groping Sweetheart bags again, yet being detained by store security this time for a lewd act on a bag of candy. Always wanting to check the "No" box next to the "Have you ever been convicted of a felony? question, I bought 7 bags.

By the way, the Brach’s Conversation Heart Candy taste better, and they’re not as hard as Necco’s Sweethearts. I only mention the hardness factor for those, perhaps like me, who now sport an expensive gold crown due to regularly crunching Atomic Fireballs. Yeah, I never knew how many licks it took to get to the center of a Tootsie Pop either. I had to google for an approximate number of licks, because I am an ENFJIC (Extraversion, iNtuition, Feeling, Judgment, Impatient Cruncher).

When Iz got off the bus, I asked her how we should arrange the hearts. She said, “I want to write my name with them.” I said, “Isabelle maybe be hard to do with only 100 hearts.” She said, “No. I decided that I want my real name to be Izzy.” (I always loved Izzy, because of the character, Isabelle, in “Crossing Delancey.”)

I told her that I thought writing “Izzy” would be perfect. And when we sat down at the kitchen table, I had Iz count out ten piles of ten hearts. We then threw them all in a bowl, and we began to form "Izzy" on our shocking pink poster board.

I thought this was going to be easy. But, it wasn’t. It was like writing a story. We had a first draft of “Izzy” with 50 hearts left in the bowl. We had a second draft of “Izzy” with 25 hearts left in the bowl. The third draft of Izzy was the charm, though some of our letters were sized differently; however, united we stand, unique but not uniform!



Note: Just in case you ever need to know, there are approximately 50 Sweethearts to a bag. This is why I now have five bags of Sweethearts left when I really wish I had five bags of Necco Conversation Hearts left!

Today, our project was addressing Valentine’s Day cards, all 50-something of them. Half of them went to school, and the other half went to her after-school program. Since it was an early release due to snow, she started hounding me the minute she got off the bus about starting that project.

I said, “Just give me 30 minutes. I’m trying to write something.” I didn’t bother to say “trying to write a cover letter,” because that would have meant more questions on top of being asked every 5 minutes, after I said 30 minutes, “When are we going to do the Valentines?”

When I was finally done, I told her to bring all her cards and candies upstairs. She asked, “Why don’t you come downstairs?” I was waiting on feedback on my cover letter, so I didn’t want to leave my laptop. I told her I needed to remain upstairs.

I again asked her to bring everything upstairs. She rolled her eyes. I then sensed that the Valentine proejct might be a tad bit more complicated than the 100 Day project due to a perceived bit of attitude!

She brought everything up, and we began. I did most of the manufacturing of the cards; that is, I put the lollipop in the holes of the addressed Animal Planet card, folded and tore along a perforated line to create Tinkerbell cards, and inserted cards in envelopes along with a jelly candy heart and then sealed them with a heart sticker. As far as I was concerned, I was doing the brunt of the grunt work.

After she addressed 10 cards, she asked, “Can you do them all?” I said, “No.” At that point, given the attitude I previously perceived, I thought it might be easier, but this was her project. So, I offered to write the names of her friends on the envelopes if she signed her name. She sighed and said, “Oh, I don’t want to do this anymore.” I said, “I’m not going to do them all for you Iz.”

At one point, my laptop said, “You have feedback on your cover letter,” so I got up to check my email. Iz rolled her eyes, sighed, and asked, “Mom, aren’t you going to help me?” I told her I was; however, I had something to attend to for a few minutes. She got up and walked toward her room.

I said, “Hey, where are you going? You can still address the cards while I do this.” She said, “If you’re taking a break, then I’m taking a break.” Grrrrr. Somehow her Valentine’s Day cards were now mine. So, it was now time to reiterate the already laid down law.

She turned around, came back to the pile of Tinkerbell and Animal Planet cards, and sat down. She gave me a look, sighed, and began to write her name on the cards again. It’s funny how they change in mood and cooperation level from one day to the next, isn’t it? At this age, you never know who you are working with. One day she's Nicole Kidman, and the next day she's Joan Crawford!

I thought back to when I worked, writing the release notes for my former company, where I had to take this…

"When the CPC of E2 was present in a call, the Called Digit Type was set to Govt Emergency. Later when the LATA and Toll were determined, if the Call Type was set to InterLata1+ or IntraLata1+,only if the Called Digit Type is National or Subscriber or Test. So for our call, the Call Type is left unchanged (and stays at its existing value of 1+). So, the routes, which are provisioned with InterLata1+ and IntraLata1+ are not found."

(I know you love this one, Tomas!)

...and turn it into something that even Iz would be able to understand.

Today, I thought that having the patience to glue on 100 hearts on a piece of poster board and manufacture and address 50 Valentine’s Day cards was truly a feat. I had worked with cranky engineers and on impossible projects with ridiculous deadlines; however, Motherhood, especially the stay-at-home variety, was truly the toughest job I ever had. But, I knew I loved it most of all, especially when Iz said after all that was Valentine was addressed and sealed, “Mommy, I love you, because you always do projects with me.” ♥