Valentine's Day

Actually, it would be a misnomer to refer to this as "Valentine's Day" because the events described herein took place prior to said holiday. It took place, instead, on the dreaded Friday the 13th.

At the time of my awakening on this bright, beautiful morning of February the 13th in the year of our Lord two-thousand nine, it did not occur to me that this would be a significant fact. The plan was in place. The flowers were ordered. The balloons were ordered. I had the day scheduled to take off.

Suddenly, as I went through the motions of preparing to "go to the office" that morning, the phone rang. Normally, the phone does not ring at this time of day, so immediately we were suspecting that it was not the most pleasant news.

As it turned out, it was our babysitter calling to let us know that her daughter had the flu. The same flu that was going around everywhere. The same one that wreaked havoc through our household the entire previous week. Kyle could not go there for the day.

Of course, my mind started racing as I tried to figure out how I could get the flowers, get the balloons, get to her school, decorate her room and still run a couple errands before she got to that school around noon.

To make it more complicated, since we figured I'd be staying home with Kyle, he had a Busy Bodies appointment from 10:15 to 11:15. This could not have been a worse time for me to be able to pull this off. There was no way I was going to get this done if I was bringing him to that class.

Then, Joelle thought of calling Jamie. Thankfully, Nate had already been asking about Kyle that morning and she said that she would watch him. At first, the new plan was for me to take Kyle to his class and then over to Jaime's.

Once again, fate stepped in and bailed me out of that mess. We checked the Saturday schedule and there was a class then! Yay! Then we could BOTH go. And I could get my morning plans in motion. Off I went to bring Kyle to Aunt Jamie's to hang out with Nate.

I got all the stuff and headed up to the school. That's when my grand plans, the best laid plans of mice and men, met with what could only be referred to as an insurmountable obstacle. "No balloons!" And, of course, the bulk of the decor was exactly that.

Now, I had been warned about the mylar balloons, and so I thought I was being slick by getting a dozen mylar and a dozen latex. That way, if one kind wasn't allowed, I'd still be in like Flynn. Not so, however. No balloons. None at all. Not one. Nada. Zip. Zilch. Zero. One less than a single balloon.

Somewhat discouraged, I set up the flowers on her desk, spread conversation hearts all over and raced back home. I set up the balloons on the counte in the kitchen for when she got home and had to make sure to get out of the house before she drove by and saw my car.

Next, I had to resort to Plan B. You can never fail with Joelle and Starbuck's. Hoping the whole time that I didn't pass her at a traffic light, I ran over to Starbuck's and got her a gingerbread latte and headed for the school...just in time.

My phone rang. It was Joelle. She had gotten to the school. She was in her room. Sitting by the flowers. Wondering how they got there. So, I told her that I had the rest of her present in the lobby. So, I came back to her room with her Starbuck's.

I spent the rest of the day hanging out in her room (and reading The Lion, The Witch and The Wardrobe while she assessed students' reading). All in all, it was still a pretty good day.

Later, at home, she was a bit surprised at just how many balloons we were talking about. I guess she figured it was like a couple balloons. Not quite that small a number. Twenty-six balloons in all, as shown below. Certainly more than she was expecting, so at least I still got to surprise her to an extent.


So, that was our pre-Valentine's Day Valentine's Day.
What did you do on your Valentine's Day?