Bad Mother of the Year Award

. . . . . goes to me, Keri Bowers!!!  That's right. You guys will never believe what I did (or didn't do) this week. I'm so ashamed, I can't believe I'm telling on myself, but if I can't tell my friends, who else can I tell?

Today, as you know, is Valentine's Day. Happy Valentine's Day, by the way. Love and hugs and Cupid and mushy stuff would have been the topics of my post today, IF I had not had a flare up of Alzheimer's this week. So, this is what happened. Hunter came in from school on Friday afternoon. I greeted her as usual and asked her how her day went. She said, "It was okay", in a tone somewhat less exuberant than normal. Then, much to my dismay, she got into her backpack and pulled out her decorated Valentine's sack from school. I was aghast in horror. It was then, right at that very moment, that I realized I had sent my child to school, on the day they were going to be celebrating Valentine's Day, empty handed. That's right, totally WITHOUT Valentines to give out to her classmates!! Inside, my stomach churned, and I felt a little bit nauseated. On the outside, as embarrassed as I was, I put on a big smile and let her go through and show me all the Valentines she had received. All the time, I kept thinking how embarrassed she must have felt to have gone through the day and not had any Valentines to put in her friends' goody sacks.

Well, Hunter, being the sweet child that she is, never said anything. I wanted to say something, but wasn't prepared to talk about it right then. It was Saturday morning, sitting around and chatting with her daddy, before I brought up the Valentine's Day fiasco. As it turned out, we all took some of the blame of not being prepared for the Valentine's Day celebration at her school. I mean, she is 10 years old and in 5th grade, after all, so it's not like she hasn't known for some time that she would need Valentines on Friday. She and her Daddy go to Wal-Mart every weekend, so it's reasonable to assume that she COULD have asked to buy Valentines last Saturday. So, she didn't plan ahead, her daddy and I got busy with life and didn't think about it, and Friday came and went, and Hunter went without on Valentine's Day. That still makes my tummy turn, just thinking about it.

But, alas, life goes on, and in the grand scheme of things, this is really just a minor speed bump in our day-to-day lives. It did provide us with a great opportunity to have a nice family discussion so that hopefully, we'll all be better about not procrastinating and we'll be more willing to speak up and communicate better. Hunter and I are going to put some little Valentine's sacks together this afternoon, so her classmates will get something after the fact. She'll just be spreading the love a little bit longer. :)

Here's a little something I made last night for Hunter while watching the Olympics. Her daddy and I finally broke down and got her a cell phone. According to her, she was the ONLY kid in her school who didn't have a cell phone. Hmphh!  Well, it was time to renew our cell phone contracts anyway, and we got her phone for free, so we just decided it was an okay time.

I started with 2 chains and 6 sc in the 2nd chain from the hook. I then worked continuous rounds, doing my increases up to 24 stitches and changing colors every round until I had a pouch tall enough for the phone. I then went to rows and did 10 sc, chained 1, turned. I did this for 4 rows to cover the top, before working a sc dec on each end. My next row, I put 3 chains in the middle to make my buttonhole, then did 2 more rows. I went around the flap with a border of sc's, then sewed in my ends. I found a cute Valentiney button in my vast collection, and sewed it on. I think she'll like it, don't you? Maybe she'll forgive me for forgetting Valentine's Day.

I do hope all of you have a delightful Valentine's Day, spending time with people you love and doing whatever it is that makes you happy. Give your loved ones an extra hug today.