February 8th, 2010 01:06pm
Holiday of love, or of dread?
When I was a kid, Valentine’s Day was a holiday to look forward to. It was a treat to wake up on Valentine’s Day to see what surprises were left for us at our place on the kitchen table. While most mornings were littered with pleas from us to wait “5 more minutes” before we got up, Valentine’s Day was treated much like Christmas – we were up before the sun. At the table there would be three places set with a little chocolate box, some candy hearts, a Valentine’s Day card, a Pez dispenser, and a new pair of Valentine’s Day socks. Sometimes there would be a little trinket, like a heart shaped glass bead on a chain or a little box with some gold coins on it. But always, there was the surprise of small treats that meant the world for us. After a breakfast of heart-shaped pancakes, we would grab our bag of homemade valentines for our classmates, excited for a day when we received at least 30 new valentines. At the end of the day our bellies would be full of candy and cookies, and our teeth coated with the sugar of little confectioner’s hearts that had messages of “Be mine” and “XOXO”. Then we would read through every single valentine to see if there was some hidden message between the lines of Garfield proclaiming his love for lasagna on a folded piece of pink paper that the cutest boy sent out to every girl in the class.As adults, Valentine’s Day gets much harder. (more…)
9 years ago today, a loud and wailing cry sounded from a tiny hospital room in North Santa Rosa. That’s right folks, the Taz had entered the building – and the world – and was making his presence known. 
12 years ago today, I was looking my newborn daughter in the eyes for the first time. I held her tiny body (all 9 lbs, 12 oz of her) and couldn’t believe that they were going to let me take her home. Didn’t they know I had never done this before? I wasn’t sure I could be trusted to know when to feed her or how often to change her diaper. I was unsure what would happen if I ever stopped counting how many times she breathed. I was sure, with as fragile as her body was, that I was going to be the one to break her. I mean, I couldn’t be trusted to carry more than a couple dishes at a time. I had broken my mother’s favorite coffee cup that way. I wasn’t very careful with my books, still guilty of dog-earing the pages and returning borrowed paperbacks with the hints of everything I had eaten that week between the pages. And some of them were just never returned at all. I couldn’t for the life of me put things away in their proper place. Hair supplies sometimes were in the art cabinet. Food storage containers were under my bed. Our only flashlight was somewhere in a pile of stuff. And I couldn’t even remember where I had placed my nail clippers. I lost stuff all the time.
My daughter’s birthday is tomorrow, and my son’s is this Friday. And we are still in the works for planning their birthday parties. In past years we have had numerous sleepovers, a couple of outside slip n slide events, a day over at Scandia, and have let the Funky Monkey take over and do all the work. There have been some years that have cost me a fortune (though not as much, apparently, as 
Just like all 9 year old baseball players and older, the Taz had baseball tryouts this past weekend. Graduating from the Rookies to be a part of the Minors, this was our first year ever to have to tryout before being placed on a team. Ours were held in the gym over at Elsie Allen High School – which was pretty cool because there is no chance of it being rained out. The kids were tested on their catching and throwing skills, and their batting skills.
You had to have been living in a cave to have missed the local hot topic of the week. A Santa Rosa Mom went before the Santa Rosa City school board to plead her case as to why the book, The Tortilla Curtain, by TC Boyle, needed to be removed from the required reading list. …. In the end, the school board voted unanimously to keep the book on the required reading list, and left the option that students may read a different book if they choose not to read this one. But this event brings two very clear points to light… 
So, you ever have some sort of food that makes you think you have died and absolutely gone to Heaven? Does it make you close your eyes, breathe in deep, and savor every ounce of flavor that has exploded in your mouth? Do you stay as silent as possible, not wanting to disturb your taste buds as they do the happy dance all over your tongue? People, I think I just had a holy moment – one of those “talked to God” moments. I think I can safely say that I have experienced the mecca of all meccas, the crème de la crème, what’s been hiding in Pandora’s box, and the ambrosia of the gods. I finally caved and realized I’m in love. And it’s the perfect time of year for this scrumptious kind of affair. I can only be referring to one thing. That’s right people.
We’re talking Red Velvet Cupcakes. 
Growing up, I was fortunate to have both my parents in the home. My dad is a real estate appraiser, and though he worked a lot, we were often able to accompany him on local road trips when he went to look at houses. Sometimes we’d ride along with him, fascinated by the beauty of some areas that we never would have seen otherwise. Other times he would drop my mom and us three girls off at the park so we could have a picnic. He’d join us when his appointment was done.
Dad was the one who had the ideas for fun places to go and things to see. Who knew that sitting in the lobby of a fancy hotel, as if we were guests, enjoying hot chocolate by the fire could be so much fun. But with Dad, it was his way of instilling make-believe in us. 
There was a time (a couple weeks ago) when cleaning was the last thing on my list, and the first thing to get skipped. Just looking at that huge mountain of tasks to be tackled was overwhelming, and enough to keep me from actually doing anything about.
Perhaps you can relate.
Are you embarassed by your house? Have you stopped inviting people over to your home? When anyone knocks at your door, do you only partially open the door so that your visitor can’t see the full extent of the mess? Do you feel scattered, unable to find even the simplest of items because they aren’t where they’re supposed to be? Are you being relied on to finish all the housework and it is just getting to be too much? 
Life seemed to start when my daughter was born in February of 1998. I was 20 years old and I knew nothing about motherhood. 3 years later and I also became the mom of a son. But when I look back at all that now, I can see that this was only the prologue. Life changes, and mine certainly did when I became a divorced mom with two kids to raise.