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Sunday, February 13, 2011

McHeart

Valentine's - Schmalentine's. A co-worker of mine once theorized that the date was a conspiracy conjured up by Hallmark, Godiva and 1-800 Flowers. Although I see his point, I'm so jaded that I'd even hate to give those corporations the credit. After all, the same theory could be applied to Easter.

Although, Easter has a history. Ask Google what happened and why we do the Voodoo that we do and almost all of the answers will lead to a guy named Jesus being resurrected. The bunnies and the egg hunt...well, nobody seems to have a sensible explanation for that except that it's a conspiracy conjured up by Hallmark, Godiva and Petland Discounts.

But Valentine's? I can't get a clear correlation between this Saint or Saints and the declaration of love. The more I analyze it, the more exasperated I get - like trying to explain love itself.

Valentine's Day, WTF? When I was single, you rubbed it in. When I got married, you became a joke. But I never had to buy into your commercialism...until now.

The four-year old came home with the "option" to hand out Valentine's day cards to all of his classmates. I passed that assignment over to Grammy thinking it would be the more volatile project. Eighteen cards signed in his Pre-K penmanship that resembles a squid mark in an earthquake - that's a breakdown guaranteed right there.

No thanks, I'll go with Big Brother's assignment. Read a Valentine's poetry, draw a Valentine's picture. How bad could that be, right?

I forgot Big Brother's a spaz.

For his picture, he wanted to draw a big heart and failed...miserably. The invested art lessons at SVA are going up in flames as he attempted to draw a simple heart and it came out looking like - well, it looked like an ass.

"No, no, no. You can't use that one." I said while I frantically erased it.

"Why not?"

"Well, for one thing - the bottom of a heart shape is not flat. Just do it again."

I wondered if I was being a bit of a Tiger Mom: the Asian-Nazi of a mother. But I realized we're not playing piano here - do it right, damn-you! No ifs, ands or Butts.

He tried it again and stopped with half of a heart. The top half that looks like a butt. He started to get frustrated.

"Dude, you're making it harder for yourself. Just draw the letter C with a big hump and then counter it with a backwards C - like this," I showed him.

He was determined to draw it his own way. A curvy letter M, a line on the left veering right, a line on the right veering left, over and over again. He worked at a pace so slow, I thought it would be Christmas before we were done. Finally, when he finished, there was a drawing of a heart that resembled McDonald's golden arches.

By this time, I was quite done with his homework assignment.

"Okay," I said, "you want to hand that in?"

"No, I want my hearts to look like yours, mommy."

Sweet, yes, but as I mentioned earlier, I am too jaded for Valentine's activities. I didn't care if they were perfect, I just didn't want them to look like the rear view of J-Lo or the aerial view of Dolly Parton.

He finally got a heart drawn to his liking. And though I wouldn't have cared, in my judgement it passed as G rated.

"Now, let's color it in," he said.

"Sure, what color - black or yellow?"

He gave me a quizzical look.

"No, Mommy. Hearts are red."

"Oh yeah," I challenge my last stand against Valentine commercialism. "Says who?"

He rolled his eyes up like duh and answered, "CVS!"

4 comments:

  1. I applaud you for having had the courage to sit down and insist that he do it correctly. Had our son come home with an assignment like that, mom would’ve been helping him complete it.

    I wouldv've said screw it...we're not doing it. Eighteen cards...no way!

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  2. As it was, cards were the least one could do. Some kids showed up with homemade cupcakes and jewelry. Talk about excessive...

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  3. That is hilarious ...Tyler had to do the whole Valentines thing...fun times

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