My Funny Valentine

Today the kids had their Valentine's Day party at school. Gretchen has been planning to wear her favorite poodles and hearts dress, but Carl was more flexible. Well, once he saw me pull out the shirt that looked just like the one Lew went to work in, he was super happy! Then, it got better... I asked him if he wanted pants like Daddy's. "Well sure!" and finally, the icing on the cake... I pulled out 2 pairs of shoes. The first one was pair of tan suede bucks that fit. The second was a pair of honey colored leather ones that are a couple sizes too big. Tan scman. Fit schmit. Once he got a glimpse of those brown leather ones, he was in love. I suspect he is going to be requesting them all the time. "I want my brown shoes like Daddy's!"
You do notice the SolMate socks, right? Mismatched socks... just like Mommy's & Grammie's!! The boy is all about some funky socks. Plus, those are nice thick cotton - the best pair to wear with shoes a little too big!

Then, of course - "Mommy! Take a picture of my tights!"

I had to snap the picture of the two of them by the wall fast because he would only leave his shirt tucked in for 3 seconds. But, when his speech therapist came over, she asked if I would like her to take a shot for me! Cool! So, she took this for us!

The Valentine's Day Party. Honestly, I think could have thrown one here for about the same price. A couple weeks ago, the teachers put out 2 sign up sheets. One for the children's party, one for food for the adults attending. They write down what foods they want (or drinks, or paper products, etc) and you sign up for a specific item. No problem. I signed up for 12 child sized ham and cheese sandwiches. Then, a few days later, there were still several spots not signed up for. So, figuring that I actually have 2 children in the class, I thought the fair thing to do would be for me to take one of the remaining needed items. 2 cans of red 100% juice. Fine. We buy white grape 100% juice, so I was figuring it would be the same price. It wasn't. Great Value doesn't make a red 100% juice. I ended up having to buy Juicy Juice.

Earlier this week, the teacher approached me at drop-off with a serious look on her face. It's like a mini call to the principal's office. She even opened with the dreaded "I need to talk to you about...." line. Luckily, it ended with "the ham sandwiches." The back story is that at our center, they have no kitchen. Kids bring their own food and they can do nothing more than microwave it and serve it. If your child has a birthday - treats brought in must be prepared in a commercial kitchen. No goodies from home are allowed. I understand this, the ick factor is there. I think it might be allergy based as well, but that is more of a grey area to me anyway. However, this relates to the child sized ham and cheese sandwiches because the Health Dept paid a visit to the center and saw the classes sign-up lists. They reminded the directors that all food must be commercially prepared. The other items all were... cheese cubes, grapes, baby carrots & dip, juice. And, the Health Dept has no control over what adults in the center consume. The parent who signed up to bring the 24 adult ham and cheese sandwiches is married to an Arby's manager. She was planning to bring Arby's sandwiches aka commercially prepared sandwiches. So, they simply switched her to the children's menu and asked me to make the fool adult sandwiches in my own (hospital clean) kitchen!

I do not like ham and cheese sandwiches. I do not know how to make them. I was going to buy potato dinner rolls for the kiddos and put a little ham on them... no biggie. Now, my reputation as a cook is on the line with all the other parents in the class!

Lew told me how much ham to buy. 2 lbs. I bought a pack of 12 rolls the size of hamburg buns. I bought 15 slices of Jarlsberg Swiss cheese. I bought a little container of mustard to bring, too. Turns out, they cut the ham so thick, the 12 rolls took the entire 2 lbs - only 1.5 slices per sandwich. At the party, the other person's adult sandwiches seems to be a bigger hit. Duh - why didn't I think of that? They had purchased something that looked like a sub and had it sliced into small wedges. But, 6 of my sandwiches were gone by the end of the clean up. I asked the teacher if she had gotten one and was going to take them home. She said, "Sure - I'll save this for my dinner. I'm not cooking tonight." I had the right response for that... "Do you want them all? We won't eat them." (the kids might have picked them apart, but really, I expected to end up throwing them out.) and thankfully, she said, "Sure! Thanks! My son will love them!" I was very happy to not have any food to bring home!!!



I'm telling you, I could have had these people over to the house and cooked better on the same budget:

juice = 2 at $2.88 each
cheese = $6.00
ham = $14.96
rolls = $2.50
mustard = $1


next party... I am soooo signing up for cheese cubes!!!!!