Since it's nearly Valentine's Day, I thought a fitting seasonal tale would be appropriate. My oldest, Thor, has always been something of a lady's man. He IS hard to resist. Big blue eyes, blonde hair, a great heart-felt smile, and a winning personality. Not surprisingly, his love life started early. Somewhere around 1st grade. I'm not entirely sure it was by choice. His little "girlfriend" always struck me as a tad overbearing, like the time we were at the school's Back-to-School carnival and he was talking to Big Daddy and me and she was over at the cake walk. I saw her snap her little fingers and give him the 'get over here now' look, to which he promptly responded by dumping us and high tailing it over to the other side of the playground. Needless to say, I wasn't a big fan.So, Valentine's Day rolled around. Yes, if you're perceptive you'll have noted that they have already been a "couple" for about six months which, in a twisted sort of way somehow made me proud because I guess I could tell he wouldn't have commitment issues as an adult so there was no reason to fear he'd live with us forever....but I digress. At least two weeks before the big V-day, Thor told me that he wanted to get his girlfriend a gift. I suppose I was patronizing him when I asked him what he had in mind, but he calmly and seriously answered, 'a ring.' I must have been drinking a glass of iced tea at the time because I clearly remember choking on an ice cube and iced tea spewing out my nose (not this first time this has happened to me - I don't take surprises well). I told Thor that absolutely NO way was he going to buy Katie a ring. I explained that rings are symbols of serious commitment - something you give to someone you love and plan to marry. Far too serious for a 1st grade romance. No how. No way. I could just imagine how well the ring would go over with Katie's parents (her daddy probably had no idea his little angel even had a boyfriend and wouldn't that be a nice way to find out?!!) I flew into instant over protective mode and assured him that a ring would be totally inappropriate given their age and, well.....their age!
As 7 year old boys are easily distracted, the subject didn't come up again until the day before Valentine's Day and I mistakenly took his lack of communication on the subject for forgetfulness. But, no. Thor hadn't forgotten. As soon as he got home from school, he reminded me that he needed to go shopping for Katie's gift. 'All right,' I said, begrudgingly. 'But I'm not financing your romance - this is coming out of your allowance.' 'No problem,' said Thor. 'I've got $13 saved up.' Great.
So I did what anyone with a $13 budget would do. I loaded the kids up in the car and we went to the local K-Mart. The first thing Thor picked out was the biggest, gaudiest heart-shaped box of chocolates I've ever seen. It was one of those nesting type type boxes where the lid and the bottom sort of fit together, and the whole thing was shrinkwrapped with the price tag and bar code pre-printed on the shrink wrap. The thing must have measured 18-inches in diameter and must have held 2 lbs of chocolate. And it cost $2.98! Now, I'm pretty sure of one thing: if you can get 2 lbs. of chocolate for under three bucks, it's not going to be of the highest quality. I don't think that mattered at all to Thor. He just liked that he got a big box of candy for $2.98, which left him about $10 to spend on a stuffed animal and a card. He picked out a cute little kitty cat stuffed animal and a card that said something to the effect of, 'Happy Valentine's Day to the Sweetest Girl I know.' Pretty PG, so it was ok with me and I was just glad our shopping trip was over. Or so I thought.
The Chin (son #2) had been lingering in the candy aisle while Thor was doing his thing. The Chin was in Kindergarten at the time. Never one for making a showy display of himself, he calmly walked up to me with a small heart-shaped box of chocolates. I figured he wanted some candy to eat, like any other sweet, innocent 5-year old. My heart broke a little when he said, 'I want to buy something for my girlfriend, too.'
'What?!! What girlfriend?!' I screamed in the middle of the seasonal display aisle. Evidently, The Chin had been swept up in the tide of romance, too, and had found himself a girl. I was surprised, to say the least, because I was pretty sure that as of last week, girls still had cooties. But, I couldn't very well tell him no when his brother was off on a Valentine's shopping extravaganza. I paid for his little $1 box of chocolates and off we went, telling myself that it was only going to get worse from here on out.
When we got home, Thor went straight to his room and was gone for quite a while. The Chin, on the other hand, was running in circles around the front lawn with his hands raised in the air in triump, even pumping his fists in victory, uncharacteristically screaming to the neighborhood at the top of his lungs, "I have a girlfriend and I don't care who knows it!!!" Love makes you do weird things.
Finally, Thor came out of his room. He showed me his handiwork. He had painstakingly drawn hearts over the entire front surface of the card's envelope. No area was left unmarked by his trusty No. 2 pencil. He even wrote her name, Katie, with a heart over the 'i'. Gag. He wanted to show me that he had cleverly figured out how to transport this treasure trove to school so he pulled out his backpack, into which he had tried to cram the 18-inch box of chocolates. It really wasn't that bad an idea. It would have been fine, except he had decided to remove the shrink wrap from the box because it had the price tag printed on it (which he first tried to scratch out with a pen, but that tore the shrink wrap and looked tacky so he decided it had better just come off). But when he tried to pull the box, which is meant to be carried horizontally, out of his backpack, the box came open and all the candy fell out. This was particularly bad because the bottom of a seven year old's backpack is never clean, so although he tried to put each candy back in it's little paper cup, they all had little bits of lint and flecks of crayon and sand from the sandbox at school stuck to them. He was crushed....and so were some of the candies.
'Not to worry!' said I. Super mom to the rescue! We blew on the candies and gently brushed them and fitted them back in their little paper cups, though in truth, they still looked like candies that had been dropped in the bottom of a little boys' backpack. I told him to get some tape and tape the sides of the box together so that wouldn't happen again. So, feeling hope restored, Thor trotted off....to the garage. I went right back to preparing dinner or whatever I'd been doing at the time, mostly wondering what the heck had gotten into The Chin and wondering if this newfound euphoria would last until Big Daddy got home because he'd never believe me that our quiet, sullen child was doing love-brodies on the front lawn.
Thor popped back into the kitchen with the candy box behind his back. 'I fixed it, mom!' he said. And boy, had he! Thor had gotten Big Daddy's duct tape and proceeded to pull off four strips of the silver tape and wrap them from the front to the back side of the box: two on the right side, two on the left! I couldn't help it. I burst out laughing! I laughed so hard I almost wet my pants. Thor couldn't appreciate the humor or the irony in the situation. When I finally regained my composure, I decided it was perfect like that and wished I could be a fly on the wall when Katie took her big, duct taped box of candy home to show her mom and they opened it to find the obviously rejuvenated chocolates inside. Her father would have rightly assumed that his angel was dating an okie.
The next day, I left work early to pick the boys up from school. I spent the whole day picturing the scene and, I have to admit, I was a little nervous for them - especially for The Chin, knowing that rejection could be tough. Both the boys were in great moods when they got into the car. I immediately asked Thor what Katie thought of her presents. He said he didn't know. 'You don't know? What do you mean you don't know?' I asked. 'She didn't really say anything when I gave them to her,' he explained. 'But guess what she gave me, mom?' I thought for a moment. 'Um....I don't know. Candy?' Thor beamed with a smile from ear to ear and stuck out his hand for me to see. 'A ring! Cool, huh?' Unbelievable......
After all my effort to steer Thor away from giving his girl a ring, the little tart turned the tables on me! I gave up on my Valentine's lesson, mumbling something to myself about parents and their values these days, but not before asking The Chin what his girlfriend thought of her gift.
'Oh, she dumped me at first recess. So I ate the chocolate,' he said matter-of-factly, showing no signs of emotional trauma. And that sounded just fine by me!
