And Then We Went A-Valentining

We went to Target on Wednesday night after work to purchase Valentines. The party at school is today and my daughter needed to have Valentines to give to all of her "friends." As we were making our way to the Valentines aisle, we discussed what was going to happen to these Valentines - that she was going to write her name on all of them and then give them to her friends at school at the party.

After getting the important questions out of the way (first, will there be candy at the party and second, can she use a marker to write her name), she agreed to write her name on 20 cards for her classmates plus on the card she picked out for my parents, Gran and Papa.

We barely had to stop in the Valentines aisle because she immediately saw the box she wanted - Hello Kitty with temporary tattoos (I'm so proud!) We wandered through a few more aisles and I picked up a few more staples . . . diet coke, hairspray, animal crackers, fruit snacks, and a couple of packs of underwear for me. (Yes, sometimes I buy underwear at Target. Sexy, huh?)

Our last stop was the greeting card aisle so we could pick out some cards for Gran and Papa and various other people. Unfortunately, she found the musical cards and wanted to open all of them. I let her open one (of course, she chose one that played "Wild Thing" very loudly) and no more. She was disappointed, but was quickly distracted by the cartoon character Valentine's Day cards.

First, I had to convince her that Gran and Papa would not like a SpongeBob SquarePants Valentine's Day card. I'm pretty sure my parents have no idea who SpongeBob is and, more importantly, probably don't care. My dad can't even get Thomas the Tank Engine's name right, even though he's my nephew's absolute favorite thing (and the only thing he's allowed to watch on TV - my nephew, not my dad). My dad always calls him Tom the Train or Thomas the Boring Engine or something like that.

Recognizing she was losing patience quickly with the Target experience, I gave in and let her pick a Go, Diego, Go! Valentine's Day card for Gran and Papa. I glanced at it, threw it in the cart, and paid. We left the store before the hunger-induced screaming started.

When we got home, she was excited to write her name on all of the cards. Since I knew she probably wouldn't make it through all of them, I made her write on Gran and Papa's first. After she finished her name, I read the card. It was only then that I realized the card said, "I hope this Valentine's Day is full of the Wildest Adventures!!" or something like that. Great. Now my three year old has given my parents a card that implies they should be having wild and crazy sex on Valentine's Day. I wrote an explanation in the card that she picked it out and that they were lucky they weren't getting a SpongeBob card.

Then we got to the school Valentines. She was still excited until she realized the cards were pretty small and her name has eight letters. She made it through two cards with all eight letters of her name. The rest of them have some combination of the letters of her name. As she was writing her cards (and growing more bored by the second), I started unpacking the rest of our stuff. I sat next to her to unwrap all of my new underwear.

She looked over at me, let out a long dramatic sigh, and said, "Do I have to write my name on those too??"

Now, that would be even sexier, huh? My three year old's name written on my underwear?

HOT-T-T-T.