Our Valentine Loot!

Valentine Loot

Thanks to Grandma, Grandpa and Uncle Tom for half of these Valentine treats. The other half is from Hubby, a.k.a. Daddy!

At breakfast, when I was opening my Valentine’s card from hubby, which has a wonderful message by the way, Matthew asked, “Where’s my card?“. He has already got his Valentine treats from Daddy, and now he’s looking for a card he never cared for before. Good thing, I made him a heart-card, which I hid in his school bag. It’s for him, but he’s supposed to see it during their Valentine card exchange in school. He read the card. I got a big smile from him. We resealed it and back to the school bag it went. I also gave him the valentines card he and Mark got from Grandma and Grandpa.

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At school, Matthew’s kindergarten class has a ‘wedding‘ event. In order to teach the students that ‘Q’ and ‘u’ are always together in words, they had a wedding. The boys were Mr. Q and the girls were Miss U. I dressed up Matthew as a groom. Parents were invited. We were going to miss it as Hubby had to be out-of-town for his job, and I couldn’t possible get there on my own. (I still don’t drive by myself.) But hubby got back, and so we tried to reach the school in time for the ‘wedding‘. But, we arrived late. The wedding was over. The reception has just started.

At the school gym, when I saw Matthew amongst the crowd, he was clutching on to his teacher. When he saw me, he ran to me, and just about to cry, told me that I missed it. I was very sad, and felt so guilty! I gave him a tight hug, and told him I am so sorry that we came late, and that he looks so handsome with his cut-out top hat. He did and told his Daddy the same thing, with the very-sad-just-about-to-cry expression on his face. (I swear I will never forget that expression my whole life.)

During the reception, we let Matthew have a cupcake and some red juice. We  let him play around with his classmates. I wanted to take a picture of Matthew and his ‘bride’, but with busy kids running around, it never happened.

And then we checked him out to go home with us. While Hubby and Mark waited in the car, Matthew and I went to his classroom to pick-up his school bag. At their classroom, he showed me his journal. He was so proud to tell me that he drew one-hundred hearts for Valentine’s Day! I looked at his journal, and looked at the previous days. His entry for February 10th is what caught my eyes, and gave me even more guilty feelings.

Matthew's Journal, February 10, 2012

On the morning of February 10th was ‘Donuts for Dads‘, where dads come over and visit their kids over donuts, and take pictures with their kids. It was a busy day for Hubby at work that day, the he missed it! I didn’t think much of it, and Matthew didn’t even mention about it. I am sure that there are other kid’s dads, who didn’t come, too. I am sure that day, it was a fun filled busy day and they had lots to do in school. But of all the things he could have written about on his journal, he wrote about his dad not being there. Sigh!

Being a parent is so humbling. I swear we try our best to be there for our kids, but it doesn’t always work out. Conflicts in time, schedule and others can be so unavoidable. As sad as this makes me, it’s not even the last time we are going to miss stuffs like these. Sigh!

Life’s conflicts … Sigh!