I’m personally not a fan. Valentine’s Day has been historically unkind to me. On that day I’ve been forgotten, fought with, and even cheated on. Okay, technically the cheating didn’t occur on the 14th, but that was when it was revealed so it’s all about the same to me.

When hubby and I got together I made it very clear to him that I do not celebrate Valentine’s Day. It didn’t matter that he was amazing and would have loved to shower me with wonderful gifts, I wanted none of it. I even made it clear that should he propose on Valentine’s Day I would say no. He waited and popped the question on the 16th.

Even now that I’m married I chose to continue ignoring V-Day. Sure, I have a sweetie who would still love to shower me with wonderful gifts, but why should either of us be pressured to perform on a specific day because some zombie corporation can make an extra buck. Not to mention the number of people, women specifically, who are left feeling somehow less when they go through the day without getting a stupid box of chocolates or generic bouquet. That’s just not cool.

So here’s the deal. Valentine’s Day sucks. Instead of making it about romantic love let’s make this year about an unconditional love. Let’s love on people around us who need it. Buy a few dozen carnations and hand them out at the store to everyone you pass. Take a big box of chocolate to the office and share it with your coworkers. Leave cards under the wipers of your neighbors’ cars.

Valentine’s Day isn’t going away. I know, I’ve tried to get rid of it for quite a while. I can’t beat it so I’m joining but I’m sharing the love with more than just my family. Join me?

“Madmen are over used as villains and even in thrillers they are boring. The most interesting and compelling villains are the ones who would describe themselves as heroes of the story.”

This is exactly why I’m having trouble with my antagonist, he’s boring.

In order to deal with her fears I would run around the room scooping the ghosts up and throwing them out the windows and doors. It was quite a workout and made PK laugh like a hyena. The upside was that after I’d chased all the ghosts out of her room she would go to sleep. The downside was that she was so amused by my ghost-busting that every time I went into her room to catch them there were greater numbers of ghosts. Just inventing more ghouls wasn’t enough though, they also got smarter. Eventually I’d go into her room to find hordes of ghosts who would no longer cower and scurry off when tossed out on their ears. The new ghosts would cling to the door frames, wriggle out of my arms to hide in the closet and creep back in the window while my back was turned dealing with the next apparition.

Fortunately there came a day when PK outgrew the ghosts and I was forced to join a gym to get my exercise. Now I’m dealing with Monkey’s fears: Monsters. Tonight she crept into our room after she’d been tucked in to let us know that her room was overrun and she was on the run. Since DH was lounging face down on the bed and showed no sign of concern I abandoned my ironing to fend of the oogedy boogedies.

She entered her room cautiously and told me the monsters were under her bed. After I turned on the light she inspected the shadows below her bed and declared that there were no monsters because they were only there when the lights were off. Flicking the switch down she checked again and pronounced that they were back.

I turned the light on once more and sat with her to discuss the problem. It turned out that the monsters hid right outside her room waiting until the moment the room went dark to go mini-size in order to slip in unseen. Once under the bed they got big-sized again in order to scare her.

The solution to the problem was immediately clear. I reached into my pocket and pulled out my aerosol can on monster repellent. It’s very similar to bug repellent or RAID. By spraying it around all the doors and windows we were able to stop the monsters from entering the room at all. With the monster problem solved Monkey snuggled back into her bed and hasn’t been seen again.

Two questions remain. How far will the monster problem escalate and what boogy-woogie with Busy B come up with?

The Best

Yo Gabba Gabba
The Backyardigans
Olivia
Miss Spider’s Sunny Patch Friends
Lazy Town
Little Einsteins
Mickey Mouse Clubhouse
3-2-1 Penguins
Happy Monster Band
Handy Manny

The Worst

Ni Hao Kai-Lan
Max and Ruby
Imagination Movers
Charlie and Lola
Elliot Moose
Elmo’s World
Barney and Friends
Little Bill
Bunnytown
Caillou

These are not in any particular order because that would just be way too much work. I’m already feeling strained from providing links to each of the shows in case you see something you’re not familiar with and would like to check it out. Obviously everyone’s tastes differ so let me know in the comments if you disagree or want to add a few of your own.

For some reason my daughter soaks up the information spewed out of the mouths of presenters hired to hawk goofy products in sixty second infomercials. It’s like a disease. If Billy Mays (RIP) touted it the Monkey knows all about it. That’s not all though. She doesn’t just catalog and store the information in her random trivia file, she treats it as gospel and behaves accordingly. The behavior consisting of immediately running to Mom or Dad and insisting that we absolutely need and must immediately own Debbie Meyers’ Green Bags, the Perfect Slice Brownie Pan or the Aqua Globes to water our non-existent plants.

For Christmas my mother bought me a silicone mold for baking a giant cupcake. Before I even know what it was the Monkey was excitedly spouting the virtues of the mold and explaining to me exactly how it works and why being able to bake cake size cupcakes was so awesome. A while ago I came home from the store with a Ped Egg that I picked up at Walgreens while waiting for a prescription to be readied at the pharmacy. The Monkey wanted to show me how to work it.

When PK was little I explained to her that advertisements were just companies’ way of trying to sell us things we didn’t want by making us think we needed them. She took those words to heart and has never been swayed to beg for something just because it danced on tv. I tried giving the same spiel to the Monkey to no effect. She’s an out of control addict.

The problem is that the cable channel with the programming I find most appropriate for her (QUBO) is also not the most popular so many, and at times most, of the commercials are for As Seen On TV products. I could take away television altogether if I really wanted to destroy my sanity by giving up that tiny window of time I have to do things like go to the bathroom, cook dinner, take a shower and other assorted life necessities. I could switch to a channel that offers less in the way of values and life lessons if I didn’t mind her mimicking Hannah Montana, Alex Russo, Carly Shaye and Tru Jackson. Or I can come up with a way to help her understand that commercials are a vast wasteland of junk that isn’t worth the money spent producing it. Anyone know how to accomplish that?

Apparently when hubby and BIL were outside this afternoon playing football with the kids the keys fell out of his unsecured pocket. Unfortunately he had no idea when exactly that happened so he could only tell us that they should be somewhere in the common area (about the size of a big backyard). This was complicated by the fact that they had trampled over and around the entire area which had then been covered by even more snow.

Hubby started by searching spots he knew he’d tackled BIL while I started kicking through the snow at the base of the big king-of-the-hill type pile the plows had built at the end of the driveway. Finding nothing I grabbed the broom and swept around it a couple times while hubby crawled through it just to double check. When we still hadn’t found anything I started out across the field of play. After the first pass across I was sweating in my big down coat and started unsnapping the top to let the breeze down the back of my neck. By the time I finished the second pass I pushed my hat off my ears and neck.

I continued on a few more times sweeping my way from driveway to sidewalk while hubby dug through the end zones with his flashlight. As I took a breath and repositioned the flashlight against the broomstick so it would shine on the snow as I pushed it around I saw that the snow removal crew had returned. A truck was plowing a neighboring driveway and a group of three or four men were making their rounds with their shovels. I pondered approaching them for assistance but decided I wasn’t that desperate just yet while secretly hoping that they’d see us, be overcome by curiosity and after hearing our tale of woe offer to help us.

While imagining a small crew of men digging out the common area for me I began another pass but my rescue fantasy was interrupted halfway through by a flicker of something black under my broom. Swishing over the spot one more time revealed the lost keys.

It ended up taking us only about 15 minutes searching to find them so I was glad I insisted on helping. Now we just need to get the keys back to my sister and her husband over an hour drive away. They said they’d meet us halfway tomorrow and owe us big time. We’re wondering about the key fob on the chain offering a reward if we mail it in. Hmm, spend gas money and time to drive the keys back and get a big hug or drop them in the mailbox at the end of the drive and get a thank you hopefully in the form of a little money.

Sometimes it sucks being a good person.

I’m stymied and stuck. I have sugar cookies to cut out and decorate, floors that need sweeping and mopping, shirts that need to be ironed and presents that need to be wrapped. Unfortunately I’m tired from all the baking, cleaning, laundering and wrapping I’ve already done. I’m out of motivation and I’m thinking WWSD, or What Would Santa Do?

I think that’s a good way to get through the holidays. Perhaps I’ll sell bracelets to crazed last minute shoppers. It’s at least a good stocking stuffer.

If Santa was behind on his baking he’d call Mrs. Claus (who doesn’t ever get a first name which is very discriminatory if you ask me) and ask her for a hand. If his floors needed cleaning he’d call Mrs. Claus to pull out the broom and get to work. A wrinkled red suit would be immediately care for by his loving wife. Wrapping presents shouldn’t be a problem for the jolly old elf with all those little elves at his disposal, but should he find them slacking he could always enlist the Mrs. for an extra set of hands.

I guess the answer to what Santa would do is that he’d dump it all on his long-suffering wife. So where do I get one of those? Is it to late to add to my Christmas list?

Thus, I will not let Monkey watch TV tonight. Nor did I allow her to plant her posterior in front of it last night. The kid is six but is reading chapter books above her grade level independently yet she’s so lazy she’d rather watch an episode of Wonder Pets that she’s already seen ten times. Oy.

Honestly, if the zombies come calling I may let them nosh on her gray matter regardless of whether it’s past its freshness date or not since she seems determined not to use it anyway.

Tonight I’m waiting for the husband to arrive home so I can run out the door. One of my dearestestestest friends from high school is visiting her parents and carved out an evening to get together for dinner. I’m so looking forward to seeing her but I’m but I could definitely do without this headache. Dinner for the family is cooking and should be done right on time so hubby doesn’t have to figure out whether the pork chops are fully cooked or not. My hair is passable and my clothes survived the day unscathed so I don’t have to worry about that.

The funny thing is that the more nights I go out the more I feel like I need a night out. Something isn’t jiving there. I’m guessing that what I really need is a week of nights in to get caught up on sleep and sanity. Perhaps in January. That’s probably when I’ll get around to editing more than just the prologue too. Happy Holidays!