Valentine.

Valentine's Day.  If you want to bring out my grumpy, snarky, cynical side, then come on over and have a chat with me about Valentine's Day.  Who the crap thought up of a day full of hearts, candy, flowers, sappy cards and mushiness?  Here's my story of why I detest Valentine's Day:

I've despised this holiday for as long as I can remember.  As a kid, I was a little on the fugly awkward side.  I didn't wear the cool clothes, I had bad hair, I wore glasses and of course, I just wasn't the cool kid.  When Valentine's Day rolled around, I would get excited about writing cards to all the kids in my class and would dream about the candy, the little cards and such that I would get too.  Then I realized that it was mandatory.  In order to get Valentines, you had to make them for everyone in the class.  It wasn't really whether or not kids wanted to give me one...more of a "you-have-to-give-me-one-and-then-I'll-give-you-nasty-chalk-tasting-candy-hearts".  I can remember the boys in class would snicker when they had to dump one into my folder.  I can also remember overhearing a friend's mom at the class party mention that I would probably be one of those kids that would be a late bloomer...you know, the one that would look cute/pretty/socially acceptable later in life...just not yet.

In high school, I bloomed a little.  I had a steady boyfriend and I can remember that I was excited that I'd actually get to be someone's Valentine on Valentine's Day.  Yeah.  Fat lot of good that did me.  The one Valentine's Day I actually had something to look forward to, I ended up having to miss.  I had been diagnosed with mild scoliosis in my back and my mother conveniently scheduled the appointment with the spine specialist that late afternoon.  We conveniently hit rush hour traffic coming back from Sacramento and by the time I finally made it home, it was past the reservation time and wouldn't you know? It was almost past my curfew.  In case you couldn't guess, my parents despised the guy I was seeing at the time. 

When I met my best friend and the man I would marry, I explained that my track record with Valentine's Day was pretty sketchy.  He gave it a valiant effort in the first few years.  We'd go out to dinner or go do something.  As we got older and wiser, we realized that Valentine's Day was really just another day.  What makes this day any more special that yesterday or tomorrow?  We decided that Valentine's Day is null and void.  We celebrate being in love and having someone to love every time we say the three most terrifying and wonderful words: "I. LOVE. YOU."    Don't get me wrong though...my kids haven't discovered the cynical side of their mother yet (at least, not that I know of), so I still try to make it fun and perky for them.  I help them with their cards, provide stickers and markers to decorate their bags/boxes to carry home the mandated cards passed around at school, and volunteer for the class party. 

Flowers will die, cards get thrown away, and candy...well, candy goes straight to my ass and my thighs.  I don't like hearts, I don't like pink and I just plain don't like Valentine's Day.

Education.

Whoever thought the act of obtaining an education was so convoluted?  When I was a kid, my parents didn't have a lot of money.  My brother and I went to public school for the most part.  There were two stints in Catholic school: kindergarten for one semester and 6th grade for one semester.  Both times, my brother was politely asked not to return.  For the 6th grade stint, my parents gave me the choice:  I could stay in the private school or I could go back to public school.  For a girl who was incredibly geeky and nerdy awkward, I didn't much fit in anywhere; but at least I had my friends at public school still waiting for me.  In my kindergarten through 12th grade education, I went to 7 schools: St. Bernard's, Pine Hill Elementary, Bonnyview Elementary, Sacred Heart, Sequoia Middle, C.A. Jacobs Intermediate and Dixon High.  Each transition was awkward, but I knew that for the most part, I'd be okay.  My parents did the best they could and they made sure that we lived in a good school district.  I remember my teachers were pretty awesome.  They were creative with classwork and homework.  We didn't watch movies in class (minus the "Miracle of Life" showing in high school) and if we did, it was usually the day before vacation or because we had earned it as a class.  School seemed pretty cut and dry.  We went to school, came home, did homework and then repeated this 5 days a week.

Now the roles are reversed.  I'm no longer the student, but rather the parent.  What makes it complicated is that we move.  A lot.  Gavin has gone to 3 schools and he's only in 3rd grade (this doesn't include the 3 different preschools he went to prior to grade school).  In Louisiana, we decided to send him to private school.  In hindsight, it was one of the best decisions we made.  He made huge strides in math and reading and he amazed me with how quickly he was picking up the knowledge.  He went to this school for kindergarten and 1st grade.  At this point, our funding of school became an issue.  Private school is not cheap and we realized that Lauren would be starting up soon as well.  This would mean double the tuition; something that we just did NOT have.  So, we made the decision to pull him out and put him into a good public school that was right down the street.  He did well--he didn't thrive or backslide, but he did excellent with his tests and grades.  Then we moved to Hawaii.

Everyone always says that their state is one of the worst in the nation for schools.  We had been warned that Louisiana schools were some of the worst offenders.  When we found out that we would be moving to Hawaii, people warned us that the education system was really bad.  Our reply, "Well, he went to public school in Louisiana...how bad can it be???"  Talk about your all-time ultimate rhetorical backfires.  We moved on base for a few different reasons: free-ish housing, easy access to everything, reverse commute for Mark and Hickam Elementary School (HES).  Everyone raved about how good HES was, so we had some warm fuzzies. 

As the school year started, I began to see changes in Gavin's learning behaviors.  Reading, which once came naturally and easily, became more of a struggle.  Math was still easy for him, but he mentioned that he was easily distracted in class because many students were just flat out disrespectful in class.  We worked on reading at home and it seemed to be okay.  His standardized test scores came back and showed that he was starting to backslide in his language arts progress.  Even his math scores came back lower than what we had anticipated.  Then I learned that there was some bullying going on during recess.  I brought it to the teacher's attention, where I was quickly blamed because I couldn't control Gavin's behavior.  Gavin is a shy kid, pretty easy going kid.  I don't think a game of pretend guns (minus the pretend guns) is grounds to have another kid come up to him and shove him on the ground.  This happened on more than one occasion. 

Mark and I briefly discussed the idea of private school again or maybe even home school.  Realistically, we cannot afford private school here.  It is approximately $3,000 - $7,000 more per year than what we paid in Louisiana.  Plus, we'd have to double it since Lauren is also now in school.  We simply cannot afford $20,000/year in tuition costs.  Maybe if I went back to work we could, but with Mark's unpredictable hours and such, it becomes an improbability.  Homeschooling has never appealed to me; which is ironic considering I just finished my master's degree in education.  I could easily home school Gavin, as he is respectful and would listen.  Lauren, on the other hand, is so spirited and creative that she's a bit of a handful.  I don't know that she would be willing and able to sit down with me and learn.  If I were to home school Gavin and not Lauren, then she would most likely see it as unfair and not understand why she can't stay home too.  And then there's the issue of sanity.  I love my kids, but every single day all day long is a little much.

Basically, it comes down to having to make a hard decision on what to do that will be best for Gavin.  Do we keep him in the current situation and hope that it gets better and supplement the learning at home?  Do we home school?  Do I go back to work just to send my kids to a decent school?  This is one of the crap parts about being a parent (aside from the stretch marks and baby pooch).  Having to make a decision that can truly affect his future sucks.  I wish I could peek into the future and see what's behind each door before we have to pick in order to make sure that we picked the right one.