By Keenan McGrath of DearQueenan.com
Before Children: You spend an hour browsing Hallmark, reading every card until you find the perfect mix of sweet sentiment and witty humor that encompasses the deep bond of love you share with your partner
[adsanity id=”35664″ align=”aligncenter”/]After Children: You can’t find the one you’re pretty sure you grabbed at the grocery store, so you pretend the handmade card from the kids is “from all of us.” When you find your card buried in a stack of your kid’s “artwork,” you decide to save it for next year in a spot you will never think to look by next week.
Before Children: You think school Valentine’s parties are so cute, and you can’t wait to wear matching aprons and bake heart-shaped cookies for your little one to bring to school as a “special treat” for all their classmates.
After Children: You realize that a single batch of cookies prepared with a child is enough to destroy your entire kitchen and are actually contraband in the classroom. So you scour Target for a nut-free, dairy-free, gluten-free piece of plastic crap for your kid to give out (so you don’t have to endure judgment from the health-conscious parents). And yet somehow your kids still come home from school with a bag of candy to rival their Halloween haul because there just aren’t enough sugar-eating opportunities from October-January.
[adsanity id=”35667″ align=”aligncenter”/]Before Children: You remember fondly making Valentine’s for all your classmates and can’t wait to take your children shopping to pick out a box of their favorite character.
After Children: Your kid has changed his mind about the kind of Valentines he wants at least half a dozen times, so you buy them when he’s at school and tell him they were out of everything else. You then sit and force him to make marks that vaguely resemble any letter in his name on 20 pieces of paper until he cries and says he doesn’t want to give Valentines anyway, at which point you send him to bed and finish them yourself using your wrong hand after a couple glasses of wine to give them an authentic look.
[adsanity id=”35665″ align=”aligncenter”/]Before Children: You make 8 pm reservations a month in advance at an amazing new restaurant, meet early for drinks at the trendy bar down the street, and stop at your local hot spot on the way home.
After Children: You briefly consider going to the closest restaurant to your house with actual table linens around 6pm so you’re home in time for Dancing With The Stars, but then you remember you’d have to get a sitter and traffic will be bad, plus it’s bound to be crowded and you might not get a table and have to wait in the bar. Probably easier just to get take out and put it on fancy plates, but you can’t put the china in the dishwasher and it’s silly to get a dish dirty anyway, so you end up eating cold filet out of Styrofoam on a TV tray so you don’t miss your shows.
[adsanity id=”35666″ align=”aligncenter”/]Before Children: You expect roses and gourmet chocolates.
After Children: You wait for the 15th and get a half-priced box of whatever’s left at CVS (unless it’s the creams).
This post was originally published on DearQueenan.com.
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About the Author
Keenan (and her alter-ego Queenan) resides in Charlotte, North Carolina, where she has built a lifestyle around drinking, judging and just being fabulous. Her goal is to help others attain that same state of balance by giving advice on these and other topics on her blog DearQueenan.com. The rest of her time is devoted to sharing inspired moments of wit, wisdom, and folks being a hot mess on Instagram and Facebook. Keenan also raises two kids, a husband and a dog when she can’t find appropriate sitters.