Really?

I decided to give up sweets for Lent. No, I'm not Catholic or any other brand of Christianity that requires it. If fact, I don't even know what "brand" of Christian I am any more, but that's a whole 'nother story. Anyway, so I've only given something up for Lent once before, and it was sweets then too. I have a problem with sweets, chocolate in particular. At work, we have this giant basket of communal bite size candy bars. If I could manage moderation, I'd be okay with this, but no, I end up eating like 10 of these things a day. At home, it's chocolate chips if I'm too lazy to actually make the cookies. So, yes, I have a self control issue with sweets and I'm going to take this time to work on it.
And on this very first day of Lent, I walked into my office this morning to find... 2 fresh boxes of Girl Scout Thin Mints. Really? Did that really happen? I think if I stared long enough, one of those girl's faces may have morphed into the devil laughing at me... HA HA HA. Here's to day one of 40. Let the self control, heavily aided by much prayer, begin!

Valentine's Day, Birthdays, "Days" in general

Those of you that know me or have read some of those Christmas entries probably already know that we're a little low key. We don't expend a whole lot of effort into holidays, special days, etc. We do small birthday dinners with close family and some days, like Valentine's day this year, we just completely ignore. M. and I are cool with this.
However, this is a certain almost 3 year old in our household now that likes to make a BIG DEAL out of special days. She has been talking about her birthday since MY birthday. Every day she asks me if it's her birthday. She pretends to make birthday cakes, puts candles on them and asks me to blow them out. When she got Valentine's cards/gifts from her daycare friends on Tuesday, she was so excited. And guess who felt like an absolute donkey's butt? I totally blanked on the exchange of "valentines." She wasn't there for the party, so she didn't experience being there with nothing to give her friends, but when I saw that bag of stuff she got from all the other kids, oh my gosh, I felt like such a loser! The social pressure of what those other parents must think about N's Mom... ack!
Then I read some other blogs (megan) about the cute stuff they did for Valentine's Day, or greg's blog about the cake his wife made their son for his birthday. It started me thinking. . . M. and I like to call it low key, but let's call it what it is, people... it's LAZY. It's also airhead! I honestly just don't think about these things. I need a personal assistant to remind me what normal people do with kids for things like this because it simply does not even enter my realm of thought. And I don't want N. to have to pay for my ditziness.
So, I'm trying to wrap my head around approaching these little special days differently. Why not make them special? Why not look forward to them? Why not get the kids excited and decorate paper with hearts and cook special meals, and for crying out loud, the extra desserts are definitely enticing! Why not? Yes, it will require me to PLAN and USE MY HEAD. Two things I openly admit to completely sucking at, but I really feel convinced that I must make the effort.
So, what's coming up that needs celebrating?? We're celebrating M and N's birthday on Sunday, March 15th. I want to do it better than just preparing food. Maybe we'll actually have a theme, or actual decorations, or, good grief, maybe I'll go all crazy with some balloons!
After that, it's St. Patrick's Day (N.'s real birthday), Easter, what... what else do other people celebrate? Clue me in!