My Paper Heart

Growing up, as Valentine's Day approached, our class would complete crafts.  Usually they involved folding a piece of pink or red construction paper in half, cutting it into the shape of a heart and then gluing some sort of doily on the back of it.  This is something that I never mastered as a child and as an adult I am incapable of successfully completing the fold and cut heart technique.  I would usually end up with something that looked like a cross between a tear drop and a giant red turd.  I'd often ask the child beside me to complete the paper heart for me. Today, unfortunately, I have two children whose fine motor skills surrounding safety scissors "need improvement" and I have a progress report to prove it, so I'm not getting any help there.

Festive "Valentine" Baby Molly.

The first year that Molly and Jack were in daycare I was taken aback by all of the Valentine's that they received from their classmates.  I was unaware that children who could barely walk were exchanging greeting cards.

Last year I had a plan for V-Day.  I creeped on Pinterest and I was going to "bring it on".  But, life happened and I ended up rushing out to the drug store in the basement of my office building on February 13th securing a set of Dinosaur themed Valentines that I signed for both of the minions and dropped off at the daycare the morning of the 14th.  On the subway that morning I saw another mother frantically filling out drug store cards for her child while they were on their way to kindergarten.  I commiserated with her, I had to restrain myself from hugging a stranger on the subway.

That night when we picked up the kids from daycare, I discovered that the other parents had upped their games.  Suddenly there weren't just cards.  There were hand made crafts, glittered pencils and sparkled play dough.  I swore under my breath at these thoughtful parents who "Valentold" me that I wasn't killing it as a parent like I thought I was.

My competitive side set in.  I vowed, yet again that 2015 would be different!  I saw a mold for Lego men on Amazon that I was going to buy and use to melt crayons into, making home made Lego crayons and hand made cards for Molly and Jack to excitedly distribute on Valentine's.  I never ordered the tray, I never peeled the crayons or melted them into molds.  Last weekend I worked on my speech for my brother's wedding.  This week we made cupcakes for papa for his birthday and celebrated with him, I picked up my dress for the wedding from the tailor and last night Chris and I both stood strong and implemented our very first no TV punishment for Molly for sulking - this didn't leave much time for crafting.

Yesterday afternoon I sent Chris, our resident origami expert, this cute paper heart pattern from a blog I follow and I suggested that he make hearts for the kids to colour in tonight for their classmates. When he asked how many kids were in the class (over 20) I reminded him that I would need double that number as we have two distinctly separate children who each need to distribute cards.  He sighed, assured me there was no way this was happening, and asked me which of us was going to the drug store today on our lunch to pick up more than 40 Valentine cards.

Tomorrow none of the parents at daycare are going to curse me for my mad Martha Stewart Valentine skills.  Chris and I will try to remember to dress our children in pink and red and pick up the spoils from another Valentine's at daycare...and I'm going to vow that next year, in kindergarten that it's going to be different, but let's face it, it's not.

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