Blue Valentine

Last Valentine's Day when we went to pick up Molly and Jack from daycare we discovered that their cubbies were not only filled with the outfits that Jack had painstakingly destroyed that day, but also with paper Valentines from other kids in their class.  As I collected the little notes and stuffed them into my purse I was thankful that Molly and Jack were just a year and a half old and blissfully unaware how their parents had failed at Valentines.  I am almost certain that every other child had participated in a card exchange while we did not.

I vowed to myself that this year would be different, that I couldn't rely on the assumption that they wouldn't understand, that they were the only children not participating in the exchange of pink and red stationary.  In late January I started creeping projects on Pinterest, I had grandiose ideas of toddler friendly hand made cards that they could work on for their classmates, cousins and grandparents.  I even made a shopping list for the Dollar Store complete with glitter, construction paper and enough sparkle heart stickers to make the minions the envy of unicorns everywhere.

Here's the thing...I never made it to the dollar store.  It was cold outside, the kids got sick twice: each, I got sick and then there was the Molly pneumonia scare.   It snowed a bunch and then time passed by.  I should have known better, evenings and weekends filled up with laundry and naps for everyone, not time for craft corner.  I am incapable of mailing a letter most days.

So today, the day before Valentines, I am going to go to a drug store and buy whatever Valentine cards are on sale, then at daycare pick up I am going to write down the names of all of the children in Molly and Jack's class to avoid me just randomly penning "fellow classmate" on every person's card.*  Tonight I will let my children scribble all over them at my parent's house and do everything in my power to ensure that these cards physically make it into daycare tomorrow.  Maybe next year will be different, but probably not.


*There are only eight other children in their class and they talk about four of them all the time, you think I'd have a better grip on names.