Wednesday, February 14, 2007

Happy Valentine's Day!

This is what I learned about love this Valentine's Day:

1) There's more than enough to go around.
I went to Target to get some notecards and chocolates so we could make Valentines cards for Lucas' classmates. I was so overwhelmed as I bumbled through the 5 aisles in Target that housed just the Valentine-themed candy. I found some simple heart chocolates, however, in the 50,000+ square feet that is Target, I couldn't find a single heart sticker.

2) You have to work at it, part 1
On Monday night Lucas and I embarked on the task of making Valentine's cards for his classmates. We had simple flat notecards. I started to write: To: [name] and From: [name], figuring that Lucas would just want to be involved with the decorating. But Lucas had other ideas. He wanted to write the names out, including his own, which is a little tough with long names like Valencia and Sebastian (the one below says "Sebastian" and "Lucas").

but much easier with short names like Nia and Owen (the one below also shows how much his writing improved over his 2-day intensive writing workshop).


Monday night we only got through about 7 of the 20 cards needed for his classmates. We took time-out when Lucas said he was "tired of writing", to embellish the cards with glittery stars and felt heart-shaped stickers, which I finally found at Five Little Monkeys, one of my favorite local toy stores.

3) You have to work at it, part 2
On Tuesday night, we plugged away at more Valentines cards. But soon Lucas didn't want to write anymore. Then he insisted on dictating to me. And of course, he didn't just list the kids in his class, but he went down the class list and started to spell each of the names for me. "Okay mommy, now this name is C-A-R-T-F-R."

4) People who love each other don't have to agree.
I said, "I think it's E-R, like Carter." Lucas stood his ground, "It's F-R! It says it right here!" Luckily, the dictation phase was short.

5) Love, well, it can be sticky.
Inevitably, Lucas got glue all over his hands. But that wasn't enough, so he actually dug his fingers down into the glue stick and it got under his fingernails.

6) Lucas has a lot of love to go around.
When we were done with his classmates, he wanted to make them for his teachers. And not just his two primary teachers, but the afterschool teachers and the substitutes. To avoid a possible meltdown and writing cards into the wee hours of the night, I convinced him that the since the subs weren't going to be at school, we could wait for another holiday to make cards for them. But we did take the time to make a card for his best friend Owen, see above. But after the 3rd teacher, he gave up writing and decorating entirely. So I was left with making them for the rest of the teachers.

7) It can get ugly.
Since it was Valentine's Day and all, Lucas ate quite a bit of sweets. Actually, probably more than he usually does in a whole month. So I'm going to attribute his extra fiery temper on the playground to the excessive amounts of sugar coursing through his veins. Though anyone who has seen him on a "bad" day, knows that I'm just making excuses.

8) It can render you speechless.
We topped off our sushi dinner with chocolate cupcakes from Love at First Bite and they were delicious, "Guittard chocolate cupcakes topped with chocolate buttercream frosting" (I'm guessing that "Guittard" is a French word for "extremely delicious"). Kevin asked Lucas a couple of times if he liked his cupcake while he was eating it. He didn't say anything. He ended up shoving a big handful of the cake part in his mouth.

Happy Valentine's day to you!

1 comment:

Anonymous said...

We had a very similar experience trying to work our way through 16 blank valentines. Julian's job was to draw on the cards and tell me where to place the heart. He could do about four before we had to take a break. Four sessions later, we were done.

Since he is too young to know candy in a wrapper when he sees it, Ryan and I ate it all for him after he went to bed.