So yesterday was Valentine’s Day.
I have two children, boys aged 4 and 6. They both go to a full-time daycare/ education facility and the older one goes to Kindergarten every day as well. Valentine’s Day for people like us mean that last week we got a list of every kid in each class. This is a subtle & effective reminder not to leave anyone out, which is really great. No child should be excluded.
Here’s the usual workflow, as far as I can tell, for Valentine’s Day: Get list > go to Walgreens > buy a pack of licensed Valentines that closely match the dominant brand for kids near the age of your kids> place name of each child on one of the cards; trying to match 1 of 5 sentiments to the level of closeness you feel to the recipient > send off child to school with sentiments.
Soul-crushing.
We did hand- made cards with stickers that we bought– sports, police, Spider Man (no escape from licensed characters with attributes that the children want to emulate), hearts, and fishes. They liked making them. I feel as if I’m doing what I can to not crush souls. And the 15th comes soon enough.