Valentine's Day

Valentine's Day around here is supposed to be easy.  We go to the store and buy premade valentines and the kids write their names on them.  Done.  However, this year, apparently I waited way too long to buy valentines because by the time I got to the store, there were none.  Not ever just the awkward ones that no one wanted.  None at all.  So, then we were forced to get creative.  Creativity is not my specialty, but Gabe had a plan and between the two of us, we agreed to cut hearts out of pink paper and stick candy to them.  He was determined to do them all himself, including the cutting, but after two hearts that took a very long time, we agreed that I could cut out the hearts and he could just write the names on them and stick the candy on.  Luckily all he was writing was To: <fill in the name> and From: Gabe, because even that much was a lot of work for him.  I don't know what would have happened if he'd had to write "Happy Valentine's Day!" also...  But he got it done and he did a good job and they may not have been perfect, but they were definitely made with love.

Josy, on the other hand, missed most of the valentine drama.  I actually had his valentines mostly done when I realized that he might want to help me, so once he woke up from his nap, he was in charge of sticking the candy to the hearts.  He took his job seriously and stuck them all on very well.

But that only took care of the kids, not the teachers.  And Gabe was adamant that he needed to buy Valentine's flowers for his teachers.  I told him that was okay, but figured that he would forget about it.  I was very wrong.

When we got to the store on Saturday, he found the giant pile of flowers and announced again that we needed to get flowers for his teachers.  So he picked up the perfect flowers for all three of them, and started carrying them through the store.  After a few minutes, he asked if he could put them in the cart.  I told him that I didn't want them to get squished, so they really needed to be carried.  However, I told him we could take them back and put them back with the other flowers and then grab them right before we checked out.  He agreed, but then got cold feet as soon as I put them back.  "But Mom, what if someone else buys them???"  I told him that there were plenty of other options, if these ones got bought, but he wanted those ones.  So I told him that he had two options.  He could either wait by the flowers, guarding those ones while I finished the rest of the shopping, or he could choose to carry them through the store.  He thought for half a second before grabbing them all to carry.

He then proceeded to proudly carry them through the store.

And Monday morning, he was very proud of himself as he marched into his classroom with his flowers, ready to give them to his teachers.  He is such a sweet little thing.  And I'm glad that he is developing a love of making people happy by giving them flowers.  His teachers were certainly very happy on Monday morning.