Today’s project was making valentines for school (classmates and teachers). I gave them a big pep talk about how much better homemade ones are — they seemed to buy it.
Target was predictably disappointing. There’s a whole section of the store now dedicated to Valentine’s Day stuff, but no colored construction paper to be found anywhere. It’s as if they’re actively hostile to the idea of someone making their own. We bought some overpriced glitter and went to Dollar Tree, which had good paper for $1 a package, also various stickers and other decorations. (There are girl stickers — hearts, unicorns — and boy stickers, cars and trucks; I made only the most half-hearted, because so obviously doomed, effort to question this opposition.)
They spent much of the afternoon creating these.
Pretty great, I think. We also spent some of this weekend painting their bedroom pink, so all in all the household has become significantly more girly. Out tonight someone observed that I had a single shiny glitter on my left cheek.
Oh, by the way, as we were walking into Target Iris told me that from a nature documentary they watched with mommy they learned about how you shouldn’t leave lights on when you don’t need them: “because if you leave a light on for too long, it makes it easier for the polar bears to catch the penguins.”
Ivan Kreilkamp 
That’s a great one, about the penguins and polar bears. I can’t wait to use it to admonish unsuspecting people in my life when they leave a light on.
When I was 29, I spent the morning one day at a birthday party for my step-sister who was turning two. When I got home around noon, my housemate assumed that I had been out all night at a warehouse rave, because I had glitter on my face. At the time, I felt that this marked an interesting crossing point of mature vs adolescent trends in my life (not that I was actually going to raves at this point, but it was a reasonable inference on his part).
I guess bleary eyes and exhaustion could be read similarly — i.e. common features of parents of young children that could potentially be misread as evidence of an exciting social life…
Bravo, Ivan!
Helpful hint:: Start a shoebox or something for Valentine making supplies, to keep from year to year, add to, etc. Just got ours off the shelf, a box decorated by Sophia years ago, tattered and faded now, but hey, there are plenty of heart stickers and colored scraps in it for Isaiah to use this year. Isaiah still makes them, notable considering he is an 11 year old boy. In the past couple of years, for him they’ve become an outlet for creative writing. Sophia still makes them. Louis rebelled by the time he was about 8. (which was also fine. after all, it’s easy to argue that it’s a dumb holiday).
Do they still have Valentine Boxes at school too, and devote the last hr of the afternoon to handing them out? One yr my
best friend and I got the notion that one boy (wish i cld remember why he seemed so forlorn) wldn’t get any valentines
so we STUFFED the Valentine Box with ones for him, all signed with variations of Guess Who. By the way, those hearts are super. Greatgrandma is proud, girls.
Ivan, last night I had dinner in LA with Tom, Vera, Jake, and Charlotte; I asked about good books read lately and was advised to check in with Moonraking to see what you’d recommended lately. So I have and will.
I was at Wellesley with Vera, but now live in LA, visit the east coast
often. Thanks for the info about valentines too now that I have an interest not only in books, but in my granddaughter, age.2
best,
Martha