A Tale of Two Valentines

I always sort of dread valentine's day for the elementary school set. I've always had to fight with Sam to even sign his name to a basic card, and Lucy always wants to hand-craft elaborate valentine's for each and every person she knows, but she doesn't always come up with this idea until a day or two before the party.

So I was really surprised this year when Sam decided that he wanted to make rainbow loom bracelets for everyone in his class. Prior to this, he's only sucessfully made about 2.6 rainbow loom bracelets, and that was with a lot of help from me and/or his friend J. Luckily, he came up with idea with more than a week to work on it. We sat down with his classroom list and devised a schedule, and he's stuck with it really well. Plus making so many in a row has really helped with his technique. At this point he only has 3 or 4 left to go. He really wants to finish them tonight so that he can focus his attention on the new Lego set he got for an early birthday gift from grandma.

Lucy also devised her valentine's idea with ample time. She came out of the gate strong on her individualized, unique to each person valentine, but has hit some bumps along the way. For example, she's having trouble coming up with 19 completely authentic, different valentine's day messages. I've tried printing out examples for her, so she doesn't have to even think about the spelling, but they just aren't good enough for her poetic expectations. I suggested variations of 'I'm stuck on you' and 'Let's stick together' since she's using lots of stickers to decorate her valentines, but she prefers things like 'You make my heart melt like the springtime.' The two of us made a schedule, also, but she's hasn't been able to stay on it. If she powers through, she'll get finished, but she doesn't work well on a deadline. She keeps crying and dramaticially declaring that this valentine's day will be RUNIED! Meanwhile, she only has 7 or 8 more to go. I have a feeling I will be finishing them late thrursday night.

Since I'll probably be busy making helping with my kids' valentine's, consider this my valentine to all of you lovely folks out there in blogland.