Valentines Day

I love Valentine's Day.

I love those "non-pressure" holidays that you can pretty much choose to participate in or not. It's fun. I love the color red. I love sending mail with hearts on it and surprising people we love. And, it's our anniversary! Love all around :)

So to be honest, I can't remember if I initiated the "creating our Valentines in January" or if it was Mimi, but either way we've been pounding out Valentines around here since January 20th. We cut out hearts and Mimi decorated each one with the utmost attention to detail, informing afterwards which of her friends they were for. Her best pal trifecta is: Kira, Gentry and Mikaela.

Then we moved on to creating some for her class. I have a tendency to go overboard on creative projects, (and "overboard"=money) so I was super proud of myself for keeping these preschool Valentines simple. 

1. Red paper-CHECK!

2. Scissors that cut in fun lines-CHECK!

3. Foam stickers from the One Spot at Target-CHECK!

4. Leftover pencils I gave out as a teacher...already sharpened-CHECK!

5. More time than we know what to do with in a day-CHECK!

That was our recipe for Valentines.

One day it took up a whole HOUR of our time. Just what the doctor ordered to fill up our day.

(Mom pat on the back for an hour that wasn't in front of the TV! YAY!)

As Mimi made her Valentines, it naturally brought up conversation about her preschool classmates. There's a particularly difficult kiddo named Jayme. I hear about him a lot. One of Mimi's friends is "scared" of him, and it makes me feel sad because I think that the teachers inadvertently foster and play into that. And there you have it-labeling a kiddo from the start.

I'm not perfect and don't always treat people the way I should, but I feel so passionate about raising kids who stick up for people around them and show love when others won't. It takes courage-especially to swim upstream, against popular opinion. But these lessons are never too early to learn. So when Mimi talks about Jayme, I try to reinforce the idea that he's just learning to be in school like everyone else. (To which Mimi informs me: "mom, you were wrong. Jayme isn't just learning to be in school like you said.") I just feel like someone has to stick up for the little preschool guy. I make sure to tell her that she doesn't have to play with him if he doesn't treat her well or makes her feel unsafe, but we are called to love him and everyone. And maybe Jayme just needs a friend sometimes. And this is where I start to relate it to our favorite Veggie Tales CD about Lyle the Kindly Viking...blah, blah, blah and she tunes me out, I'm sure.

These are big topics for a little preschool girl, but it doesn't hurt to plant these seeds about kindness and love and justice. I don't want to exasperate her or be too preachy, but I've seen Mimi hold a classmate's hand when they feel extra sad and have watched her ask someone to play who's feeling left out-I know she has it in her. 

So... imagine how I felt when Mimi chose to make a Valentine for Jayme second (after her best bud Lizzy) and took an extra long time making it look pretty. Maybe I was reading into it a little, but I was thankful for the silly little holiday of Valentine's Day. It gave us the opportunity for the conversation about Jayme and gives us an excuse for little gestures of love in the shape of hearts to sprinkle around....where they may be needed most.