I have never done a re-post here but I found myself in a groundhog day version of last years Valentine's day prep and I couldn't resist reminding myself (and you) what craziness I subjected myself to last year. And how this year I re-subjected myself to it. The only change was that this year we cut and sewed 70 cards because all three of my little darlings came home with a photo copied list of names (long names that I'm learning for the first time) and because the kids bring cards to JK, SK and daycare. That's no small list of kids. Tonight we repeated the pain of last year and with nothing to medicate away the pain we got through it. This year Wyatt signed his own cards with Wy for the sake of speed and Georgia has learned to sign her name quickly and with ease. Despite my promise to buy cards, we followed the tradition. Here is the flashback to 2009:My daughter is in junior kindergarten and goes to daycare in the afternoon. What this means is that at Christmas there are a lot of care givers to gift and on Valentine's day there are a lot of cards to address. Georgia and I sat down tonight (because the cards are due tomorrow as Friday is a Professional Development Day) to make our cards. We used some lovely paper that she and Wyatt (3 year old younger brother) cut into irregular semi-rectangular shapes while almost 2 year old younger, younger brother attempted to cut his fingers off with wayward scissors. Suffice it to say that they got carried away with the scissors and the card shapes got smaller and smaller. I was simultaneously cutting fabric hearts (a la the ones in the photo) so we could happily and joyfully sew them into place to complete these darling little handmade masterpieces. The list of children totalled 30.This might not under normal conditions seem daunting but It's been a busy time at work. The economy is creating the necessity to bring your best game to the office every day and it's already fast-paced even during much less challenging times. No one is getting away with the contribution from last year. It is truly a new day when it comes to performance expectations. I've been feeling extra wiped when I get home. Add to this that my husband is away in New York. It would have made a lot more sense to acquiesce to the Dollarama Valentine strategy. But not this working mother and her almost 5 year old. We are doing it the old-fashioned way and we're going to love every minute of it. We opened strong. Great energy, the music of Adele in the background and joy in our hearts. Ten minutes in and I was miserable. I wanted Georgia to write the names of the children herself. If the children were courteous enough to have one letter names like X, this task would have taken 5 hours. So after she wrote the first card, I took over and wrote each name and the word love and then a comma so that Georgia could then write her name. After another 2 cards and what seemed like hours, I suggested that she just write GG (for Georgia Grace). What I didn't realize is how much these G's look like two 6's. There is now something a little sinister about these cards. The signature: a new abbreviated sign of the beast. After we struggled to stuff them into the home made envelopes and wind down to pour into bed well after bed time, a bleary-eyed 66 looked at me and said "Mommy, I think we should have just bought cards." Didn't you have fun? I wanted to know. "Not really"she told me. It's okay George, neither did I. I sure hope all those kids with 12 letter names appreciate it.
