Valentine's Day

Valentine's Day is traditionally a day of too much sugar in our house. This cute little mess is the result of the valentine package from grandpa and grandma, for which their names were blessed profusely by Tavin and Simon; Lucy would have had she had the ability. Afterwards, Lucy was running around the living room screeching, while stopping occasionally to bang her head on the couch and laugh hysterically at herself. The marshmellow cream in her hair was painstakingly removed in a bath before bed.

Simon and Tavin each had parties in their respective classrooms. Tavin's teacher had forbidden valentine cards prepared at home to be passed out, because of some ill-conceived notions from some students about what was acceptable to write to their classmates. As a result, Simon came home with a pile of small cards and various small packets of candy. Tavin's class were all encouraged to bring treats to have a party in their class, where she consumed as much of the forbidden substance (sugar) as possible, not bringing any home. Rather than exchange cards,
Tavin's class each had a red plastic plate that they passed around and each student wrote a kind thing on a small paper heart, taped it to a pipe cleaner and attached it to the plate. The girls in Tavin's class wrote things like "I like you", "You're my best friend", "Your nice", etc. Most of the boys wrote "You're fast", which I tried to explain to her was a high compliment from a 4rth grade boy. She only had to "report" one comment from a likely very honest boy to her teacher, because he had penned "You're annoying" on her plate. He was made to change it, and he then wrote "I like your shirt". I suspect the one that declared her annoying probably holds her in higher regards than the ones that labeled her as fast. Kevin and I spent the evening at church, after he attended a school board meeting, in our respective youth group and men's groups, but I did get a few roses in the 5 minutes that we saw each other to collect children after school until we were all home together at 9pm. The chocolate that he was to get yesterday disappeared rather quickly, after watching the kids eat theirs.