V-Day: Preschool Edition

Everett has spent the last week creating a multitude of brightly-colored, scribbled on, be-dazzled-to-the-point-of-being-garish valentines for many people we know. He had a great time and it was fun to see what kind of pictures he thought were appropriate to draw for a holiday celebrating love. Monsters and robots? Of course. Bananas? Why not? Pizza? Sure.

He did draw some people, too. He has the basic format down:

1) Draw a circle for the head

2) Add between 2 and 46 dots for eyes

3) triangle nose

4) Make a crooked mouth--above, below, or on top of any other facial features.

5) Place a line around the top of the head for hair

6) Stick two arms out where the ears should be

7) Don't forget to have two long legs sprouting directly from the chin

When Everett came home from preschool on Tuesday with a class list for valentines, it occurred to me that maybe, just maybe, he was supposed to bring something today to celebrate the upcoming holiday.

I was tired of cleaning up glitter, flowers, paper scraps, and broken crayons from the valentines he had already completed, so I didn't want to help him make any. I didn't want to go out and buy valentines. Plus, you know, the last month of pregnancy is supposed to equal low energy. For me, this just means I embrace my inner slacker.

Then I saw a brilliant idea online somewhere. Why not do something like this:

I'm no photographer, so it's just a low-quality 4 x 6 snapshot, but it served the purpose just fine. In Everett's hand I made two horizontal slashes and inserted three suckers.

Easy, peasy (except for some printing hiccups; thanks a lot, CVS). It takes no artistic ability. It is different, fun, and takes very little time to assemble. It could even be free if you were to use one of those promotions that are all over the photo websites.

It wasn't even that hard to get Everett to pose. All I had to do was promise him one of those suckers. (The best part about preschoolers is they don't care whether the suckers are dum-dums or tootsie roll pops. We only had dum-dums.)

When Everett came home, he was excited to show me the valentine he made for me in class. It had random glitter streaks and pieces of lace and buttons all over it. He took great pleasure in showing me where it said "Love, Everett," and gave me a giant hug. It certainly wasn't magazine worthy, but it is the first valentine I've gotten in a long time, and it is the first one I've gotten from one of my kids. It will stay on the refrigerator for a while.

Everett also loved going through his loot. He has 8 kids in his class, so the pickings were limited, but he was thrilled with all six suckers, one package of smarties, and a pixie stix dipper thing.

Fortunately he was okay with me letting him pick out only a couple of items to munch on.

I think it was a successful pre-Valentine's Day day. I'm glad I have a couple more years before we have to worry about 26 of these for each child. Maybe I'll have to recycle the photo idea a few times. . .