I must start with the problem. Valentine parties are always tricky in school. I tell my students, if you bring a valentine for one person, you must bring for everyone. Hurt feelings are so hard to deal with with kids, so I try to avoid it as much as possible. If you have a special gift for one person, give it outside of school.
Tonight we went to buy the boys’ valentines for their school parties. As we were looking over the many theme choices for cards, Mac saw a Hello Kitty heart of candy and said, “Oh, Joanna would love this one.” I thought, how kind of him to pay attention and know what others like. Thinking of my rule, I told him that was sweet, but we really needed to move on. So we focused once again on which themes they wanted. After much deliberation, Patrick chose Happy Feet and Mac chose Transformers.
Since we were just running in for valentines, I decided we didn’t need a cart. However, by the time we got the cards, treats, teacher treats, etc…each of us had full arms. So we headed to the checkout. As we’re checking out, across the scanner comes…a Hello Kitty heart full of chocolate. “What is this?” asks Daddy. Mac’s adorable little face was more than this mommy heart could take. I couldn’t make him put it back. To think that he saw this and thought of someone else was so great to see. His giving little heart. He didn’t blink an eye or question whether he should or shouldn’t. He just knew Joanna loves Hello Kitty. She would love this valentine. So now…I have to figure out how to get a single valentine to one little girl.
Add one more to the “I’ll never…” list.
