Be my valentine

I have realized that this year, I will have the pleasure of writing Valentines for nearly 30 kids!  WOW.  Um, I haven't started yet.  I think I might be underestimating the time it will take to actually do this job.  Especially if I want J to attempt to write his own name on each one.  Maybe my expectations are too high.  At least I went for the pre-packaged variety of Valentine's Day cards.  What kind of mother am I??  Not to hand make each individual card for each child in his class??   Um, a smart one.  With almost 30 kids in his class, I just can't see us making that many little cards by hand.  We would have had to have started at Thanksgiving.  :)  The joys of having a child in school.  You just don't think of these things ahead of time!  I wish he could be a baby again...playdates and diapers and bottles.  Seems so simple now...they say it gets easier, but here I am to bust that myth.  It actually gets much more intricate.  Try explaining to a 4.5 year old that talking about their problems is actually a good thing.  It has taken me 2 days to figure out what was wrong that he didn't want to go to extended care at school!!  Turns out there is a little boy who likes to play a bit rough, and J doesn't like that at all.  I'm not concerned that he is being hurt or anything, but my guy just isn't physical in that way with others.  When he backs off, he expects they will too, but not all kids at this age can read those cues, especially if that's how they are used to playing  They don't get that it might not be so much fun for another kid.  So we came up with a plan to first tell the boy he doesn't like it and he wants him to stop.  If that doesn't work, he needs to get the help of a teacher.  All that to say that in some ways things get easier, but others get much more complicated.  Explaining life and the nature of people is something so abstract and hard to grasp for our little ones.  So we muddle through as best we can and hope they learn something...

So now, to devise a plan to complete many many Valentines before the 14th...sigh.  I know I'll be up late the night before.