Somewhere along the line, Valentine's Day became more about our children than sharing a romantic evening together. Luisa and I don't do candy or candles or love poems and cards are occasional at best. So, for the parents out there, I have a Valentine's Day gift just for you and hope it's not your only one. Enjoy these parenting conversation hearts - hand them out to your kids and everybody wins! Happy Valentine's Day!
I had two ideas for today's but I'm not going to write about either of them because I forgot them. They were really good ideas too but they are gone. I have spent the past half hour sitting in bed with my laptop trying to remember them but my methods for doing so defy explanation.
I roamed around in my blog dashboard, looked at my stats, looked at referrals and then looked at the search terms that led people here today. I noticed someone came here looking for "a fox made out of hearts" and I thought, "What a fabulous idea! I bet something like that exists!" and then I too Googled " a fox made out of hearts." I found one ugly fox made out of hearts and was deeply disappointed but then I saw a fox lunchbox that had hearts on it. So cute. I then convinced myself that I needed a fox heart lunchbox to take to work with me and then I remembered I work from home.
I remembered I write, remembered I was supposed to be writing.
This week has been hectic . Luisa has been out of town. VillageQ was down. I recapped The Fosters. I read all the Listen To Your Mother submissions and met with Tracy and Galit to plan for auditions. And then the kids - school, martial arts, soccer, valentines, a meeting at school. Every day has been carefully planned and, most days, I needed everything to run according to those plans. And, this week, I got lucky because they have.
Recently, Miguel has had trouble remembering to take his lunch to school. He has forgotten assignments at school and we've had to run back to get them or he's forgotten them at home and we've had to take them to him. There was a time when I wanted to let him live with the natural consequences of his disorganization but I know that he can't help it. It's the way his brain works - a million thoughts but not always the one at hand.
My brain doesn't work quite the same as his but sometimes it seems familiar. Sometimes, I am supposed to do one thing and I do another. Sometimes, I have so many ideas that I feel that my head may explode. Sometimes, I have so much to do and I work and work but seem to accomplish nothing. Sometimes, I sit down to write and end up looking at a lunchbox for which I have no use.
But this week was a good one. Things went as expected. I'm tired but everything that needed to be done was done.
And, my scattered little boy (who is no longer little at all) just came in and said, "Mom, go to sleep. You've been staying up too late and getting up too early."
"I will. I just have two more things to finish."
"Did you know that good sleep makes you live longer? At this rate, you'll die at 60!"
"I'll miss you," I said and laughed. He laughed too, thankfully.
I used to look at him and wonder where he came from and, now, I realize we're not so different, really.
Creative. Smart. Easily undone by a lunchbox.
Zeca wants to be a rock star someday and she absolutely loves guitars. Every time she has a lesson at her teacher's instrument shop, we know that we'll be there longer than a half hour because she wants to play the guitars and basses and mandolins. She is picky about her clothes but when we are lucky enough to find shirts or pajamas with guitars on them, we know she'll love them. So, when it came time to make valentines for her classmates, I searched for guitars and found a link to a kit from Paper Source with everything you need to make heart guitars. It looked simple so I decided we'd do it ourselves which is good because it looks like the kit is no longer available.
It's a quick and easy valentine made with things we probably everyone has around the house.
Materials
Instructions
1. Choose a color for your heart, fold the construction paper in half and cut out a heart. We needed 32 valentines so we cut out 32. Funny how that worked out.
2. Punch or cut a small black circle for each valentine. This will be the sound hole of the guitar.
3. Cut strips of black construction paper to serve as the necks of the guitars and then cut small rectangles to serve as headstocks.
4. Glue the circles to the center of the hearts.
5. Glue the rectangles to the top of the black strips and then glue the whole piece to the back of the heart.
6. Use the Sharpie to make 6 dots on the headstock to serve as tuning pegs.
7. Write a personalized message on the back and you're done!
Zeca wrote, "You rock! From Zeca" on the back and then we taped a Tootsie Roll Pop to each one.
Below is our finished product! It was easy and we had a great time doing it together. We always make our valentines but it was fun to do something a little more creative this time around.
Now, all I have to do is find a shoebox for her to decorate! Do you make your own valentines or buy them? Are your kids past the age of class valentines?
