Valentine's Day

Valentine's Day is a really big deal when you're in Elementary or Pre-School.

For school, A was charged with decorating a heart for the class bulletin board.  He chose to use this foam robot we made last Valentine's Day, crayons, and pom poms to decorate his heart, and was thrilled at Daddy's idea to make an arrow through the heart.




E brought home lots and lots of projects.  Here's one of them, about which he said, "look what I made!"



For the classmates and E's teachers, we made Valentines:



..but SOMEONE played with and lost a bouncey ball, so we instead made Hogs and Kisses for A's teachers:




 I tried to make them a special lunch...
 

but A didn't eat his, saying "I don't like peppers!"

Speaking of lunch, A told M he HAD to make me lunch for Valentine's Day, and he did.  I didn't take a picture, but I had a heart shaped grilled cheese sandwich, grape tomatoes, babybel cheese, and yogurt.  When A told me what he asked Daddy to do, he said the lunch was supposed to be a firetruck shooting water all over the sandwich.

I hope you had a wonderful and fun Valentine's Day too!

Me first and the gimmie gimmies

A is at a tough age.  It's not because he misbehaves or even throws tantrums unmanageably.  It's that he gets frustrated easily.

He loves to be the "line leader."  Every morning, rushing to get out of the house and into the car, I have to stop because, "I'M the line leader!" and I have to let him pass around me in the garage.  More often that not, he has to go down the stairs first (again, frustrating when I'm trying to rush downstairs to make my coffee make the boys' breakfasts.

Yesterday morning, however, was really tough when we did our usual tear down the hallway from his classroom to the pre-care room.  Despite my being out of shape, my legs are about double the length of his so I am naturally faster.  I was being silly for A and E, and didn't think anything of it when I passed him.  He, however, gave up, threw himself on the floor, and started to cry. 

He is home sick today, and we have had a lot of fights.  Not because of anything other than he's not feeling well and his fuse is shorter than normal.  Most times today I've given in, but then wonder if I'm doing the wrong thing (this is motherhood) and if I'm teaching him misbehavior instead.  Sometimes, though, in the heat of the moment, the fight just isn't worth it.  Other than that, though, he's in pretty good spirits.

I've been getting a taste of TRUE SAHM-dom, since we spent E's first nap doing a pretty big art project.  It's not complete, and will go away for the time being to be picked up another rainy day.  I got the idea from the wonderful No Time for Flash Cards... we're making a rainbow!

On a related note, while I was at a baby shower on Sunday, M had the idea to make homemade snow globes.  He got the idea from Special Agent Oso.  It was very much as do and learn project, and he has lots of ideas on how to make it better next time, but they're great because A is pretty obsessed...  this one is M's, but A loves it because when you whack the jar, the duckie inside lights up.