February: The Month of Love

I am a sucker for Hallmark holidays and while some people get stabby about seeing Valentine’s Day paraphernalia in the stores right after all of the Christmas stuff is moved out, I love it! I definitely learned from the best, my mom. She always gave us cards for every ‘holiday’ you can think of. It’s fun and who doesn’t like getting cards from loved ones?

Lately I’ve been feeling a bit of the winter blahs and have been thinking that I’ve been way too shouty with my kids. So when I saw this idea on Facebook,  I thought I’d take part. All you have to do is cut out colourful hearts, write lovely little messages on them and place one on your child’s door at night while they sleep. One for every night of February until Valentine’s day – or the entire month, you decide. What a great thing to wake up to!

I think it’s important to tell your kids you love them. Not just that they are special — I don’t think one kid is really any more special that any other to be honest — even though every kid is special to their parents. I also don’t think that overpraising kids does them any favours but I think it’s nice for them (and their self-esteem) to hear that their parents love them. I also like the idea of telling them about their qualities and what’s great about them. So I began this “Love” project with my kidlets and they have been loving it!

I’ve been getting a little pressure in the office to blog about it, and I happen to love Instagram, Facebook and Twitter, but I’ve not been sharing this. I initially felt that this should be something that is special and private. That all changed this morning.

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We were in our usual morning rush, but it was an uneventful morning with no shouting (surprise!) and when we came downstairs to start putting our coats on, my 5yo went to get a pair of scissors and started to cut out a heart. She then grabbed a sharpie and wrote I love you on it. I was quite patient this morning but all the while was rambling on with the usual, “It’s not arts and crafts time.” “Come on, put your snow pants on.” “Let’s go. Grab your backpack.” She was busy and on a mission.

We finally got out the door and started our walk. Halfway to school I remembered her heart and I was going to ask her what she was going to do with it, but immediately shut that conversation down before it started because I played this out in my mind:

5yo: “We have to go back! I forgot it and I have to give it to ______!!!” cue lots of crying and refusal to walk to school without the heart.

We didn’t have time to go back for it, so we just kept walking and I began talking about the snow.

A few hours later, I went upstairs and saw this on my bedroom door:

Love!

My heart exploded. There are no words to describe the feelings I felt upon seeing this on my bedroom door. (Let’s ignore the fact that one of the cats was actually trapped inside my bedroom.) This kid is amazing and I love her to bits.

So while we are only five days in, I’m loving this project and I’m so glad I decided to do it.

Do you do anything special for your kids on Valentine’s Day?