Valentine Exchange (and a poem on Executive Orders)

Not only did we have the excitement of getting a bearded dragon to contend with this morning, but we also had to walk Luna (which we usually don't have to do on Wednesdays, but needed to do this week), and we had to walk her early because we had to get to co-op early for the Valentine exchange that we had beforehand. 

It was a busy Wednesday...and then got busier with piano for Zoë and organ for Miriam, and activity days for Alexander and Zoë, and a temple trip for Benjamin, Miriam, Rachel, and Andrew. Luckily it was just as crazy for our friends the Fitzes—they dropped their youth off at our house and Andrew drove all the youth to the temple and they picked up Alexander and Zoë for activity days since they're the activity day leaders, which left just me and Phoebe at home. On Tuesdays we hardly see each other at all, but on Wednesdays we are stuck together like glue, Phoebe and I.

We haven't participated in a Valentine exchange since exiting the public school system, so I was sorely out of practice. We signed Valentines for Family Home Evening on Monday and it was a real slog, let me tell you. Approximately 30 children participated in the Valentine exchange, which meant my four co-op children signed approximately 120 Valentines between them. It was...taxing. 

But I have to say—we came away with a lovely haul. 

I remember feeling like a bit of a curmudgeon about Valentine's Day back in 2019. To be fair, that was our first Valentine's Day after Karen passed away...and Valentine's Day is her birthday...so none of us were feeling super pumped about Valentine's Day.

But also! The. Amount. Of. Candy. my kids came home with. It was absurd!

Not so in our homeschool group! We had a few rice krispy treats, some muddy buddies, an orange...some erasers...stickers...pencils... Our family put a little frisbee in each Valentine box (they were leftover from the Anderson family reunion...in 2015...so I figured it was a good time to finally offload them). It was a lovely. I mean, a few candies here and there might have been okay. 

But nobody needs 10 boxes of conversation hearts. 

Anyway, I'm just saying, we ended up with different things at this Valentine exchange than I imagined we would. And it was lovely.

One little boy even crocheted a little whale for everyone. He made thirty of these things! And they were a huge hit. Everybody loved them. And he felt so happy that he was able to spread so much joy (even if his fingers were aching). Here's Phoebe with her whale:

And here she is "covering" her ears because a loud truck came by:

She often does this rather than using her hands to cover her ears—just squeezes her head between her arms. 

She said, looking at the road, "What? What is that noise? Is it a big truck? It’s not! It’s just a small truck...but it’s got a big truck attitude!"

I just about died laughing. It did have big truck attitude.

We spent co-op sitting outside (I read while she played...and chatted my ear off).

I had trouble focusing on my work so I wrote a poem to get through my frustration about things. And maybe it makes sense. And maybe it doesn't. But it was cathartic to write either way.

Death by Chocolate: Thinking about Executive Orders at the Valentine Exchange

I helped my children
sign one-hundred twenty
valentines, rivaling
the number of ex-

     ecutive orders author-
ized by a wonderful
pen the size of
         a small pen—
would you look

at my pen? Have you
ever seen a more beautiful
pen? That's a very good anal-

ogy and I use it
all the time. My hand
cramps up just thinking
about those official

scribbles. Must be tough
deciding [what
          nonsense] comes next.

Whose life or livelihood
will I destroy? Beautiful
day for a genocide!

Won't you be mine?
Won't you be mine?

Love, us

And with that out of the way (though I don't love the title and I'm sure parts could use some work—sometimes you just gotta write a poem, though) I could focus on my studies. 

Kind of, sort of. 

I mean, Phoebe was still there chatting my ear off. But I got some stuff done.

She was more than happy to have me to herself this evening once again. I turned on some music while we were kind of, sort of cleaning up after dinner (I don't think we ever quite finished clearing off the table, but we did get a load of dishes running and made some cookie dough). We did some cha cha and samba and then Phoebe requested, "The Head, Shoulders, Knees, and Toes dance where we all say, 'Hey, ballerina!' and then we clap and we jump and do it again."

I stared at her blankly so she said, "Like this!" and demonstrated how she could touch her head and her shoulders and while shaking her hips. Then she hollered, "Hey, ballerina!", clapped her hands...and...I knew...

She wanted to do The Macarena.