February 14, 2018

Am I the only one that can relate to the tale I’m about to tell?

I was an elementary student of the 80s. An era in which I’m pretty sure we raised ourselves, or at least it seems like we must have, by today’s standards. Back “in the day”, the holiday we are about to celebrate began with instructions to bring a shoe box to school. Then we donned our art smocks, poured red, pink, and white tempera paint from gallon jugs, and began to “decorate” the boxes that would hold our Valentines. Once they dried, we cut out hearts from construction paper and pasted them on the box while also ingesting said paste. Then, Ta-Da! Our elementary art project was complete and we were ready for Valentine’s Day!

Enter a child (my three) of the current era and notice exhibit 1 – the included photo. My 9 year old did not, and could not, create this Valentine’s Day box by himself. Nope…I did 95% of the work on this little attempt at a Pinterest look alike. Yet, he’ll take it to school tomorrow and call it “his” creation, as will all of his classmates with “their” Valentine’s Day Boxes, but we all know who’s slaving away on these “elementary” boxes. As well, let it be known, that this box here, though “we” are proud of it, will be one of the lesser creations. There will be some masterpieces!

Ah, the poor Smith kids…. arts and crafts don’t come naturally for me, and I tend to be old fashioned in my thinking. In fact, it took a few years for me to fully grasp the error of my ways, so quite often my kids’ boxes (and Halloween pumpkins) didn’t measure up, but it was an honest mistake. I just didn’t know it was meant to be a “group” project!

Sadly, I think this is my last, uh, I mean Tilden’s last Valentine’s Day box. Shoot, I was just getting warmed up.

Disclaimer: No ill intent is meant by this post. Rather it’s just a good poke at the changing times. I love our school, teachers, my kids’ classmates, my fellow moms, and I love/hate Pinterest. We’re all doing the best we can.

Happy Valentine’s Day!