It was recently the fun time of year when all (now most in a post COVID world) elementary students carry on the decades old tradition of decorating a box with as much hearts, glitter, pink and frilly decorations as they can and make a Valentine’s for each class member to exchange and put in each others box. For some brief back ground- Matthew made his first box in kindergarten and after that year decided a plastic grocery sack was good enough for his remaining elementary years. Allison let me help her make her box in kindergarten and then told me my help was no longer needed in the following years. She came up with a bigger and more elaborate design each year for her box. It never resembled a box or anything to do with Valentine’s other than having a slot to put the Valentine’s cards in. By third grade her reputation preceded her and the teachers gave her specific size limits on her box. Emilee has always gone the more traditional route and decorated a shoe box in the before mentioned way. She is the last kiddo that still makes a Valentine’s box for school in our house.
This year during one of our many days off of school in February she had a burst of creativity and brought me a drawing of what she wanted to do for her box the next week. We gathered the supplies she needed and she was excited and thrilled to make her picture come to life by making her box all by herself. She did a great job. She was very proud of it and it sat on the side table in the kitchen for the few days before it was time to take it to school.
They were told to bring it in sometime in the two days before the party. She had a bunch of other things to take the school the first day they could bring them in so she planned to take it the second day. The morning she was supposed to take it I reminded her not to forget it. She said, “No, I think I will just have people set the Valentine on my desk.” I of course asked her what she meant and she started to tear up. Come to find out, almost everyone else had brought their boxes in the day before and after seeing them Emilee thought hers wasn’t good enough. She said that most of the other boxes were, “more neat looking” than hers. Meaning-they were made by adults not kids, or ordered on the internet and ‘professionally’ made. Grrr, I was pretty annoyed. This isn’t the first time one of my kids has been embarrassed of something they did on their own because other kids parents do the assignments for them. It is a soap box of mine. Stupid parents. We talked about how her box was perfect the way it was and how awesome it was that she did it all by herself (because 1-she wanted to and had a great time doing it and 2- THOSE ARE THE DIRECTIONS-not have your parents make your box). I told her I loved her box and she should be proud of it. She told me,” You are just saying that because you are my mom so you have to like it.” Allison then chimed in and said that one of the reasons she made her boxes the way she did is so they would be unique and represent something she liked and told Emilee, “I love the way you did your box. The see through part is cool.” Allison’s words carried a lot more weight than mine. The silver lining of having sisters that fight more than it seems like they get along is that when one of them gives you a compliment you believe it because you know they have no problem insulting you. It was a sweet moment. I appreciated Allison helping her sister.
She took her box to school and was happy to report that her friend Millie told her is was an awesome box. I was helping at the party the next day and had the chance to see all the boxes myself. There were many boxes there that were clearly made by an adult or straight up bought on some bougie valentine website. It was ridiculous. I was happy to see the few that were home made by kids and made sure to tell each of them I loved their creativity. She still has her box sitting on her dresser and I will leave it there as long as she wants to instead of chucking it after a few weeks like I normally would.