Archer in 4K, 5K, and maybe a year or two more - The List of names comes home. Trip to the store to find The Best Valentine Cards. The child (or the child's parent) addresses every single little card, folds the cards, puts little heart stickers on them. The little heart stickers don't stick very well. An especially ambitious/generous parent also buys some kind of candy treat and attaches that to the cards.
Shelly in 4K, maybe 5K? and the years beyond - The List of names comes home. Inspired by some other past Valentine event, Mom decides that Students should write the names of all their classmates by themselves. This requires much advance planning. Student can only write a few names each day before getting worn down and starting to complain. This also requires super extra planning, go to the store to pick out The Best Valentine Cards at least two weeks before the Big Day. Also, dig around in the closet to see what cards are leftover from last year, so we can buy the least number of new cards possible. Forget about candy treats, now we're supplying cards for two classes (older brother, younger sister), double the kids. That's too much candy to buy. Besides, we'll probably eat it before it even gets sent off to school.
Elijah in 3K, 4K, K - Forget The List. We get a message telling us how many kids are in the class. Writing classmates' names is no longer required, in fact, please don't write other kids' names, it takes too long to sort the cards out at school. Only write your own name in the "from" part of the card. All the leftover cards from past years are too crumpled up to use, or the characters aren't cool anymore. Buy The Very Best Valentine Cards, don't even think about buying candy, that's too many kids to feed. Those little heart stickers still don't stick very well. Mom is now past the whole "other moms do better/more than me" and now is just focused on getting the task done and getting those cards out of the house and on their way to school. Other moms send cookies to school? Great! You send the cookies, I'll just make sure my kid shows up on time and mostly clean.
We're at the point where only two out of the three kids have parties at school, the oldest is too grown up for candy hearts and stuff. At this point, it would actually be too embarrassing to tolerate. Doesn't keep him from stealing his siblings' candy after school though. How did I almost forget that Valentine's is almost as big as Halloween for the candy haul?
