My homemade valentines have been getting a lot of attention, so I wanted to share my how-to with you all.
Consider this my special gift of love, from my shiplapped, rustic, modern and obnoxiously clean home to yours.
1. Forget to buy toddler valentines for daycare. Take heart that husband bought extra for your older kid’s kindergarten class. Feel festive for taking “heart.”
2. Experience brief moment of guilt that your valentines are not inspired by Pinterest. Swallow this feeling back with a box of conversation hearts.
3. Wait until 10 p.m. the night before Valentine’s Day. Unbox valentines. Gather valentines bags of gummi bears because you’re extra like that. Actually, your husband is extra but you’re claiming extra by association.
4. Look for a pen. No, that one’s out of ink. No, that one is green. That one’s a broken crayon. Find suitable pen.
5. Refer to list of names texted from the daycare provider. Note that two are babies, and briefly consider finding special baby-appropriate gifts. Swallow that misguided impulse with one of the little bags of gummi bears.
6. Tear the cards out along the perforated lines, imperfectly enough so that they look a little shabby chic. But not so imperfectly that you belong in those people of Walmart posts.
7. Fill out cards. Make a mistake on one. Curse. Retrieve a new one.
8. Close cards with little heart stickers that came with the valentines, because you’re not about that sticker shopping life.
9. Look for scotch tape to tape the gummi bears to the valentines. Find only packing tape. Wonder where all the tape from the holidays went. Silently blame 6-year-old, who uses tape all the damn time for no good reason.
10. Use packing tape to complete project.
11. Take Instagram-worthy photo of your project, preferably not on a rain-soaked car roof as you head out the door late the next morning as I did.
12. Make humblebrag on social media.
13. Try to work in at least one #blessed and maybe one #craftymom.
14. Reward self for a job well done with a beverage of choice and a little Netflix and sleep.
Happy Valentine’s Day!
*****
About the Author
Samantha Taylor is a Cobb salad addict, mother of two in California, writer and communications professional whose humorous and honest essays on parenting have appeared in HuffPost Parents, Scary Mommy, Romper and Kveller. She is one of the “funny parents of Twitter”, and her Tweets and memes have been featured in HuffPost Parents, Scary Mommy, BuzzFeed, The Chive and Romper. Samantha can be found at her blog: walkingoutsideinslippers.wordpress.com, Facebook, Instagram, and on Twitter @WalkingOutside.