For me, Valentine’s Day isn’t about love and flowers and chocolates (although I unexpectedly received some chocolates this year). o, for a mother of two school-age children who happens to live in America, Valentine’s Day is about making a last-minute stop at the store to buy packs of Valentines that are really just cleverly disguised advertisements for superhero merchandise. It’s about making your children write their name and, for Thomas someone else’s name, on 25-27 valentines over three evenings because that is just too many to do in one night after school. It’s about the crazy mess that is distributing said valentines to individual envelopes at 8am when you’ve already missed the first school bell. I also carpool so add one more child to the mix and that’s at least 75 valentine cards to be distributed before 8:30am.

Somewhere, St. Valentine is sitting up in the clouds and laughing at the chaos he created. It’s enough for me to come up with a Bah Humbug! alternative for this very special, most romantic, day of the year.

Still, this year did bring a couple of unexpectedly sweet Valentine moments thanks to a couple of boys who now have the ability to write and who have way more sentimentality than their mother.

Like this little surprise message from Samuel. Who says you can’t say it on a post-it note?

And he was kind enough to give me really long legs.

Thomas wrote a very special Valentine for his crush. Translation: To Sabrina. From Thomas. 2013.

It came complete with a photograph of himself, of course. I love that he calls out the day and date of their last playtime.

And then finished off with a heart.

Both boys have been working on letter writing at school so I also want to share a couple of special notes that we’ve received over the last few days.

From “your friend” Samuel. I’m particularly impressed by the hiragana.

And this one from “your son” Thomas.

Receiving letters from my boys may be my new favorite thing, but I don’t need them with a side of candy hearts.