My parenting philosophy, while not a really formalized idea, basically revolves around “whatever is easy is good.” My kid wants to wear two different socks to preschool? Whatever; it’s easy and I’m not gonna fight it. She expresses her personality and I’m fine with it, and I get a kick out of seeing what she can come up with all on her own. So that’s what’s happening this Valentines Day.

I hadn’t really thought of a plan for cards. Last year I cut heart shapes out of construction paper and she scribbled on them with crayons for her daycare friends. I thought maybe we’d do something Pinterest-inspired this year, with M helping out, of course. But this scenario played out over the past two weeks:

She was bored so I set her up at the table with a pack of smallish construction paper pages, and a big book of Melissa and Doug stickers we had yet to open. She’s in a big sticker loving phase, and decided to make little scenes on different pages with the stickers — dinosaur families, a bunch of creepy eyeballs, you get the idea. Then, a few days later, Mac Daddy read her a Care Bears book about Valentine’s Day, and all of a sudden those construction paper pages had become her Valentines for her friends and family. She started churning them out rapidly, a few pages every night, stashing them in her Paw Patrol suitcase as she went.

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There is nothing Pinteresty about these, nor is there anything really Valentine’s Day-like about them, either! But she’s having a blast, and it’s fun to see how she’s deciding who gets what card. For instance, she made one for her brother that had pairs of animals all over it — “brothers and sisters,” she explained. A kindergarten teacher at the school who has a pet snake is getting one with snakes and spiders all over it. Her dad is getting one on brown paper because that’s the colour of poop, of course, which is utterly hilarious to her.

As much as part of me is like, maybe I should washi tape some heart-themed stickers to these cards so at least they kind of fit a theme, I’m aiming to recognize that a) her fellow three-year-old friends probably won’t care and b) it’s her thing, not mine. It’s easy, it’s what she actually wants to do, so it’s good. All credit to parents who are craftier than I am, but if my kid wants to do this and I don’t have to kick in any creative thought? AWESOME.

Maybe next year, if she wants to do something more thematic or crafty, I can pull up Pinterest, but this year it’s stickers and construction paper and magic marker scribbles.

Are you going crafty for Valentine’s Day, or do you do store-bought cards — or something completely random, like M?