Hierarchy of Love Notes

This past Monday, Claire had her first ever valentine exchange experience at dance class. Before we left for dance class, she was not liking the idea of having to give away her valentine cards, but I dragged her to dance class anyways. Once we got there, all the sudden the idea of handing out valentines seemed brilliant to her. She wanted to tell everyone and everyone's uncle that she had valentines to give to her friends. So after dance, they had a cute little party, the exchanging of valentines, and a cupcake to goop up the floor. Claire was pretty pleased.

And. . .

WHAT IS UP WITH VALENTINE CARDS? When I was little there was such a variety of famous characters (remember ziggy?), generic characters, fuzzy felt, shiny foil. All I could find at the four stores I went to were Bratz, Barbie, and Spiderman. Do they have a monopoly on crappy v-day cards? Bratz, really? Do I want Claire to tell her little three year old friends I love you, by saying, 'Your skankin' shirt is super blinging it, girrrl!" or "Be my BFF, but behind your back I am saying you have a huge butt." No thanks. Claire is still three. I don't want her exposed that early to that sort of skankiness in a valentines card (please, I much rather her see skanky people in real life at the food court in the mall).

Ah, talking about valentines cards and their quality or lack of brings me back to a certain story that my lawyer has advised me to stop talking about, after I was made ammends to last year by the so-called offender. It involved one wheeling and dealing gal, who managed to talk a little girl out of a whole lot of valentine cards. I won't rehash, but it really illustrates that to a kid, there is a whole currency system with valentines- a hierarchy, if you will. At the bottom are the lame, generic, don't even fold in half cards with some gangsta looking puppy on it that says, 'Don't be doggin' me, be my valentine" (Claire received one of those yesterday, if you thought I was making that up). A slight step above is anything with well known characters, because even though I think they're lame, Claire was excited to receive princess and mickey mouse cards. If it folds in any way, it ups the value of a card immediately. Throw on a metalic shiny sticker to seal it and you are in a whole new level. Then comes the cards that are interactive- you know, they have a fuzzy heart that you can feel, a scratch n' sniff section (though, boo, to black liquorice smells), or any type of 3-D embelishments/game. The top of the cake when it comes to valentine cards are the ones with candy some how involved. Suckers and sweethearts tend to be the favs, and those life saver ones are pretty snazzy, too. Though, lets just be honest here; those are all kinda crap candy. The day that they figure out how to make a nutrageous candy bar a valentine, well, then some serious trading will be going on in our house. Can't you see it?

Mom: Alright Claire, this is my final offer. I will give you four Bratz cards, two lacy victorian cards, and one life saver plane, if you give me your nutrageous card.

Claire: No deal, mom.

Mom: Oh, c'mon Claire, you're busting my back, here!