"You're Weird. I Love You."

Last week I wrote a post for MomsEveryday about how, after nearly quitting Valentines Day thanks to an unhealthy relationship with Pinterest, I finally came up with the perfect heartfelt but simple Valentine's Day tradition.

You can read the post in its entirety here, but in case you don't have the time to pop over to MomsEveryday, here's a synopsis:

• Valentine's Day (at least the Pinterest version) has gotten a little out of control.
• At first I felt like a failure because I didn't hand-make all of my VD cards and decorations and/or feed my children exclusively heart-shaped meals.
• Then I moved on and decided to never again tackle any Pinterest projects that might take longer than two hours, cost more than $10, or leave me in tears should failure ensue. (Unless I have my mom's help, of course.)
• This year I came up with a new Valentine's Day tradition called "I Love You Hearts".
• I cut two large hearts out of cardstock, wrote "Will/Hallie, I love you because…" on each one, and hung them on the kids' bedroom doors after they went to sleep on January 31st. Then I completed the sentence - 14 times for Will and 14 times for Hallie - on miniature sticky notes. Every night I've added one new sticky note to their hearts, so that each morning they wake to a new message of love.  
• Thus far this tradition has made our February mornings warm and sweet and oh so worth waking up for, and I highly recommend it.

So there's the background. Moving on to what went down this week.

I wrote in the MomsEveryday post that my secret wish was for Will and Hallie - on their own, as I had no plans to suggest it - to write messages of love to each other.

Imagine my joy, then, when I walked by Hallie's bedroom door on Saturday and saw this:

"weird I Love You (heart) Will"

Granted, it appears that at first Will considered telling Hallie that he loves her because she's weird, but in the end he changed his mind and decided that he loves her because he loves her. Oh, my boy. You're weird. We love you.

And then, imagine my surprise (who am I kidding - I wasn't surprised at all) when I walked by Will's bedroom door on Sunday and saw this:

"I hat you will. I bo not liv wif you."
(I hate you, Will. I do not want to live with you.)

It seems Hallie didn't quite understand the point of the "I Love You Hearts".

I feel it necessary to add that while there's no excuse for her behavior, Hallie had been "wronged" by Will - to the extent that he landed himself in a timeout - immediately prior to the note writing incident. She's been working on addressing her frustrations with Will calmly, without hitting or screaming at him, and to her credit, she did neither in this situation. Shortly after she wrote the note she came to us and "confessed", clearly upset with herself for writing something so mean to her brother. She was also upset with herself for writing in marker, which meant she couldn't fix her spelling errors.

Once both kids apologized, Tom and I retreated to our bedroom, closed the door, and laughed until we cried. The angry faces? The misspelled words? The speech bubble? The Spanish tutorial in the middle of it all? This expression of emotion - fierce and passionate and creative - is just so Hallie. Oh, my girl. You're weird. We love you.

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