I should have taken pics of kids making them. Rory was at first very opposed to valentines. She says she doesn’t want to write them, but since all I was suggesting was that she write her name on a tag (God forbid she address each one, then we would have to find each child’s cubby in the preschool room. Made that mistake once…) and this is a kid who sits and writes her name a hundred times on a single piece of paper, I don’t think that was it.

I think it was a variation on the usual: I don’t want to do what you tell me to do unless I absolutely have to. She has no trouble following a direct order now (and that’s a funny way of describing something like “Empty your lunch box, please”). She’s happy to help me do anything I’ll let her help with. She willingly sort of “fetches” or however you want to put something like “would you bring me the scissors.” In fact, we’re now down to this one area. She loves to draw and write and staple paper together. But she refuses to do it for anyone but me. She will not, even when presented with a lot of tempting stickers and hearts and doilies, make a valentine for Grandma. She will not draw a picture for me to send to a friend or a birthday card for her cousin. No thank you notes. No nothing. Her output is astonishing—I get four or five pictures, books or letters every time she sits down—but not if I WANT HER TO DO IT.

The more I think about this, the more I don’t get it.