Valentine's Day Boxes

Remember how exciting Valentine's parties are in elementary school?!

I loved them! Decorating our boxes, picking out the perfect cards for my friends and for my teacher, eating delicious goodies at school, exchanging Valentine's in our class and  just generally feeling happy!

Valentine's Day falls on a day my stepdaughter is with her mother this year. 

Typically school projects become a "competition" of sorts on her mother's end.  For me, it's black and white. Valentine's falls on your time, you handle it.  It falls on our time, we handle it.  Unless my step-daughter specifically requests differently. 

Some open-ended projects that overlap time is where the "competition" begins. 

As a 1st grader now --having gone through one previous year of school -- you'd think it would be figured out by now. 
What I mean by open-ended are those types where the teacher gives the information and the project is due within a week or so.  Basically overlapping time with our families. 

Mom's answer initially was just for stepdaughter to do two of everything.  Ummm...WHAT?  For example, who wants their kid to have two back-to-school "about me" projects or two Valentine's boxes or two of EVERYTHING, so that the kid feels "different" at school? 

We went through that last year in kindergarten and somewhat in preschool.  THE PROJECTS ARE NOT ABOUT ME! They're about my step-daughter.  But, obviously, the mother disagrees. 

We've (in our house) long since just adopted that when those open-ended projects come up, the mother will do them.  (No, that's not a typo.)  Not step-daughter on mother's time. THE MOTHER WILL DO THEM.

Valentine's Day boxes for her class are due on our time this year, but it fell as one of the open-ended projects I described above. One that crosses times.

I only want to ensure that my stepdaughter has what she needs for school. I don't care where it is done, if SHE'S doing it.  Last night she said on the phone that she was doing it here with us and her mom was doing her Valentine's cards and candy. Even she knows. HA!

We'll see what happens.

Off to locate a shoebox...