The 3 hour Valentine project

Why do things never turn out like you think they should?  Yesterday what could have been a fun, sweet, educational activity was turned into an excruciating 3 hour experience.

Gwendolyn's teacher sent a not home saying she needed to make a valentines bag or box.  So I gathered a gift bag, stickers, scissors, and construction paper and told Gwendolyn she could decorate it however she wanted.  Of course, it didn't look anything like what I would have done.  She took a picture from a coloring book of Strawberry Shortcake and taped it to the front, then put approximately 543 stickers around it.  Then he tried to write her name across Strawberry Shortcake in Sharpie but only got GWEND written and then the marker stopped writing on the crayon.

It was hers and she was proud of it.  It wasn't how I would have decorated it, but that doesn't matter.

We moved on to her filling out the cards to give her friends.  I stacked all the like cards together, got a pencil and the list of her classmates together and went through the process with her.

"Pick out which card you want to give your friend.  Copy your friend's name where it says 'to', write your name where it says from. After you are done, mark out their name on the list, then go on to the next name."

I didn't think it was that complicated of a process, but maybe my expectations were too high?  She had something to say or ask every 30 seconds for the next hour.  "Whose name is next?", "Look at this," "Maggie, no!!!!!!!"

I was giving her plenty of attention and help, but the experience was still not the fun experience I wanted it to be.  I'm never going to get my June Clever badge.